This was Africa, and Nicholas was certain that now that the rot had
started it would Spread very quickly.
He joked and jollied them along, not allowing them to sense his true
feelings. He worked shoulder to shoulder in the excavation in an and
sweated along with them made attempt to hold them, But he knew that,
unless they Ali under these slabs to keep their interest another
discovery and expectations alight, he might wake up tomorrow to
all find that even the monks and the faithful Hansith were gone.
He had started lifting the slabs in the angle of the corner of the maze,
and they worked out from there in both directions down the arms Of the
tunnel. His heart sank as they broke up each paving slab with the
hammers only to find beneath it the solid stratum of the country rock
with no indication of any joint or opening.
"It doesn't look very hopeful," he muttered to Royan as he took a short
break to drink from one of the water flasks.
She too was looking unhappy as she Poured water from the flask into his
cupped hands, so that he could wash the sweat and grime from his face.
"I may have got the symbols for the levels wrong," she suggested. "It is
just the kind of trick Taita would play, to work out combinations which
would both give a logical solution." She hesitated before she appealed
to him for guidance. "Do you think I should start working back the other
combination-'
Her question was interrupted by a bellow from Hansith. "In the name of
the Blessed Virgin, effendi, come quickly!'
They spun around together. In "her haste Royan dropped the flask, which
shattered at her feet. She did not seem to notice that it had drenched
her legs, but ran back to where Hansith was standing with the hammer
poised for another stroke.
What is it-' she broke off as they both saw that beneath the paving
slabs Hansith had uncovered another layer of dressed stone sills.
These were laid neatly across the floor of the tunnel from wall to wall,
recessed into the surrounding rock, with knife-edge joints between them.
Their sides were smooth and plain, without engravings or markings upon
them.
"What is it, icky?" Royan demanded.
"Either it's another layer of paving, or it)s a cover over fall an
opening in the floor,, he told her eagerly. "We won't know until we lift
one of them."
The stone sills were too thick and heavy to be cracked with the
primitive hammers, although Hansith tried his best. In the end they were
forced to dig around the first of lever it free. It took five men to
raise the end of them and it and lift it off its foundation.
"There is an opening under it." Royan went down on the space that it had
left. "Some her knees to peer into kind of open shaft!'
Once the first sill was removed it was easier to get a urchase on the
others that blocked the rectangular open I away, Nicholas shone ing.
When they had cleared them al the dark shaft that was revealed. It the
lamp down into stretched from wall to wall of the tunnel, and the head
stand up to his room was sufficient for even Nicholas full height on the
steps that led down at a forty-five degree angle.
"Surely this must be it.
"Another stairway he exulted exhausted all the false leads by now."
Even Taita must have crowding up behind them, their The workmen were
very and the ting at this fresh disco sullen mood evapora certainty of
additional bonuses in silver dollars that they had earned.
"Are we going down?" Royan asked. "I know we should be careful and check
it for traps, but we are- running out Of time, Nicky."
"You are right, as always. The time has come when we have to press on
regardless."
hand, "Caution thrown to the winds." She took his laughing. "Let's go
down together."
tious step at a They descended side by side, one cau time, with the lamp
held head high and the shadows retreating before them.
"There is a chamber at the bottom,'Royan exclaimed.
"Looks like a store room - what are all those objects stacked along the
walls? There must be hundreds of them.
Are they coffins, sarcophaguses?" The dark shapes were almost human,
standing shoulder to shoulder, rank after rank, around the walls of the
square chamber.
"No, I think those are corn baskets on one side," she said, recognizing
them. "Those on the other side look like wine amphorae. Probably some
sort of offering to the dead."
"If this is one of the funeral store rooms," said Nicholas in a voice
tight with excitement, "then we are getting very close to the tomb now."
"Yes!' she cried. "Look - there is another doorway on the far side of
this store room. Shine the light over there."
The beam picked out the square opening facing them across this lower
chamber. It was inviting, beckoning them almost seductively. They almost
ran down the last few steps in . to . the chamber lined with the reed
baskets and pottery wine jars. But as they reached the leveffloor of the
store room they ran into an invisible barrier that stopped both of them
dead and sent them reeling backwards.
"God!" Nicholas clutched at his throat, his voice a strangled choke.
"Get back. Got to get back."
Royan was inking to her knees, also gasping and hunting for breath.
"Nicky!" she tried to scream, but her breath was trapped in her lungs.
She felt that a steel noose had encircled her chest and, as it
tightened, the breath was being forced out of her.
"Nicky! Help me!" She was strangling, like a fish thrown up on the bank.
The strength drained from her limbs, and her vision began to break up
and fade. She did not have the strength to stand.
He stooped over her and tried to lift her, but he was almost as weak. He
felt his own legs buckling, no longer able to support even his own
weight.
erately as he suffocated.
"Four minutes," he thought desp i to brain death I "That's all we have
got. Four minutes and oblivion. We have to get airer her armpits From
behind her, he slipped his arms und locked his hands together over her
breasts. Again he and ied to lift her, but his strength was gone. He
began to tr ds the stairs down which they had walk backwards towar run
so lightly, and every pace required a huge effort. She was already
unconscious, lying inert in the circle of his arms. Her limp legs
trailed across the stone floor as he dragged her back.
The lowest step caught his heels and he almost toppled his balance over
backwards. with an effort he regained and lugged her back up the steps,
her feet sliding and bumping loosely over the treads. He wanted to shout
to his lungs Hansith for help, but he did not have me air in to utter a
sound.
, she's dead," he told himself, and if you drop her no ps, his lungs
hunting for he struggled up another five ste precious air and finding
none. His strength oozed out of wobbled and as his vision slid and him a
drop at a time A
11 distorted.
"Please God, let me
"Let me breathe," he pleaded.
breathe."
Miraculously, like a direct answer to his prayer, he felt slide down his
panting throat and the precious oxygen ngth began flooding back swell
his lungs. At once his stre Royan's chest and lifted and he tightened