by Wilbur Smith
“No!” he told Nahoot violently. “This is mine, all mine. When I die it will go with me, all of it. I have made the arrangements already, in my will. My sons know what to do. This will all be with me in my own grave. My royal grave.”
Nahoot stared at him aghast. He had not realized until that moment that the old man was mad, that his obsessions had driven him over the edge of sanity. But the Egyptian knew that there was no point in arguing with him now—later he would find a way to save this marvellous treasure from the oblivion of another tomb. So he bowed his head in mock acquiescence.
“You are right, Herr von Schiller. That is the only fitting manner to dispose of it. You deserve that form of burial. However, our main concern now must be to get all of it to safety. Helm has warned us about the danger of the river, of the dam bursting. We must call him and Nogo. Nogo’s men must clear out the tomb. We can ferry the treasure in the helicopter up to the Pegasus camp, where I can pack it securely for the journey to Germany.”
“Yes. Yes.” Von Schiller scrambled to his feet, suddenly terrified at the prospect of being deprived of this wondrous hoard by the flooded river. “Send the monk, what is his name, Hansith, send him to call Helm. He must come at once.”
Nahoot jumped up to his feet. “Hansith!” he shouted. “Where are you?”
The monk had been waiting at the entrance to the burial chamber, kneeling in prayer before the empty sarcophagus which had contained the body of the saint. He was torn now between religious conviction and greed. When he heard his name called he genuflected deeply, and then rose and hurried back to join von Schiller and Nahoot.
“You must go back to the pool where we left the others—” Nahoot started to relay the orders, but suddenly a strange, distracted expression crossed Hansith’s darkly handsome features and he held up his hand for silence.
“What is it?” Nahoot demanded angrily. “What is it that you can hear?”
Hansith shook his head. “Be quiet! Listen! Can’t you hear it?”
“There is nothing—” Nahoot began, but then broke off suddenly, and wild terror filled his dark eyes.
There was the softest sound, gentle as the sigh of a summer zephyr, lulling and low.
“What do you hear?” von Schiller demanded. His hearing had long ago deteriorated, and the sound was far beyond the range of his old ears.
“Water!” whispered Nahoot. “Running water!”
“The river!” shouted Hansith. “The tunnel is flooding!” He whirled round and went bounding down the funeral arcade with long, lithe strides.
“We will be trapped in here!” screamed Nahoot, and raced after him.
“Wait for me,” von Schiller yelled, and tried to follow. But he soon fell behind the two much younger men.
The monk, however, was far ahead of both of them as he took the flight of stairs up from the gas trap two at a time.
“Hansith! Come back! I order you,” Nahoot cried despairingly in his wake, but he caught only a flash of the monk’s white robe as he darted into the first twist of the labyrinth.
“Guddabi, where are you?” von Schiller’s voice quavered and echoed through the stone corridors. But Nahoot did not reply as he ran on in the direction which he thought the monk had taken, passing the first turn in the maze without even glancing at the chalk marks on the wall. He thought he heard Hansith’s racing footsteps ahead of him, but by the time he had turned the third corner he knew he was lost.
He stopped with his heart racing savagely and the bitter gall of terror in the back of his throat.
“Hansith! Where are you?” he screamed wildly.
Von Schiller’s voice came back to him, ringing weirdly down the passageways, “Guddabi! Guddabi! Don’t leave me here.”
“Shut up!” he screamed. “Keep quiet, you old fool!”
Panting heavily, the blood pounding in his ears, he tried to listen for the sound of Hansith’s feet. But he heard only the sound of the river. The gentle susurration seemed to emanate from the very walls around him.
“No! Don’t leave me here,” he screamed, and began to run without direction, panic-stricken, through the maze.
* * *
Hansith took each twist and turn unerringly, with the terror of dreadful death driving his feet. But at the head of the central staircase his ankle twisted under him and he fell heavily. He tumbled down the steeply inclined shaft, bumping and rolling the full length, gathering speed as he went until he reached the bottom and lay sprawled on the agate tiles of the long gallery.
He dragged himself to his feet, bruised and shaken by the fall, and tried to run on. But his leg gave way under him again, and he fell in a tangle. His ankle was badly sprained and would not carry his weight. Nevertheless he dragged himself up a second time and hobbled down the gallery, supporting himself with one hand on the shattered wall.
When he reached the doorway and crawled through it on to the landing beside the generator the sound of the water came up the tunnel. It was much louder now—a low, reverberating growl which almost blotted out the soft, discreet hum of the generator.
“Sweet loving Christ and the Virgin, save me!” he pleaded as he staggered and lurched down the tunnel, falling twice more before he reached the lower level.
On his knees he peered ahead, and in the glare of the electric lights strung along the roof of the tunnel he could make out the sink-hole below him. He did not at first recognize it, for it had all changed. The water level was no longer lower than the paved floor on which he 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.
I
t 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 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.
* * *
The waters pouring through the gap in the dam 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 to keep his head uppermost, feet foremost, as he swooped 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 and remembered the last time he had been trapped down here. The elation he had 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 remaining gabions must still be 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 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 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 it!” 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 arms 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 riding her high and had some control; his panic abated and he was overcome by a sense of wild exhilaration.
“Twenty knots!” He estimated his speed by the giddy 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 carried 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.”
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 to the treetrunk, lying on his belly, facing downstream, 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!” 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.
“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.