The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 122

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that which was filtering through the gaps and chinks in the dam wall

upstream and the last drainage from the sandbanks and the pools higher

up the gorge.

The level of the great Pool under him had fallen drastically. He could.

make out the highwater level by the wet markings on the rock cliff.

Fifty feet of the wall that had previously been submerged was now

exposed. Another eight pairs of chiselled niches were visible in the

face Where once he had been forced to swim down to them, they were now

high and dry.

However, the pool was not completely drained. It was dished below the

level of the downstream outlet, so that it was unable to empty itself by

gravitational flow. There was still a puddle of black water trapped in

the centre, with a narrow ledge surrounding it. Nicholas landed on this

ledge and stepped out of the bosun's chair. It was strange to stand on

firm rock down here where last he had struggled for his life and very

nearly been sucked under and drowned.

He looked up to where beams of sunlight penetrated the upper levels of

the chasm. It was like being in the bottom of a mineshaft, and he

shuddered at the feel of the clammy air on his bare arms and the eerie

sensation in the pit of his stomach. He tugged on the line to send the

rope chair back to the surface, and then edged his way along the

slippery rock ledge towards the cliff face where the rows of dark niches

stood out clearly against the lighter stone.

Now he could make out the shape of the opening in the wall that had so

nearly sucked him down into its dark and slimy throat. It was almost

completely submerged in a deeper corner where the pool flowed back

against the cliff.

All that was visible above the surface was the top arch of an irregular

entrance at the foot of the descending rows of niches. The rest of it

was still submerged.

The ledge narrowed as he worked his way along the foot of the cliff

until he had his back to the rock and was moving sideways with his toes

in the water. Eventually he could go no further without actually

stepping down into the water. He had no way of judging the depth of the

waters, which were turbid and uninviting.

Still trying to keep his feet dry, he squatted down on the narrow ledge

and leaned out so far that his balance as threatened. He steadied

himself with one hand against the wall, and with the other reached out

towards the partially submerged opening.

The lip of the hole was smooth, as he had remembered it, and once again

it seemed to him that it was too square and straight to be anything

other than man-made. As he rolled up his sleeve he noticed that his

injured thumb was still bleeding, but he ignored it and thrust his arm

down below the surface of the pool. He groped downwards, trying to trace

the sill of the opening, He felt what seemed to be blocks of roughly

dressed masonry, and reached down further until the water reached

halfway up his biceps.

Suddenly some living creature, swift and weighty, swirled in the dark

waters right in front of his face, and as an immediate reflex he jerked

his arm out of the water.

The thing followed his arm up to the surface, slashing at his bare flesh

with long, needle'sharp fangs, and he had a glimpse of a head as evil

and villainous as that of a barracuda' He realized instinctively that it

must have been attracted by the smell of the blood from his injured

thumb.

He leaped to his feet and teetered on the narrow ledge, clutching his

arm. Only one of the creature's frontal fangs had touched him, but it

had opened the skin like a razor cut, a long shallow wound across the

back of his right hand from which fresh blood dribbled and splattered

into the pool at his feet.

Instantly the black waters seemed to come alive, roiling and seething

with frenzied writhing aquatic shapes.

Nicholas, his back flattened against the rock wall, stared down at them

with loathing and horror. He could vaguely make out the shape of them,

sinuous and ribbonlike, some of them as thick as his calf, black and

gleaming.

One of them thrust its head out on to the ledge and snapped its jaws.

Its eyes were huge and glistening and its snout was elongated, the long

jaws lined with fangs that overlapped its thin lips. The body behind the

head was six feet long, and lashed like a whip as it drove itself high

up on to the ledge, reaching out for Nicholas's bare legs. He shouted

with revulsion and leaped back, stumbling and splashing on to safer

footing. Clutching his bleeding hand, stare aC Ae evi . aead had

disappeared, but the surface of the pool was still agitated by the lithe

ophidian shapes.

"Eels!the realized. "Giant tropical eels."

Of course the blood had excited them. The fall in the water-level had

trapped them in the pool, congregated them in such numbers that they had

probably already devoured the fish that they depended upon for food. Now

they were ravenous. Probably all the pools of water that remained in the

abyss were infested with these fearsome creatures. He was thankful that

during his last swim in this pool he had not bled into the water.

He unwound the cotton kerchief from his neck and wrapped it round his

wounded hand. The eels were a deadly threat to any attempt to explore

the opening in the cliff.

A, il " the pool of 1V But already he was considering ways of ridding

them and of gaining access to the underwater opening.

Slowly the frenzy in the pool quietened and its surface grew still

again, Nicholas looked up to see the bosun's chair descending, with

Royan's slim, shapely legs dangling below the wooden seat.

"What have you found?" she called down to him excitedly. "Is there a

tunnel-' then she broke off suddenly as she saw the blood on his

clothing, and the bandage wathing his hand.

"Oh dear God," she exclaimed. "What have you done?

You are hurt. How badly?" Her feet touched the ledge beside him and she

slid from the chair and took his injured hand gently. "What have you

done to yourself?"

"It's not as bad as it looks, he assured her. "Lots of blood but not

deep."

"How did you do it?" she insisted.

For an answer he tore a corner off the bloodstained kerchief. "Watch!"

he instructed her, wadding it into a ball and tossing it out into the

pool.

Royan screamed with horror as the waters boiled with the long fleeting

shapes. One of them wriggled half its monstrous length out on to the

ledge, before flopping back.

It left a shining trail of silver slime across the black stones.

"Taita has left his guard dogs to see us A' Nicholas remarked. "We are

going to have to take care of those beauties before we can explore the

entrance below the surface."

/4P- -I he bamboo scaffolding that Sapper and Nicholas had built down

the cliff was L*, - anchored in the niches that had been cut into the

rock nearly four thousand years before. Taita had probably lashed his

framework together with bark rope, but Sapper had used heavy-gauge

galvanized wire, and the structure was strong enough to bear the weight

of many men. The Buffaloes formed a living chain and passed all the

material and equipment down the scaffolding from hand to hand.

The very first piece of equipment to reach the floor Of the cavern was

the portable Honda EM500 generator.

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