Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные полные книги .txt) 📗
"As little as a hundred million, as much as five hundred million," Craig guessed quietly, and those impossible sums seemed to depress them all, rather than render them delirious with joy.
Sally-Anne dropped the last few stones, as though they had burned her fingers, and she hugged her own arms and shivered. Her damp hair hung in lank strands down her face and the firelight underscored her eyes with shadow.
They all of them looked exhausted and bedraggled.
"Then as we sit here," said Tungata, "we are probably as rich as any man living and I would give it all for one glimpse of sunlight and one taste of freedom."
"Pupho, talk to us, , Sarah pleaded. "Tell us stories."
"Yes," Sally-Anne joined in. "That's your business. Tell us about diamonds. Help us forget the rest. Tell us a story."
"All right," Craig agreed, and while Tungata fed the fire with splinters Of wood, he thought for a moment. "Did you know that Kohinoor means "Mountain of Light" and that Baber, the Conqueror, set its value at half the daily expense of the entire known world? You would think there could be no other gem like it, but it was only one of the great jewels assembled in Delhi. That city outstripped imperial Rome or vainglorious Babylon in its treasures. The other great jewels of Delhi had marvelous names also. Listen to these: the Sea of Light, the Crown of the Moon, the Great Mogul___2 Craig ransacked his memory for stories to keep them from dwelling on the hopelessness of their position, from the despair of truly realizing that they were entombed alive deep in the earth.
He told them of the" faithful servant whom de Sang entrusted with the great Sang diamond, when he sent it to Henry of Navarre to add to the crown jewels of France.
"Thieves learned of his journey, and they waylaid the poor man in the forest. They cut him down and searched his clothing and his corpse.-When they could not find the diamond, they buried, him hastily and fled. Years afterwards, Monsieur de-So'ncy found the grave in the forest, and ordered the servant's decomposed body to be gutted.
The legendary diamond was found in his stomach."
"Ghastly," Sally-Anne shuddered.
"Perhaps," Craig agreed with her. "But every noble diamond has a sanguine history. Emperors and rajahs and sultans have intrigued and mounted campaigns for them, others have used starvation or boiling oil or hot irons to prick out eyes, women have used poison or prostituted themselves, palaces have been looted and temples have been profaned. Each stone seems to have left a comet's train of blood and savagery behind it. And yet none of these terrible deeds and misfortunes ever seemed to discourage those who lusted for them. Indeed when ShahShuja stood before Runjeet Singh, "The Lion of the Punjab", starved to a skeleton and with his wives and family broken and mutilated by the tortures that had at last forced him to give up the Great Mogul, the man who had once been his dearest friend, gloating over the huge stone in his fist, asked, "Tell me, Shah-Shuja, what price do you put upon it?"
"Even then ShahShuja, broken and vanquished, knowing himself at the very threshold of ignoble death, could Still answer, "It is the price of fortune. For the Great Mogul has always been the bosom talisman of those who have triumphed mightily."" Tungata grunted as the tale ended, and prodded the pile of treasure in the firelight before him with a spurning finger. "I wish one of these could bring us just a little of that good fortune." And Craig had run out of stories, his throat had closed painfully from cold and talking and the searing tear gas, and none of the others could think of anything to say to cheer them. They ate the unappetizing scorched maize cakes in silence and then lay down as close to the fire as they could get. Craig lay and listened to the others sleeping, but despite his fatigue, his brain spun in circles, chasing its tail and keeping him awake.
The only way out of the cavern was back through the subterranean lake and up the grand gallery, but how long would the Shana guard that exit? How long could they last out here? There was food for a day or two, water seepage from the cavern roof would give them drink, but the batteries of the two lamps were failing, the light they gave J;
was turning yellow and dull, the timber from the ladder might feed the fire for a few days more, and then the cold and the darkness. How long before it drove them crazy? How long before they were forced to attempt that terrible swim back through the shaft into the arms of the waiting troopers at the Craig broodings were violently interrupted. The rock on which he lay shuddered and jumped under him, and he scrambled to his hands and knees.
From the shadows of the cavern roof one of the great stalactities, twenty tons of gleaming limestone, snapped off likea ripe fruit in a high wind, and crashed to the floor barely ten paces from where they lay. It filled the cavern with billows of limestone dust. Sarah awoke screaming with terror, and Tungata was thrashing around him and shouting as he came up from deep sleep.
The earth tremor lasted for seconds only, and then the stillness, the utter silence of the earth's depths, fell over them again and they looked into each other's frightened faces across the smouldering fire.
"What the hell was that?" Sally-Anne asked, and Craig was reluctant to answer. He looked to Tungata.
"The Shana-" Tungata. said softly" - I think they have dynamited the grand gallery. They have sealed us off."
"Oh my God." Slowly Sally' Anne covered her mouth with both hands.
"Buried alive." Sarah Aid it for them.
he shaft was just over 160 feet deep from the edge of the platform to water level. Tungata plumbed it with the nylon rope before Craig began the descent. It was deep enough to kill or maim anybody who slipped and fell into the chasm.
They secured the end of the rope to one of the poles wedged like an anchor in the opening of the tunnel that led to the crystal cavern, and Craig abseiled down the rope to the water at the bottom of the shaft once more. Gingerly he committed his weight to the rickety remains of the ladder work as he neared the surface of the water and then lowered himself into the water.
