Текст книги "The Seventh Scroll"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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a.military operation. Our spy tells us that he even has an earth, moving

machine, some sort of tractor, which he has brought in."

Von Schiller looked across the table at Jake Helm for confirmation, and

Helm nodded. "Yes, Herr von Schiller.

That is true. Harper must have spent a large amount of money. The air

charter alone could have cost him fifty grand."

Von Schiller felt the first stirrings of real passion since the "Urgent

satellite message had summoned him from Frankfurt. He had flown directly

to Addis Ababa, where the jet Ranger had been waiting to carry him to

the Pegasus base camp on the escarpment above the Abbay gorge.

If this was true, and he did not doubt Helm's word, then Harper was on

to something of enormous importance.

He looked out of the window of the Quonset hut to where flowed down the

valley below the base camp.

the Dandera It was a large river. To dam that volume of water would be

an expensive and difficult project in this remote and primitive

situation – not a project to be taken on lightly without the prospect of

substantial reward.

He felt a reluctant admiration for the Englishman's achievement. "Show

me where he has placed his dam!" he ordered, and Helm came around the

table to stand beside him. Von Schiller was standing on his block, and

their eyes were on the same level.

Helm bent over the satellite photograph and carefully marked in the site

of the dam. They both studied it for a minute, and then von Schiller

asked, "What do you make of it, Helm?"

Helm shook his head, hunching it down on his bulllike shoulders. "I can

only guess."

"Guess then," said von Schiller, but still Helm all, hesitated.

"Go on!'

"Either he wants to move the water to another area downstream, to use it

for washing out a deposit, gold nuggets or artefacts made of precious

metals, perhaps even site of the to use it for hosing the overburden off

the tomb,$

"Highly unlikely!" von Schiller interjected. "That would be an

inefficient and expensive manner of excavation."

"I agree that it is far-fetched." Nahoot obsequiously followed von

Schiller's lead, but no one even looked at him.

"What is your other supposition?" Von Schiller glared at Helm.

"The only other reason for damming the river, that I can think of, would

be to reach something that has been covered by the water. Something

lying in the bed of the river."

"That is more logical," von Schiller mused, and turned his attention

back to the photograph. "What is there below this dam site?"

"The river enters a deep and narrow ravine here." Helm pointed at the

spot. "Just below his dam. The ravine stretches about eight miles, down

to this point, just above the monastery. I have flown over it in the

helicopter, and it seems to be impassable, and yet-' he broke off, "Yes,

go on! And yet – what?"

"On one flight over the area, we found Harper and the woman on the high

ground above the ravine. They were at this spot here." He touched the

photograph, and von Schiller leaned forward to peer at it.

"What were they doing there?" he demanded, without looking up.

"Nothing. They were merely sitting on the top of the cliff above the

ravine."

"But they were aware of your presence?"

"Of course. We were in the helicopter. They heard our approach. They

were watching us, and Harper even waved."

And so they would have ceased whatever activity they were engaged in

when they became aware of your approach?"

Von Schiller was silent for so long that they began to fidget

uncomfortably and exchange glances. When he spoke it was so unexpected

that Nahoot started.

"Harper obviously has reason to believe that the tomb lies in the gorge

below the dam. When and how do you make contact with your spy that you

have in Harper's camp?"

"Harper is receiving some of his supplies from the villages here on the

escarpment. The women are driving down slaughter cattle to feed his men,

and carrying down pots of tej. Out man sends back his reports with the

women when they return."

"Very well. Very well!" Von Schiller waved him to silence. "I don't need

to know his life history. All I want to know is if Harper is working in

the ravine below his dam.

How soon can you find this out?"

"By the day after tomorrow at the latest," Helm promised him.

Von Schiller turned to Colonel Nogo at the far end Of the conference

table. So far he had not spoken, but had watched and listened quietly to

the others.

"How many men have you deployed in this area?" von Schiller asked.

"Three full companies, over three hundred men. All well trained. Many

are battle-hardened veterans."

"Where are they? Show me on the map."

The colonel came to stand beside him. "One company here, another

billeted at the village of Debra Maryam, and the third company at the

foot of the escarpment, ready to move forward and attack Harper's camp."

"I think you should attack them now. Wipe them out, before they can

uncover the tomb-' Nahoot came in again.

"Shut your mouth," von Schiller snapped' without looking up at Nahoot.

"I will ask for your opinion when I need it."

He considered the map for a while longer, then asked Nogo, "How many men

has this guerrilla commander, what is his name, the one who has allied

himself to Harper?"

"Mek Nimmur is no a guerrilla. He is a bandit, and notorious shufta

terrorist," Nogo corrected him hotly.

"One man's freedom fighter is the next man's terrorist," von Schiller

remarked drily. "How many men has he under his command?"

"Not many. Fewer than a hundred, perhaps no more than fifty. He has them

all guarding Harper's camp, and the dam."

Von Schiller nodded to himself, plucking at the lobe of his ear. "How

did Harper and his gang return to Ethiopia?" he mused. "I know he flew

from Malta, but it is not possible that the aircraft could have landed

down there in the gorge."

He hopped down off his block and strutted to the window of the hut

through which he had a panoramic view spread below him. He stared down

into the depths of the gorge, a vista of cliffs and broken hilltops and

wild tablelands, smoked blue with distance.

"How did they get in without being discovered by the authorities? Did he

parachute in, the same way as he dropped his supplies?"

"No, said Nogo. "My informer tells us that he marched in with Mek

Nimmut, some days before the supplies were dropped to him."

"So from where did he march?" von Schiller pondered.

"Where is the nearest airfield where a heavy aircraft could land?"

"If he came in with Mek Nimmur, then they almost certainly came in from

the Sudan. That is where Nimmur operates from. There are many old

abandoned airfields near the border. The war," Nogo shrugged

expressively, "the armies are always on the move, that war has been

going on for twenty years."

"From the Sudan?" Von Schiller picked out the border on the map. "So

they must have trekked in along the river."

"Almost certainly,'Nogo agreed.

"Then just as certainly Harper plans to escape the same way. I want you

to move the company of men that you have at Debra Maryam and deploy them

here and here. On both banks of the river, below the monastery. They

must be in a position to prevent Harper reaching the Sudanese  border,

if he should try to make a run for it."

"Yes. Good! I understand. That is good tactics," Nogo nodded gloatingly,

his eyes bright behind the tenses of his spectacles.

"Then I want your remaining men moved down to the foot of the

escarpment. Tell them to avoid contact with Mek Nimmur's men, but to be

in a position to move forward very quickly and seize the dam area, and

to block off the ravine below the dam as soon as I give you the word."

When will that be?"Nogo asked.

"We will continue to watch him carefully. If he makes a discovery, he

will start moving the artefacts out. Many of them will be too large to

conceal. Your informer will know about it. That is when we will move in

on him."

"You should move in now, Herr von Schiller," Nahoot advised him, "before

he gets a chance to open the tomb."

"Don't be an idiot," von Schiller snarled at him. "If we strike too

soon, we might never discover what he obviously has learned about the

whereabouts of the tomb."

"We could force him-'

"If I have learned anything in my life, it is that you. cannot force a

man like Harper. There is a certain type of Englishman – I remember

during the last war with them' He broke off and frowned. "No. They are

very' difficult people. We must not rush it now. When Harper makes a

discovery in the ravine, that will be the time to pounce."

The frown faded and he smiled a small, cold smile. "The waiting game. In

the meantime, we play the waiting game."

The debris that filled the shaft was not so tightly packed that it

completely blocked the flow of water through it. If it had done so,

Nicholas would never have been sucked in by the current, as he had been

on his first dive into the pool. There were still gaps in the blockage

where the larger boulders had lodged or where a treetrunk en sucked in.

and jammed sideways across the width of the tunnel. Through these

sections the water had found the weak spots and kept them open.

Nevertheless, the debris had taken centuries to wedge itself in, and it

required back-breaking effort to prise it apart. The clearing operation

was further hampered by the lack of working space in the shaft. Only

three or four of the big men from the Buffaloes were able to work in the

shaft at -any one time. The rest of the team were employed in passing

back the rubble as it was levered out.

Nicholas changed the shifts every hour. They had more labour than they

needed, and changing them often meant that the men at the face were

always rested and strong, and eager to earn the bonus of silver dollars

that Nicholas promised them for their progress along the shaft.

At each change of shift, Nicholas disappeared into the mouth of the

tunnel with Sapper's steel tape and measured the advance.

"One hundred and twenty feet! Well done, the Buffaloes," he told Hansith

Sherif, the foreman monk, and then watched the water tric ing past is

feet. The floor of the tunnel was still sloping downwards at a constant

angle. He looked back along it towards the pool, and now in the

floodlights the rectangular shape of the walls was very clear to see. It

was obvious that the tunnel had been designed and surveyed by an

engineer.

He transferred his attention back to the floor of the tunnel and watched

the run of water, trying to judge how deep they were below the original

river level.

"Eighty or ninety feet," he estimated. "No wonder the pressure in the

mouth of the tunnel almost crushed me-' he broke off as an unusually

shaped fragment in the muck at his feet caught his eye. He stooped and

picked it up.

Then took it to one of the floodlamps and by its light examined it

closely. As he rubbed it clean between finger and thumb, he began to

grin.

Sloshing back along the tunnel, he yelled, "Royan!" Triumphantly

brandishing the fragment, he demanded, "What do you make of that, then?"

She was sitting on the wall.of the coffer, and reached down and snatched

the object out of his grasp.

I "Oh, sweet Mary! Where did you find this, Nicky?"

"Lying in the mud. Right there in the adit, where it's been for the last

four thousand years. Where one of Taita's workmen dropped and broke it,

probably while he was sneaking a sup of wine behind the slave driver's

back."

Eagerly Royan held the broken shard of pottery up to the lamplight. "You

are right, Nicky," she exclaimed. "It's part of a wine vessel. Look at

the flared neck and belled lip. But if there was any doubt, which there

isn't, the black firing around the rim dates it perfectly in our period.

No older than 2000 BC."

Still clutching the fragment of broken pottery, she jumped down into the

mud and slush of the coffer and flung both arms around his neck.

"Further proof, Nicky. We are on Taita's tracks. Can't you get them to

clear any faster? We are breathing down the back of the old rogue's

neck."

Halfway through the next shift an excited yelling echoed out of the

mouth of the tunnel, and Nicholas hurried back down to the face.

"What is it, Hansith?" he demanded in Arabic of the foreman monk. "What

are you shouting about?

"We have broken through, effendi." Hansith Sherif grinned at him, his

teeth gleaming in his black and mudsmeared face. Nicholas eagerly pushed

his way through the workmen. They had levered a huge round boulder out

of the pack, and beyond it lay an opening. He shone his electric torch

through this window in the wall, but could make out very little

except-empty black space.

Stepping back, he slapped the monk on the back.

"Well done, Hansith. A dollar bonus for every man in the team. But keep

them working! Clear away all this rubbish." But it was not as easily

done as he had ordered. The shifts changed twice more before the shaft

was cleared completely of the last of the extraneous rubble and broken

rock. Only then could Nicholas and Royan stand in the threshold of the

cavern beyond the tunnel.

"What has happened here? What has caused this?" Royan's voice was

puzzled as Nicholas played his torch out into the void.

"I think this is a cave-in area. There was probably a fault in the rock

strata running through here and here." He picked out the cracks in the

roof of the cavern.

"You think the flow of the water through the shaft has scoured it out?"

she asked.

"I would say so, yes."Nicholas turned the beam of light downwards. "The

floor has fallen out of the shaft also."

The rock had subsided in front of them, leaving a deep hole. Ten feet

below where they stood the hole was filled with water, forming a large

circular pool with vertical rock sides. Overhead the roof had fallen in

and was now a high dome of irregular rock, and the far side of the pool

was shrouded in shadows a hundred feet or more in front of them.

There was no apparent way around this obstacle without entering the

water. Nicholas shouted to Hansith to bring one of the long bamboo poles

that they had used for the scaffolding. The pole was thirty feet long

and they had to manoeuvre its length down the tunnel. Nicholas sounded

the pool with the bamboo, probing it down into the turbid water as

deeply as he could reach.

"No bottom." He shook his head. "Do you know what I think?" He retrieved

the pole and passed it back to Hansith.

"Tell me," Royan invited.

"I think that this is the natural fault that leads the water away to the

other side of the hills, and comes to the surface again at the butterfly

fountain. The river has carved its own path., "Why hasn't it drained,

then?" Royan looked down dubiously in the pool below them.

"A -bend in the shaft, probably. Water still trapped in the top of the

shaft like the bowl of a lavatory."

He probed the waters of the pool with the beam of his torch, and Royan

exclaimed with horror and disgust as on of the giant eels came racing to

the surface, attracted by the light.

"The filthy creatures!" She stepped back involuntarily.

"The whole river must be infested with them."

The long dark shape circled the pool swiftly and then disappeared back

into the depths as suddenly as it had appeared.

"If you are right, and a section of Taita's adit has collapsed, then the

continuation of his tunnel should be on the far side of this." She

pointed across the pool, and Nicholas lifted the beam of the torch and

shone it in the direction she indicated.

"Look,  icky!" she cried. "There it is."

The dark rectangular opening yawned at them from across the pool.

"How do we get across there?" Royan asked, disconsolate.

"The answer to that is, not very easily. Dammit to hell!" Nicholas swore

heartily. "This is going to cost us another couple of days that we, can

ill afford. We are going to have to build some sort of bridge across

it."

"What kind of bridge?"

"Get Sapper down here. This is his department."

Sapper stood at the brink of the sink-hole and glared across at the far

bank.

Pontoons," he grunted. "How many of those inflatable rafts have you got

squirrelled away?"

"Forget it, Sapper!" Nicholas shook his head. "You are not getting those

dirty great paws of yours on my rafts."

"Suit yourself' Sapper spread his hands in resignation.

"It would be the easiest and quickest way of doing it.

Anchor a raft in the middle and build a catwalk over the top of it. I

need something that floats high-'

"Baobab." Nicholas snapped his fingers. "That should do the trick very

nicely. When it's dried out, baobab wood is as light as balsa. Floats

just as well as one of my inflatable rafts."

"Plenty of baobabs growing along the hills," Sapper agreed. "Every

second tree in this valley seems to be a ruddy baobab."

hree hundred yards from the top of the cliff grew a massive specimen of

Adansonia digitata.

Its smooth bark resembled the skin of one of the great reptiles from the

age of the dinosaurs. Its girth was tremendous – twenty men with

outstretched arms could not have encircled it. The upper branches were

bare and twisted, and it looked as though it had been dead for a hundred

years. Only the heavy velvet-covered pods proved that it still lived;

they hung thickly from the high branches, bursting open to spill the

black seeds which were coated thickly with white cream of tartar.

"The Zulus say that the Nkulu Kulu, the Great Spirit, planted the baobab

upside down with its roots in the air to punish it," Nicholas told Royan

as they looked up at the enormous spread of its branches.

"Why would he want to do that?" she wanted to know.

"What did the poor old baobab do that was so bad?"

"It boasted that it was the.tallest and thickest tree of the forest, and

so the Nkulu Kulu decided to teach it a little lesson in humility."

One of the gigantic branches had snapped off under its own weight, and

lay on the rocky ground beneath the trunk. The wood was white and

fibrous, light as cork.

Under Nicholas's direction the axemen cut it into manageable lengths.

Once they had been carried down the adit shaft to the sink-hole, Sapper

stapled the logs together and floated them across the pool to form a

causeway. He anchored this to the rock face at either end, and then over

it he laid a catwalk of bamboo poles. The bridge of baobab logs floated

high, and although it bobbed and swayed, it could easily support the

weight of a dozen men at a time.

Nicholas was the first one across the sink-hole. He placed a roughly

made ladder against the high vertical bank, and scrambled up into the

mouth of the adit on the far side of the pool. Royan was close behind

him.

The two of them stood in the entrance to this continuation of the shaft,

and as soon as Nicholas shone  his torch into it they realized that the

nature of the construction had changed. This section had not been so

heavily scoured out and eroded by the rush of river water through it.

The main flow must have drained away through the sink-hole. The

dimensions were the same, three metres wide by two high, but the

rectangular shape was more precise and although the walls and roof were

rough, like IL

those of a mine, the marks of the tools that had shaped it were now

clearly visible. The footing of the tunnel was roughly paved with slabs

of crudely dressed stone, This whole length of the tunnel had also been

submerged, for it lay below the natural level of the river before it had

been dammed. The paving under their feet was wet and covered with a

slime that had not yet had time to dry out since it had been exposed by

the receding waters. The roof and walls of the tunnel ran with moisture,

and the air was dank and cold and smelled of mud and rot.

They waited for Sapper to string the cables for the lights across the

causeway. He set up the lamps and switched them on. At once they were

aware that ahead of them the shaft had begun to rise at an angle of

about twenty degrees.

"You can see what the old devil Taita. was up to here.

He has taken us down well below water level to flood the tunnel to a

length and depth that nobody would be able to swim along. Now he is

angling up again," Nicholas pointed out to Royan. They started forward,

moving slowly up the ascending shaft, and Nicholas counted aloud each

pace he took.

"One hundred and eight, one hundred and nine, one hundred and ten-'

suddenly they came to the recent low river level. It was clearly marked

as a dry line on the walls of the tunnel. The paving under their feet

was also dry and free of the slippery coating of slime. Fifty paces

further on they passed the high flood level of the river, which was just

as clearly etched on the rock floor and the walls. Beyond that the

tunnel had never been immersed, and the walls were in the same condition

as the Egyptian slave workmen had left them four thousand years earlier.

The marks of the bronze chisels were as pristine as if they had been

inflicted just days before.

Only ten feet beyond the highest point that the river waters had ever

reached, they came out upon a stone landing. Here the floor levelled

out, and then the tunnel turned sharply back upon itself.

"Let's spare a minute just to think about this as a feat of

engineering." Nicholas took Royan's arm and pointed back down the

tunnel. "Taita has placed this landing on which we are standing

precisely above the high-water mark of the river. How did he work it out

so exactly? He had no dumpy level, and only the crudest measuring

equipment.

is. It's a he And yet he calculated it as accurately as a piece of

work."

"Well, he tells us repeatedly in the scrolls that he is a genius. I

suppose we will have to believe him now." She pulled against his grip.

"Let's go on. I must see what lies around this corner," she urged.

Side by side they turned through the one hundred and eighty degree

corner and Nicholas held the hand lamp high, with the electrical cable

trailing back down the shaft behind him. As he lit the way ahead, Royan

exclaimed aloud and seized Nicholas's free hand. Both of them froze with

astonishment.

Taita had designed the turning of the ascending ramp for dramatic

effect. The lower section of the shaft through which they had passed was

"crudely constructed, the walls irregular and undressed, the roof lumpy

and cracked. Taita had calculated his levels so finely that he had known

that the lower levels of the shaft would be submerged and damaged by the

water. He had wasted no effort on beautifying them.

Now before them rose a wide stairway. The angle of its ascent was such

that, from where they stood on the landing, the top of it was hidden

from their view. Each step stretched the full width of the tunnel, and

rose, a hand's breadth. The treads were cut from slabs of mottled

gneiss, polished and fitted to each other so precisely that the joints

between them were barely visible. The roof of the tunnel was three times

as high as it had been in the lower reaches of the tunnel, perfectly

domed and proportioned. The walls and the curved roof were of

beautifully dressed blue granite blocks, keyed into each other with

marvelous precision and symmetry. The whole was a masterpiece of the

mason's art, majestic and portentous. There was both a promise and a

menace in this vestibule to the unknown. Its simplicity and lack of

ornamentation made it even more impressive.

Royan tugged softly at Nicholas's hand and together they stepped on to

the first tread of the stairway. It was carpeted with a fine layer of

dust, soft and white as talcum powder. The dust rose in soft eddies and

wisps around their knees and then subsided as they passed on upwards. It

muted the harsh glare of the electric lamp that Nicholas carried high in

his right hand.

Gradually, as they went on upwards, the top of the staircase came into

view ahead of them. Royan dug her fingernails into the palm of

Nicholas's hand as she saw what lay ahead. The staircase ended on

another level landing, across which a rectangular doorway faced them.

They stepped up on to the landing and stood before the doorway. Neither

of them had words to express this supreme moment: they stood in silence

for what seemed like an eternity, holding each other's hand with a

fierce and possessive grip.

Finally Nicholas tore his eyes off the gateway, and looked down at

Royan. He saw his own feelings mirrored in her face, her eyes shone as

though lit from within by an incandescent passion. There was no other

person alive with whom he would wish to share this moment. He wanted it

to last for ever.

She turned her head and looked at him. They stared deeply and solemnly

into each other's eyes. Both of them were aware that this was a high

tide in their lives, one that could never be repeated. She tightened her

grip on his hand, and looked back to the doorway facing them. It had

been plastered over with white river clay, a surface that had mellowed

to the shade of ivory. There was no crack or blemish in its smooth

expanse, like the flawless skin of a beautiful virgin.

Their eyes fastened avidly on the two embossed seals in the centre of

the expanse of white clay. The upper one was in the shape of the royal

cartouche, the rectangular knot surmounted by the scarab, the homed

beetle that signified the great circle of eternity.

Royan's lips formed the words as she read them from the hieroglyphics,

but she uttered no sound. "'The Almighty. The Divine. Ruler of the Upper

and Lower Kingdoms Egypt. Familiar of the god, Horus. Beloved of Osiris

and of Of Isis. Mamose, may he five for ever!"'

Below this magnificent royal seal was a smaller, simpler design in the

shape of a hawk, with one broken wing drooping across its barred breast,

and the legend: 7, Taita the slave, have obeyed your command, divine

Pharaoh." Underneath the maimed hawk was a single column of

hieroglyphics that spelled out the stem warning: "Stranger!

The gods are watching. Disturb the king's eternal rest at your peril!'

reaking the seals on the doorway was a momentous act, and despite the

fact that the time before the onset of the rains was fast running out,

neither of them was prepared to undertake it lightly.

They had to make every effort to keep permanent re ds cor of everything

they discovered, and to inflict as little damage as possible while

gaining access.

They spent one of their precious remaining days preparing for the

break-in to the tomb. Naturally, Nicholas's first concern was the

security of the tomb area. He asked Mek Nimmur to place an armed guard

on the causeway over the sink-hole in the approach tunnel, and access

beyond this point was restricted. Only Nicholas, Royan, Sapper, Mek,

Tessay and four of the monks whom Nicholas had selected were allowed

across the bridge.

Hansith Sherif had proved himself repeatedly during the clearing of the

lower tunnel. Physically strong, willing and intelligent, he had become

Nicholas's principal assistant. It was Hansith who carried the tripod

and spare camera equipment while Nicholas photographed the approach

tunnel and the sealed doorway. He shot three rolls of high-speed film to

make certain that they had a complete record of the unbroken seals and

the doorway surrounds. Only when the filming was completed would

Nicholas allow Hansith and the other three monks to bring up the tools

needed for the break-in.

Sapper moved the Honda generator up as far as the sink-hole, to reduce

the voltage drop over the distance that the current had to travel down

the cable. Then he set up, the floodlights on the upper landing of the

staircase and focused them on the white expanse of the plastered

doorway.

VAen they assembled at the threshold they were all in a sober mood.

Despite the fact that the tomb was thousands of years old, it was still

an act of desecration that they were about to perpetrate. Royan had

translated the hieroglyphic warning on the sealed doorway to Sapper, Mek

and Tessay, and none of them was prepared to take it lightly.

Nicholas marked out the square opening he intended cutting through the

plaster covering, This was large enough to afford access, but it also

enclosed the royal cartouche and Tatia's maimed hawk seal. He intended

lifting these out in one piece, and preserving them intact. In his

imagination, he could already see them displayed in a prominent position

in the museum at Quenton Park.

Nicholas began on the right'hand upper corner of the opening. First he

used a long, needle-sharp awl as a probe.

He pressed and twisted the needle point through the dried clay in an

attempt to determine exactly what lay beneath the surface. Very soon he

found out that the plaster had been laid over laths of finely interwoven

reeds.

"That makes it a lot-easier," he told Royan. "The reed mat will help to

hold the plaster together and prevent it cracking and breaking up."

He kept working the point of the awl deeper, until suddenly the

resistance gave way and the blade ran in Its full length.

"Six inches," he said, measuring the thickness of the door off the

blade. "Taita never skimps, does he? It's a heavy bit of work."

Still using the awl, Nicholas drilled all four corners of the square

opening he intended cutting. Then he stepped back and gestured for

Hansith to bring up the heavy four-inch gimlet to enlarge them. This was

the type of drill that fishermen use for cutting through lake ice in

winter.

As soon as the gimlet broke through, Nicholas impatiently pulled Hansith

aside and peered into the hole.

Beyond the opening all was completely dark, but he caught a whiff of the

faint breath of ancient air that washed through the opening. The odour

was dry and dead and austere, the smell of the ages long past.

"What do you see?" Royan demanded at his elbow.

"The light! Give me the light!" he ordered, and when Sapper handed it to

him, he held it to the opening.

"Tell me!" Royan was dancing beside him with impatience. "What do you

see now?"

"Colours!" he whispered. "The most marvelous, indescribable colours." He

stepped back and, lifting her around the waist, held her so that she

could look into the aperture.

"Beautiful!" she cried. "It's so beautiful."

The men rigged up the heavy-duty electric blower fan which would

circulate the air in the shaft, while Nicholas prepared the chain-saw.

When he was ready, Nicholas handed Royan a pair of goggles and a dust