The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 73

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her eyes were the colour of burnt honey with tiny golden highlights in

their depths. At this close range he found them disturbing.

He stood up and suggested, "Why don't we go and take a look?"

Nicholas went to fetch his camera bag and the light day'pack from his

hut, and when he returned he found Royan ready to go. But she was not

alone.

I see that you are bringing your chaperon with you," he remarked with

resignation.

"Unless you are tough enough to send him away." Royan smiled

encouragement at Tamre who stood at her side, grinning and bobbing and

hugging his shoulders in the ecstasy of being in the presence of his

idol.

"Oh, very well." Nicholas gave in without a struggle.

"Let the little devil come along."

Tamre lolloped away up the path ahead of them, his grubby shamma

flapping around his long skinny legs, chanting the repetitive chorus of

an Amharic psalm, and every few minutes looking back to make certain

that Royan was still following him. It was a hard pull up the valley,

and the noonday heat was debilitating. Although Tamre seemed totally

unaffected, the other two were both sweating in dark patches through

their shirts by the time they reached the point where the stream

debauched into the valley. Gratefully, they sought the shade of a patch

of acacia trees, and while they rested Nicholas glassed the side of the

valley through his binoculars.

"How are they after the dunking I gave them?" she asked.

"Waterproof," he grunted, "full marks to Herr Zeiss."

"What do you see up there?"

"Not much. The bush is too thick. We will have to foot'slog up the side.

Sorry."

They left the shade and made their way up the side of the valley in the

direct burning sunlight. The stream tumbled down a series of cascades,

each with a pool at its foot. The bush crowded the banks, lush and green

where the roots had been able to reach the water. Clouds of black and

yellow butterflies danced over the Pools, and a black and white wagtail

patrolled the moss-green rocks along the edge, its long tail gyrating

back and forth like the needle of a metronome.

Halfway up the slope they paused beside one of the pools to rest, and

Nicholas used his hat like a fly-swatter to stun a brown and yellow

grasshopper. He tossed the insect on to the surface of the pool, and as

it kicked weakly and floated towards the exit a long dark shadow rose

from the bottom. There was a swirl and a mirrorlike flash of a scaly

silver belly, and the grasshopper disappeared.

"Ten'pounder,'Nicholas lamented. "Why didn't I bring my rod?"

Tamre was crouched near Nicholas on the pool bank, and suddenly he

lifted his hand and held it out. Almost at once one of the circling

butterflies settled upon his finger.

It perched there with its velvety black and yellow wings fanning gently.

They stared at him in astonishment, for it was as though the insect had

come to his bidding. Tamre giggled and offered the butterfly to Royan.

When she held out her hand, he gently transferred the gorgeous insect to

her palm.

"Thank you, Tamre. That is a wonderful gift. Now my gift to you is to

set it free again." She pursed her lips and blew it softly into flight.

They watched the butterfly climb high above the pool, and Tamre clapped

his hands and laughed with delight.

"Strange," Nicholas murmured. "He seems to have a special empathy with

all the creatures of the wilderness. I think that Jali Hora, the abbot,

does not try to control him, but lets him do very much as his simple

fancy dictates.

Special treatment for a fey soul, one that hears a different tune and

dances to it. I must admit that, despite myself, I am becoming quite

fond of the lad."

It was only another fifty feet higher that they came to the source.

There was a low cliff of red sandstone, from a grotto at whose foot the

stream gushed. The entrance was screened by a heavy growth of ferns, and

Nicholas went down on his knees to pull them aside and peer into the low

opening.

"What can you see?" Royan demanded behind him.

"Not much. It's dark in there, but it seems to go in for quite some

way."

"You are too big to get in there. You had better let me go in."

"Good place for water cobra," he remarked. "Lots of frogs for them to

eat. Are you sure you want to go?"

"I never said that I wanted to." She sat on the bank while she unlaced

her shoes, then lowered herself into the stream. It came halfway up her

thighs, and she waded forward against the flow with difficulty.

She was forced to bend almost double to creep under the overhanging roof

of the grotto. As she moved deeper in, her voice came back to him.

"The roof gets lower."

"Be careful, dear girl. Don't take any chances."

"I do wish you wouldn't call me "dear girl"." Her voice resonated

strangely from the cave entrance.

"Well, you are both those things, a girl and dear. How about if I call

you "young lady?

"Not that either. My name is Royan."There was silence for a while, then

she called again. "This is as far as I can go. It all narrows down into

a shaft of some sort."

"A shaft?" he demanded.

"Well, at least a roughly rectangular opening."

"Do you think it is the work of humans?"

"Impossible to tell. The water is coming out of it like the spout of a

bath tap. A solid jet."

"No evidence of any excavation? No marks of tools on the rock?"

"Nothing. It's slick and water-worn, covered with moss and algae."

"Could a man get into the opening, I mean if it were not for the water

pressure?"

"If he was a pygmy or a dwarf."

"Or a childT he suggested.

"Or a child," she agreed. "But who would send a child in there?"

"The ancients often used child-slaves. Taita might have done the same."

"Don't suggest it. You are destroying my high opinion of Taita," she

told him as she backed out of the entrance of the grotto. There were

pieces of fern and moss in her hair, and she was soaked from the waist

downwards. He gave her a hand and boosted her back on to the bank. The

curve of her bottom was clearly visible through her wet trousers. He

forced himself not to dwell upon the view.

"So we have to conclude that the shaft is a natural flaw in the

limestone, and not a man-made tunnel?"

"I didn't say that. No. I said that I couldn't be sure.

You might be correct. Children might have been used to dig it. After

all, they were used in the coalmines during the industrial revolution."

"But there is no way that we would be able to explore the tunnel from

this end?"

"Impossible." She was vehement. "The water is pouring out under enormous

pressure. I tried to push my arrn up the shaft, but I did not have the

strength."

"Pity! I was hoping for some more irrefutable evidence, or at least

another lead." He sat down beside her on the bank, and ferreted in his

pack. She looked at him quizzically when he brought out a small black

anodized instrument and opened the lid.

"Aneroid barometer," he explained. "Every good navigator should have

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