The Seventh Scroll

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘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 ladder-way 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-o’-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 man, his face a pale blob in the gloom of the canyon, and a moment later he recognized him with a stab of hatred through the chest.

  ‘Helm!’ he exclaimed. ‘Jake Helm.’

  He had an image of Tamre, the epileptic boy, crushed beneath the rockfall, and of Tessay’s burned and battered face. His outrage and hatred surged. Instead of steering the log away from the scaffold, he reversed his thrust and swung in towards the cliff. There was a breathless interval when Nicholas thought he might miss, but at the last moment the leading end of the log swung sharply and the point of it crashed into the trailing end of the bamboo, hooking on to it.

  The log’s weight and momentum were irresistible. The bamboo poles crackled and snapped like dry kindling, and then the whole rickety structure tore loose from the wall and came crashing down over the log. Helm swung out overhead, then released his grip and dropped feet first into the water close alongside the log. He went deep below the surface. While he was under, Nicholas pulled himself up to sit astride the log and grabbed a length of bamboo pole that had broken off the scaffolding and was floating alongside his perch.

  The log was trapped in a back eddy of the swollen river, and now it began to spin slowly in the slack water outside the main current. Nicholas was still riding high on the log. He hefted the bamboo, swinging it back and forth like a baseball bat, to get the feel of it. Then he cocked it over his shoulder and waited for Helm to show himself.

  A second later the Texan’s head broke out, streaming water. His eyes were screwed closed, and he let out a gasp of water and air and tried to suck in a breath. Nicholas aimed the pole at his head and swung with all his strength, but just at that moment Helm opened his eyes and saw the blow coming.

  He was as quick as a water snake, rolling his head under the swinging club so that it merely touched the side of his cropped blond head and then glanced away. Nicholas was thrown off balance by his own swing, and before he could recover Helm had drawn a quick breath and ducked below the surface again.

  Nicholas poised the club, ready to strike a second time, peering down into the murky water, muttering angrily at himself for having missed the first blow while he still had the advantage of surprise. He had no illusions about what he was in for, now that Helm had been warned.

  The seconds drew out with no sign of his adversary reappearing, and Nicholas looked behind him anxiously, trying to anticipate where he would come up again. For a long minute nothing happened. He lowered the club nervously, and changed his grip so as to be ready to stab in any direction with the sharp broken tip.

  Suddenly his left ankle was seized in a crushing grip below the water and, before he could grab a handhold to resist, Nicholas was jerked from his seat on the log and went over backwards into the river. As he plunged beneath the water he felt Helm’s fingers clawing at his face. He grabbed one of the fingers and wrenched it back, feeling it snap in his grasp as he forced it back towards its own wrist. But Helm was galvanized by the agony of the dislocated joint, and one of his long muscular arms whipped around Nicholas’s neck like the tentacles of an octopus.

  The two of them came to the surface for a moment, both of them drew one quick, harsh breath, then Helm forced Nicholas’s head backwards and water flooded into his open mouth. The lock on his neck tightened, and he felt the tension on his vertebrae. It was a killer grip. If Helm had only had a solid purchase he could have exerted the last ounce of pressure which would have snapped his spine. But Nicholas kept rolling back in the direction of the thrust, giving with it, and preventing Helm from bringing all his strength to bear. As he went over he saw Helm’s face in front of his, magnified and distorted through the tainted grey water. He looked monstrous and evil.

  As Helm rolled over the top of him Nicholas locked both hands around his waist to hold him firmly, then brought up his right knee between Helm’s legs, hard into his crotch, and felt the bone of his kneecap make contact. The bunch of genitals was full and rubbery; Helm contorted and his lock on Nicholas’s neck eased. Nicholas used the slack to reach down and grab a handful of Helm’s damaged testicles and twist them savagely. He saw the man’s face inches in front of his own twist into a rictus of pain and Helm pulled away from him, releasing his lock on Nicholas’s throat and reaching down to grab his wrist with both hands.

  Again they came to the surface close alongside the floating log, and Nicholas realized that the current had taken hold of them again and was carrying them away through the outlet of Taita’s pool into the full stream of the river. Nicholas released his grip on Helm’s balls and with his other hand aimed a punch at his face, but they were too close to each other and the blow lacked power. It glanced off Helm’s cheek, and Nicholas tried to lock his extended arm around his neck, going for a headlock himself. Helm hunched his head down on his shoulders, slipping under the hold. Then suddenly he reached forward fast as a striking adder and sank his teeth into Nicholas’s chin.

  The surprise was complete, and the pain was excruciating as his teeth locked into the flesh. Nicholas shouted and clawed at Helm’s face, going for his eyes, trying to drive his fingernails through the lids. But Helm squeezed his eyes tight closed and his teeth cut in ever deeper, so that Nicholas’s blood welled up and oozed from the corners of Helm’s mouth.


  The log was still floating beside them, inches from the back of Helm’s head. Nicholas seized his ears, one in each hand, and twisted him around in the water. He could see over the top of Helm’s head, while Helm’s vision was blocked. There was a nub of raw wood sticking out of the tree trunk where an axe had hacked away a side branch. The cut was at an angle, leaving a sharp spike. Through tears of agony Nicholas lined up the spike with the back of Helm’s head. He could feel Helm’s teeth almost meeting in the flesh of his face. They had cut through the lower lip so that blood was starting to fill Nicholas’s mouth. Helm was worrying him like a pit-bull in the arena, wrenching his head from side to side. Soon he would come away with a bloody mouthful of Nicholas’s flesh.

  With all the strength of pain and desperation, Nicholas hurled himself forward, and, using his upper body and his grip on the sides of Helm’s head, drove him on to the sharp wooden spike. The point found the joint between the vertebrae of the spine and the base of Helm’s skull, going in like a nail and partially severing the spinal cord. Helm’s jaws sprang open as he went into spasm. Nicholas pulled away from him with a flap of loose flesh hanging from his chin, and blood streaming and spurting from the deep ragged wound.

  Helm was impaled upon the spike, like a carcass on a butcher’s hook. His limbs twitched and the muscles of his face convulsed, his eyelids shivered and jumped like those of an epileptic, and his eyeballs rolled back into his skull so that only the whites showed, flashing grotesquely in the gloom of the chasm.

  Nicholas pulled himself up on to the log beside the Texan’s body, and hung there panting and bleeding in gouts down his chin on to his chest. Slowly the log revolved under the eccentric weight distribution, and Helm began to slide off the spike. His skin tore with a sound like silk parting, and the vertebrae of his spine grated on wood. Then the corpse, at last quiescent, flopped face down into the water and began to sink.

  Nicholas would not let him go so easily. ‘Let’s make sure of you, dear boy,’ he grated through his swollen, bleeding mouth. He spat out a mouthful of blood and saliva as he stretched out and grabbed the back of Helm’s collar, holding him face down in the water under the log. They picked up speed rapidly down the last stretch of the canyon, but Nicholas held on doggedly, drowning any last spark of life from Helm’s carcass, until at last it was torn from his grip by the current and he watched it sink away into the grey, roiling waters.

  ‘I’ll give your love to Tessay,’ Nicholas called after him as he disappeared. Then he gave all his concentration to balancing the log and staying aboard for the ride through the tumbling, racing current. At last he was spewed out through the pink rock portals into the bottom reach of the Dandera river. As he was swept beneath the rope suspension bridge he slid off the log and struck out for the western bank, very much aware of the terrible drop into the Nile that lay half a mile downstream.

  Sitting on the bank, he tore a strip from the tail of his shirt. Then he bound up his wounded chin as best he could, strapping it around the back of his head. The blood soaked through the thin wet cotton, but he knotted it tighter and it began to staunch the flow.

  He stood up unsteadily and pushed his way through the strip of thick riverine bush which bounded the river, until at last he struck the trail that led down to the monastery and hobbled down it on his bare feet. He only stopped once, and that was when he heard the sound of the helicopter taking off from the top of the cliff above the chasm far behind him.

  He looked back. ‘Sounds as though Tuma Nogo made it out of there, more’s the pity. I wonder what happened to von Schiller and the Egyptian,’ he muttered grimly, fingering his injured face. ‘At least none of them are going to get into the tomb, not unless they dam the river again.’ Suddenly a thought occurred to him.

  ‘My God, what if von Schiller was already in there when the river hit?’ He began to chuckle, and then shook his head. ‘Too much to hope for. Justice is never that neat.’ He shook his head again, but the movement started his wound aching brutally. He clutched his bandaged jaw with one hand and started down the trail again, breaking into a trot as he reached the paved causeway that led down to the monastery.

  Nahoot Guddabi ran full into von Schiller around a corner of the maze, and in a peculiar way the old man’s presence, even though he was of no conceivable value in this crisis, steadied him and kept at bay the panic that threatened at any moment to boil over and overwhelm him. Without Hansith the maze was a weird and lonely place. Any human company was a blessing. For a moment the two of them clung together like children lost in the forest.

  Von Schiller still carried part of the treasure that they had been examining when Hansith had panicked and run. He had Pharaoh’s golden crook in one hand and the ceremonial flail in the other.

  ‘Where is the monk?’ he screamed at Guddabi. ‘Why did you run off and leave me? We have to find the way out of these tunnels, you idiot. Don’t you realize the danger?’

  ‘How do you expect me to know the way—’ Nahoot began furiously, and then broke off as he noticed the chalk notations on the wall behind von Schiller’s shoulder, and for the first time realized their significance.

  ‘That’s it!’ he exclaimed with relief. ‘Harper or the Al Simma woman have marked it out for us. Come on!’ He started down the tunnel, following the signposting. However, by the time they came out on the central staircase almost an hour had passed since Hansith had left them. As they hurried down the staircase into the long gallery the sound of the river rose to a pervading hiss, like the breathing of a sleeping dragon.

  Nahoot broke into a run and von Schiller staggered along behind him, his aged legs weakening with fear.

  ‘Wait!’ he shouted after Nahoot, who ignored his plea and ducked out through the opening in the plaster-sealed doorway. On the landing the generator was still running smoothly, and Nahoot did not even glance at it as he hurried down the inclined shaft in the bright dazzle of the light bulbs along the roof.

  He turned the corner still at a run, and stopped dead as he realized that the tunnel below him was flooded, right back up to the level of the ancient high-water mark on the masonry blocks of the walls. There was no sign of the sink-hole or the pontoon bridge. They were submerged under fifty feet or more of water.

  The Dandera river, guardian of the tomb down all the ages, had resumed its duty. Dark and implacable, it sealed the entrance to the tomb as it had done these four thousand years past.

  ‘Allah!’ whispered Nahoot. ‘Allah have mercy on us.’

  Von Schiller came around the corner of the tunnel and stopped beside Nahoot. The two of them stared in horror at the flooded shaft. Then slowly von Schiller sagged against the side wall.

  ‘We are trapped,’ he whispered, and at those words Nahoot whimpered softly and sank to his knees. He began to pray in a high, nasal sing-song. The sound infuriated von Schiller.

  ‘That will not help us. Stop it!’ He swung the golden flail in his right hand across Nahoot’s bowed back. Nahoot cried out at the pain and crawled away from von Schiller.

  ‘We must find a way out of here.’ Von Schiller’s voice steadied. He was accustomed to command, and now he took charge.

  ‘There must be another way out of here,’ he decided. ‘We will search. If there is an opening to the outside then we should feel a draught of air.’ His voice became firmer and more confident. ‘Yes! That’s what we will do. Switch off that fan, and we will try to detect any movement of air.’

  Nahoot responded eagerly to his tone and authority, and hurried back to switch off the electric fan.

  ‘You have your cigarette lighter,’ von Schiller told him. ‘We will light tapers from these.’ He pointed at the papers and photographs that Royan had left lying on the trestle table by the doorway. ‘We will use the smoke to detect any draught.’

  For the next two hours they moved through all levels of the tomb, holding aloft the burning tapers, watching the movement of the smoke. At no point could they detect even the faintest movement of air in the tu
nnels, and in the end they came back to the flooded shaft and stared despairingly at the pool of still black water that blocked it.

  ‘That is the only way out,’ von Schiller whispered.

  ‘I wonder if the monk escaped that way,’ said Nahoot as he slumped down the wall.

  ‘There is no other way.’

  They were silent for a while; it was difficult to judge the passage of time in the tomb. Now that the river had found its own level there was no movement of water in the shaft, and the faint and distant sound of the current running through the sink-hole seemed merely to enhance the silence. In it they could hear their own breathing.

  Nahoot spoke at last. ‘The fuel in the generator. It must be running low. I did not see any reserves—’

  They thought about what would happen when the small fuel tank ran dry. They thought about the darkness to come.

  Suddenly von Schiller screamed, ‘You have to go out through the shaft to fetch help. I order you to do it.’

  Nahoot stared at him in disbelief. ‘It’s over a hundred yards back through the tunnel to the outside, and the river is in flood.’

  Von Schiller sprang to his feet and stood over Nahoot threateningly. ‘The monk escaped that way. It’s the only way. You must swim through the tunnel and reach Helm and Nogo. Helm will know what to do. He will make a plan to get me out of here.’

  ‘You are mad.’ Nahoot backed away from him, but von Schiller followed him.

  ‘I order you to do it!’

  ‘You crazy old man!’ Nahoot tried to scramble to his feet, but von Schiller swung the heavy golden flail, a sudden unexpected blow in Nahoot’s face that knocked him over backwards, splitting his lips and breaking off two of his front teeth.

  ‘You are mad!’ he wailed. ‘You can’t do this—’ but von Schiller swung again and again, lacerating his face and shoulders, the heavy golden tails of the whip cutting through the thin cotton of his shirt.

  ‘I will kill you,’ von Schiller screamed, raining blows on him. ‘If you don’t obey me I will kill you.’