The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 148

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half in admiration. "It looks like a mixture of manure and grass and

dead leaves, the same as a compost heap."

They crossed the chamber, turned one of the pottery jars on its side,

and studied the powder that spilled out of it. Nicholas took up a

handful and rubbed it between his fingers, then sniffed it warily.

"Crushed limestone!" he muttered. "Although it has of acid. Vinegar,

perhaps, or even Isoonakgedagitowdirtihedsoomuetfoarnmd lost any odour,

Taita probably urine would have done the trick. As it broke down the

limestone, it formed carbon dioxide."

"So it was another deliberate trap," Royan exclaimed.

"Even so many thousands of years ago, Taita must have understood the

processes of decay. He knew what gases those mixtures would produce.

Amongst all the other accomplishments he boasts of, he must also have

been a nifty chemist."

Furthermore, he must have known that without a draught or any movement

of air, these heavy inert gases amber indefiould hang here in the bottom

of the ch  agreed. "I expect that this shaft is designed like nitely,"

she

' she pointed a ,trap. I bet that the passage rises again at the

mysterious doorway in the far wall, "in fact I can see the first steps

even from here."

"We will soon find out if you are right," he told her, because that's

exactly where we are heading right now up those stePS."

apper had placed caims of stones at the water's edge to monitor the

river level. He watched es his ticker them the way a stockbroker watch

tape.

It had been six hours since the last rain squall had passed. The clouds

over the valley had burned away in the Ithough they still hung densely

over hot, bright sunlight, a the northern horizon. Their great

dun'coloured thunderheads reared to the heavens, menacing and ominous,

fonning their own mighty ranges that dwarfed the mountains beneath them.

At any time the downpour might ed, begin up there in the highlands. Once

that happen Sapper wondered how long it would take the flood waters to

reach them here in the Abbay gorge.

He dismounted stiffly from the tractor, and went down the bank to

inspect his stone markers. The water level had fallen almost a foot in

the past hour. He forced himself not to let his optimism bubble over -

after all, it had taken only fifteen minutes for the river to -rise the

same amount.

would come.

The final outcome was inevitable. The rains rst. He looked The river

would spate. The dam would bu at the dam wall, and shook his head with

fill downstream resignation.

He had done as much as possible to delay that moment. He had raised the

level of the dam wall almost four feet, and packed in another buttress

behind the wall to strengthen it. There was nothing further for him to

do, and he could only wait.

Climbing up the bank, he leaned wearily against the yellow steel of his

machine and looked across at his team of Buffaloes, strewn along the

bank like casualties on a battlefield. They had worked for two days to

hold back the waters, and now they were exhausted. He knew that he could

not call on them for another effort; the next time the river attacked,

it would overwhelm them.

He saw some of the men stir and sit up, and their faces turned upstream.

He heard their voices faint on the wind.

Something was exciting their interest. He climbed up on to the tractor

and shaded his eyes, The unmistakable figure of Mek Nimmur was coming

down the trail from the direction of the escarpment, stocky and powerful

in his camo fatigues, his gait determined. He was accompanied by two of

his company commanders.

Mek hailed Sapper from a distance. "How is your dam holding?" he called

in Arabic, which Sapper did not understand. "Soon it will rain on the

mountains, You won't be able to hold out here much longer." But his

gestures towards sky and river were immediately intelligible to Sapper.

Sapper jumped down from the machine to gr,6et him, and they shook hands

cordially. They had recognized in each other the qualities of strength

and professionalism that they both admired.

Mek seized his company commander, who spoke English, by the arm, and the

man fell into his by now familiar role of interpreter.

"It is not only the weather that troubles me," Mek confided in a low

voice, and the interpreter relayed the information to Sapper. "I have

reports that the governMent troops are moving into position to attack

us. My intelligence is that they have a full battalion moving down this

way from Debra Maryam, and another force low the monastery at St.

Frumentius, moving up the be Abbay river."

"Pincer movement, heyT said Sapper.

Mek listened to the translation and nodded gravely. "I am heavily

outnumbered and I don't know how long I will they attack. My men are be

able to hold them when gueff illas. It is not our role to fight

set-piece battles. It is the war of the flea for us. Hit and run. I came

to warn You at short notice."

to be ready to Pull out Sapper grunted.  , "Don't worry too much about

am a sprinter. Hundred yards dash is my speciality. It's Nicholas and

ROYan you should be thinking of, them in that ruddy rabbit warren of

theirs."

but I wanted to arrange

"I am on my way to them now a fall'back position. if we get cut off from

each other in the the monastery.

fighting, Nicholas has cached the boats at That is where we will

assemble."

okay Mek---2 Sapper stopped speaking and all three I  the trail, where

there was a fresh of them looked  bank. "What's disturbance amongst the

men along the going on?"

Mek one of my patrols coming in narrowed his eyes.

"Mere must be some new development." He stopped not understand speaking

as he realized that Sapper could him, and then his expression changed as

he recognized the small, slim figure that was being carried on a rough

litter by thing-_ men of his patrol.

towards, her and sat up weakly Tessay saw him running her to the ground

and Mek on the litter. The men lowered the litter and placed both went

down on his knees beside They held each other in silence for a his arms

airoun(:

her face in his Mek gently cupped long moment. Then   features.

hands and examined her swollen and arre Some of the burns had become

infected, and her eyes were slits beneath the bloated lids.

"Who did this to you?"he asked softly.

She mumbled incoherently through her black-scabbed lips. They made me

No! Don't try to talk." He changed his mind as her lower lip cracked

open and a droplet of fresh blood welled up and glistened like a ruby on

her skin.

"I have to tell you," she insisted in a broken whisper.

"They made me tell them everything. The numbers of your men. What you

and Nicholas are doing here. Everything. I am sorry, Mek. I betrayed

you."

"Who was it? Who did this to you?"

"Nogo and the American, Helm,' she said, and although he embraced her as

gently as a father with his infant in his arms, his eyes were terrible.

/4P- -I he lowed  chamber of the tunnel was cleared of gas at last.

Hansith's fire burned bright and steady in the middle of the floor, the

rising hot air wafting away the noxious vapours and dispersing them

through the upper levels of the maze, where they mingled with

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