The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные полные книги .TXT) 📗

empty rubbish cans, and then suddenly and terrifyingly a solid wave of

grey water burst over the top of the falls, carrying with it a wall of

trash and debris.

"Oh mother! Too late. Here comes the big one!'

He shoved off from his rock, turning downstream, and swam with all his

strength, kicking and flailing his arms in a wild crawl stroke. He heard

the roar of the approaching wave and glanced back over his shoulder. It

was overhauling him swiftly, filling the chasm from wall to wall,

fifteen feet high and curling at the top. He had a fleeting mental II

image from his youth, waiting to surf that notorious wave at Cape St.

Vincent, hanging on the line'up and seeing it humping up behind him,

this great wall of water, so mountainous and so overwhelming.

"Ride id' he told himself, judging the moment. "Catch it like a slider."

He clawed through the water, trying to get up speed to ride up the wall.

He felt it seize him and lift him so violently that his guts swooped,

and then he was on the crest of it. He arched his back and tucked his

am-is behind him in the classic body-surfer's position, hanging in the

face of the wave, slightly head down, the front half of his body thrust

clear of the water, steering with his legs. After the first few

terrifying seconds he realized that he was ic abated and riding her high

and had some control; his pan he was overcome by a sense of wild

exhilaration.

"Twenty knots!" He estimated his speed by the giddy i blur of the canyon

walls passing him on either side. He steered away from the nearest wall,

sliding across the face, taking up station in the centre of the wave, He

was caff ied along by the wave and by the thrilling sensation of speed

and danger.

The increased depth of water in the chasm covered the dangerous,

knife-sharp rocks, enabling him to ride clear of them. It smoothed out

the waterfalls and the chutes, so that instead of dropping down them and

plummeting below the surface of the pool beneath he slid down them with

a smooth rush, holding his position in the face of the wave with a few

quick overarm strokes or a kick of the legs.

"Hell! This is fun!" He laughed aloud. "People would pay money to do

this. Beats the hell out of bungee jumping." A

Within the first mile the wave began to lose its shape and impetus as it

spread out. down the canyon. Soon it would no longer have the power to

hold him up in the surfing position, and he glanced around him swiftly.

Floating near by, keeping pace with him in the flotsam of debris from

the dam, was one of the treetrunks that had formed part of the raft with

which Sapper had plugged the gap in the wall.

He steered across to this ponderous piece of timber. It was thirty feet

long and floated low in the flood, its back showing like that of a

whale. Its branches had been roughly hacked away by the axemen, and the

spikes that remained provided secure handholds. Nicholas pulled himself

up on he treetrunk, lying on his belly, facing downstream, to with his

legs still dangling in the water. Swiftly he recovered his breath and

felt his full strength returning.

Although it had smoothed out and lost its wave formation, the flood was

still tearing down the chasm at a tremendous pace. "Still not much under

ten knots," he estimated. "When this lot hits Taita's pool, I pity von

Schiller and any of his uglies who are in the tomb. They are going to

stay in there for the next four thousand years." He threw back his head

and laughed triumphantly.. "It worked! Damn me to hell, if it didn't

work just the way I planned it."

He stopped laughing abruptly as he felt the treetrunk veer across the

river towards one of the canyon walls.

"Oh, oh! More trouble."

He rolled to one side of the treetrunk and kicked out strongly. His

ungainly vessel responded, swinging heavily across the current. It was

sluggish steering, not enough to avoid contact with the rock wall

entirely, but instead of striking full'on it was merely a glancing

collision that pushed him back again into the main flow of the current.

He was gaining confidence and expertise every moment, "I can ride her

all the way down to the monastery!'

The AL

he exclaimed delightedly. "At this rate of knots I might even get to the

boats before Sapper and Royan."

Looking ahead, he recognized this stretch of the chasm that he was

hurtling through. -i@

"This is the bend above Taita's pool. Be there in another minute or two.

I expect the scaffolding has been washed away by now."  He pulled

himself as high on the log as he could without upsetting its balance,

and peered ahead, blinking the water out of his eyes. He saw the head of

the falls above Taita's pool racing towards him, and he braced himself

for the drop.

The long, smooth chute of racing water opened ahead of him, and the

moment before he flew down it he had a glimpse into the basin of rock

below it. He saw at once that his expectations had been premature. The

bamboo scaffolding had not been entirely washed away, although it was

badly damaged. The lowest section was gone, but the Upper part hung

drunkenly down the rock cliff, just touching the surface of the racing

waters. It was swaying and swinging loosely as the current snatched at

it, and incredulously he realized that there were at least two men

trapped

on the flimsy structure, clinging desperately to the ladderway of

lurching, clattering poles. Both of them were trying to claw their way

up it to the top of the cliff.

In that fraction of a second Nicholas saw a flash of steel'rimmed

spectacles under a maroon beret, and realized that the man nearest the

top of the cliff was Tuma Nogo.

Then Nogo succeeded in reaching the top of the scaffolding and

disappeared over the top of the cliff. That one glance was all Nicholas

had time for before his log was plunged into the water-chute, gathering

speed until it was tearing downwards at a steeply canted angle. The

point dug in as it hit the surface of the pool at the bottom, and the

log almost pole-vaulted end over end, but Nicholas clung on to his

handholds, and gradually it righted itself.

For a few moments the log was stalled in the vortex below the falls, but

almost at once, the current grabbed it again and it gathered speed,

bearing away down the length of Taita's pool as ponderously as a wooden

man-'-war.

Nicholas had a second of respite in which to look  around the basin of

Taita's pool. He saw at once that the entrance tunnel to the tomb was

entirely submerged and, judging by the water level up the cliff wall, it

was already fifty feet or more beneath the surface. He felt a leap of

triumph. The tomb was once more protected from the depredations of any

other grave-robber.

Then he looked up the battered remnants of the bamboo scaffolding skewed

down the cliff, torn half away from the ancient niches in the rock, -and

he saw the other man still clinging to the wreckage. He was twenty feet

above the water level, and seemed frozen there like a cat in the high

branches of a windswept tree.

At that moment Nicholas realized that his log was swinging in the grip

of the river, curling in towards the dangling scaffold. He was about to

try to steer it clear, when the man on the framework high above him

turned his head and looked down at him. Nicholas saw that he was a white