The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 159

sprawled. It was brimming, a great swirling maelstrom, and the water

pouring into it was being sucked away through the hidden outlet almost

as fast as it entered from the tunnel mouth on the far side. The pontoon

bridge was tangled and half, submerged, bobbing and canting and rearing

as it fought its retaining cables like an unbroken horse on a tether.

From Taita's pool'a roaring river of water was boring down the far

branch of the tunnel across the sink-hole.

The tunnel was flooding rapidly, the water already reaching halfway up

the walls, but he knew that it was the only escape route from the tomb.

Every moment he delayed, the flood became stronger.

"I have to get out through there." He pushed himself to his feet again.

He reached the first pontoon of the bridge, but it was careering about

so madly that he dared not attempt to remain upright upon it. He dropped

to his hands and knees, crawled out on to the flimsy structure and

managed to drag himself forward from one pontoon to the next, "Please

God and St. Michael help me. Don't let me die like this," he prayed

aloud. He reached the far side of the sink'hole and groped for a

handhold on the roughly hewn walls of the tunnel.

He found a hold with his fingertips and pulled himself into the mouth of

the tunnel, but now the full force of the water pouring down the shaft

struck his lower body. He hung there for a moment, pinned by the raging

waters, unable to move a pace forward. He knew that if his grip failed

he would be swept back into the sink-hole and sucked down into those

terrible black depths.

The electric bulbs strung along the roof of the tunnel ahead of him

still burned brightly, so that he could see almost to the open basin of

Taita's pool where the bamboo -scaffolding would offer escape to the top

of the chasm. It was only two hundred feet ahead of him. He gathered all

his strength and pulled himself forward against the raging waters,

reaching forward from one precarious handhold to

the next. His fingernails tore and the flesh smeared from the tips of

his fingers on the jagged rock, but he forced his way onwards.

At last he could see daylight ahead of him, filtering from Taita's pool.

Only another forty feet to go, and he realized with a surge of relief

and joy that he was going to make it out of the deadly trap of the

shaft. Then he heard a fresh sound, a harsher, more brutal roar as the

full flood of the burst dam poured down the waterfall into Taita's pool.

It found the entrance to the tunnel and came down it in a solid wave,

filling the passageway to the roof, ripping out the wiring of the lights

and plunging Hansith into darkness.

It struck him with such force that it seemed to be not mere water but

the solid rock of an avalanche, and he could not resist it. It tore him

from his insecure perch and plucked him away, tossing him backwards,

spinning him down the length of the shaft that he had gained with so

much effort, and hurling him into the sink-hole beyond.

He was swirled end over end by the crazed waters. In the darkness and

wild confusion he did not know which direction was up and which down,

but it made no difference for he could not swim against its power, Then

the sink'hole seized him full in its grip and sucked him swiftly and

deeply down. The pressure of the water began to crush him. One of his

eardrums burst, and as he opened his mouth to scream at the agony of it

the water spurted down his throat and flooded his lungs. The last thing

he ever felt was when he was flung against the side wall of the

sink-hole, travelling as fast as the falling waters, and the bones of

his right shoulder shattered. He could not scream again through his

sodden lungs, but soon the pain faded into oblivion.

As his corpse was drawn swiftly through the subterranean shaft it became

mangled and "dismembered on the jagged rock sides, and was no longer

recognizable as human.

17"

by the time it was discharged through the butterfly fountain on the far

side' of the mountain. From there the torn fragments were washed down

the diverted Dandera river to join, at last, the wider and more stately

waters of the Blue Nile.

he waters pouring through the gap in the dam i wall picked up the yellow

front-loader and tumbled it over the waterfall into the chasm as though

it were a child's toy. Nicholas had a glimpse of it in the air below

him. Even as he fell himself, he realized that if he had stayed with the

machine he would have been crushed beneath it. The huge machine struck

the surface of the pool in a fountain of white spray and disappeared,

Nicholas followed it down, falling free, even managing J11 to keep his

head uppermost, feet foremost, as he swooped I down the waterfall. The

flood that carried him cushioned his fall, so that instead of being

dashed against the exposed boulders at the bottom, he bounced and

tumbled in the racing torrent. He came to the surface fifty yards

downstream, tossed his wet hair out of his eyes and glanced around him

quickly.

The tractor was gone, swallowed deep into the pool at the foot of the

waterfall, but ahead of him was a small island of rock in the middle of

the river. With a dozen overarm strokes -he swam to it and clung to a

rocky spur.

>From there he looked up at the sheer walls of the chasm an  remembered

the last time he had been trapped down here. The  ation "ie a felt at

the destruction of the dam and the flooding of Pharaoh's tomb

evaporated.

He knew that he would not be able to climb those slick, water-smoothed

cliffs that offered no handholds and which belled outwards in an

overhang over his head.

Instead he weighed the chances of working his way back upstream to the

foot of the falls. From here it looked as though there was some sort of

funnel or crevice up the east side of the chute which might offer a

ladderway to the top, but it would be a hard and dangerous climb.

The volume of water coming over the falls was not as heavy as he had

expected, considering the vast body of water that was being held back by

the dam. He realized then that the greater part of the wall of gabions

must still be in place and that this torrent was only the result of

water escaping through the narrow gap he had torn in the centre of the

wall. The remainin gabions must still be 9 holding in place under their

own weight. However, he realized that they could not hold much longer

and that the river must soon plough them aside and burst through in full

force. So he abandoned the idea of swimming back to the foot of the

falls.

"Have to get out of its way," he thought desperately, as he imagined

being caught up in the terrible flood which would certainly come down at

any moment. "If I can reach the side somewhere, perhaps find a ledge,

climb above the flood." But he knew it was a forlorn hope. He had swum

the length of the canyon once before without finding a handhold on the

slick walls.

"Swim ahead of it?" he thought. "A slim chance, but the only one I

have." He kicked off his boots, and gathered himself. He was about to

push off from his temporary refuge, when he heard the rest of the dam

wall high above him give way.

There was a rumbling roar, the crackle of logs snapping and breaking,

the grating and grinding of heavy gabions being -thrown around like