The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 140
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them, so that they were able to watch the shape of the doorway as it was
fully revealed. It proved to be a dark rectangle, of the same dimensions
as the tunnel leading up from the sink-hole, three metres wide by two
high. The lintel and the door jambs were of beautifully cut and dressed
stone, and when Nicholas shone his lamp into the opening he saw a flight
of stone steps rising before him.
They moved the cables and the lights into the gallery and arranged them
at the entrance to this new doorway, but when Nicholas set foot on the
first step he found Royan at his side.
"I am coming with you, she told him firmly.
"It's probably booby-trapped," he warned her. "Taita is lying in wait
for you around the first bend."
"Don't try that. It just won't work, mister! I am coming."
They went slowly up the steep steps, pausing on each one to survey the
walls and the way ahead. Twenty steps from the bottom they reached
another landing. A pair of doorways led off it, one on either side.
However, the staircase continued climbing directly ahead of them.
Which way?"Nicholas asked.
"Keep going up," Royan urged him. "We can explore these side passages
later."
Cautiously, they continued climbing. After twenty more steps they came
out on an identical landing, with a doorway on each side and the
stairway in front of them.
"Keep going up," Royan ordered, without waiting for him to answer,
Twenty more steps and there was another landing with the familiar
openings on either side and the stairway straight ahead.
"This isn't making sense," Nicholas protested, but she prodded him in we
should keep going on upwards," she told him, and he did not protest
further. They passed another landing and then yet another, each of them
the exact image of those that they had passed lower down.
"At last!" Nicholas exclaimed when they came out at ay on each the top
of the staircase,,with the expected door.
"This is as far side but now a blank wall in front of them. as it goes."
she asked. "How man
"How many landings are there? altogetherr
"Eight he answered.
"Eight," she agreed. "Isn't that a familiar number
nowr lamplight. "You He turned to stare down at her in the mean-'
"I mean the eight shrines in the long gallery, these the bao board."
eight landings, and the eight cups of They stood silent and undecided on
the top landing looked about them.
an Okay," he said at last, "if you are so damned clever, tell me which
way to go now."
she recited. "Let's try the
"Eeny'meeny-miny-moe,'
t'hand doorway." righ and passage only a short They followed ri t
distance before they were confronted by a Tjunction - a blank wall with
identical twin passageways on each side.
"Take the right one again," she counselled, and they followed- it. But
when they came to the next T junction Nicholas stopped and faced her.
"You know what is happening here, don't your he demanded. "This is
another one of Taita's tricks. He has led us into a maze. If it were not
for the cable, we would be lost already."
With a bemused expression she looked back the way they had come, and
then down the unexplored passages to their right and left.
"When he built this, Taita could not have anticipated the age of
electricity. He expected any grave robber to be -quipped the same way he
was. Imagine being caught in here without the electric cable to follow
back the way we have come," Nicholas said softly. "Imagine having only
an oil lamp for light. Imagine what would happen to you when the oil
burnt out and you were lost in here in the utter darkness."
Royan shivered and gripped his arm.
whispered. "It's scaring!" she "Taita is beginning to play rough,'
Nicholas said softly.
"I was developing rather a soft spot for the old boy. But now I am
beginning to change my mind."
She shuddered again. "Let's go back," she whispered, "We should never
have rushed in here like this. We must go back and work it out
carefully. We are unprepared. I have the feeling that we are in danger -
I mean real danger, the same as we were in the long gallery."
As they started back through the twists and turns, picking up the
electric cable as they retreated down the stone passageways, the
temptation to break into a run became stronger with each step. Royan
hung tightly to Nicholas's arm. It seemed to both of them that some
intelligent and malignant presence lurked behind them in the darkness,
following them, watching them. and biding its time.
The army truck carrying Tessay drove back through the village of Debra
Maryam, and then turned off on to the track that followed the Dandera
river downstream towards the escarpment of the Abbay gorge.
"This is not the way to army headquarters, Tessay told Lieutenant
Hammed, and he shifted awkwardly on the seat beside her.
"Colonel Nogo is not at his headquarters. I have orders to take you to
another location."
"There is only one other place in this direction," she said. "The base
camp of the foreign prospecting company, Pegasus."
"Colonel Nogo is using that as a forward base in his campaign against
the shufta in the valley," he explained. "I have orders to take you to
him there."
Neither of them spoke again during the long, bumpy ride over the rough
track. It was almost noon when at last they reached the edge of the
escarpment and turned off on to the fork that brought them at last to
the Pegasus campThe camouflage'clad guards at the gate saluted when they
arrived. The truck drove through the gates, recognized and parked in
front of one of the long Quonset huts within the compound.
"Please wait here." Hammed got down and went into the hut, but was gone
for only a few minutes.
"Please come with me, Lady Sun." He looked "awkward and embarrassed, and
could not meet her eyes as he helped her down from the cab. He led her
to the door of the hut, and stood aside to let her enter first.
She looked around the sparsely furnished room, and realized that it must
be the company's administration centre. A conference table ran almost
the full length of the room, and there were filing cabinets and two
desks set against the side walls. A map of the area and a few technical
charts were the only decorations on the bare walls. Two men sat at the
table, and she recognized both of them immediately.
Colonel Nogo looked up at her, and his eyes were cold behind his
metal-framed spectacles. As always, his long, thin body was immaculately
uniformed; but his head was bare. His maroon beret lay on the table in
front of him.
Jake Helm leaned back in his chair with his arms folded.
At first glance his short-cropped hair made him look like a boy. Only
when she looked closer did she see how his skin was weathered, and
notice the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes. He wore an
open-necked shirt and blue jeans that were bleached almost white. His
belt buckle was of ornate Indian silver, the shape of a wild mustang's
head.
The sleeves of his cotton shirt were rolled high around his lumpy
biceps. He chewed upon the dead butt of a cheap Dutch cheroot, and the
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