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
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!the exclaimed."Jake Helm."
He had an image of Tamre, the epileptic boy, crushed beneath the
rockfalls 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