The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  They talked on until late, and at last Nicholas glanced at his

  wrist-watch and stood up.

  "Long after midnight. I am scheduled to turn into a pumpkin at any

  moment. Goodnight."

  "There are still two days of the festival before the tabot is taken down

  to the river. Nothing we can do until then.

  What are your plans

  "Tomorrow I am going back after that damned little Bambi. It has made a

  fool of me twice already."

  "I am coming with you," she said firmly, and that simple declaration

  gave him a disproportionate amount of pleasure.

  "Just as long as you leave Tamre at home," he warned her as he stooped

  out through the door.

  The tiny antelope stepped out from the deep shadow of the thorn thicket,

  and the early morning sunlight gleamed on the silky pelt, It kept

  walking steadily across the narrow clearing.

  Nicholas's breathing quickened with excitement as he followed it with

  the telescopic sight. It was ridiculous that he should feel so wrought

  up with the hunting of such a humble little animal, but his previous

  failures had sharpened his anticipation. Added to that was the peculiar

  passion that drives the true collector. Since he had lost Rosalind and

  the girls, he had thrown all his energy into the building up of the

  collection at Quenton Park. Now, suddenly, procuring this specimen for

  it had become a matter of supreme importance to him.

  His forefinger rested lightly on the side of the trigger guard. He would

  not fire until the dik-dik came to a standstill. Even that walking pace

  would make the shot uncertain. He had to place his bullet precisely, to

  kill swiftly but at the same time to inflict the least possible damage

  to the skin.

  To this end he had loaded the Rigby with full metal jacket bullets -

  ones that would not expand on impact and open a wide wound channel, nor

  rip out a gaping hole in the coat as they exited. These solid bullets

  would punch a tiny hole the size of a pencil that the taxidermist at the

  museum would be able to repair invisibly.

  He felt his nerves screwing up as he realized that the dik-dik was not

  going to stop in the open. It made steadily for the thick scrub on the

  far side of the clearing. This might be his last chance. He fought the

  temptation to take the shot at the moving target, and it required an

  effort of will to lift his finger off the trigger again.

  The antelope reached the wall of thorn scrub -and, the moment before it

  disappeared, stopped abruptly and thrust its tiny head into the depths

  of one of the low bushes.

  Standing broadside to Nicholas, it began to nibble at the pate green

  tufts of new leaves. The head was screened, so he had to abandon his

  intention of going for that shot.

  However, the shoulder was exposed. He could make out the clear outline

  of the blade beneath the glossy red-brown skin. The dik-dik was angled

  slightly away from him, in the perfect position for the heart shot,

  tucked in low behind the shoulder.

  Unhurriedly he settled the reticule of the scope on the precise spot,

  and squeezed the trigger.

  The shot whip-cracked in the heavy heated air and the tiny antelope

  bounded high, coming down to touch the earth already at a full run. Like

  a rapier rather than a cutlass, the solid bullet had not struck with

  sufficient shock to knock the dik-dik over. Head down, the dik-dik

  dashed away in the typical frantic reaction to a bullet through the

  heart. It was dead already, running only on the last dregs of oxygen in

  its bloodstream.

  "Oh, no! Not that way," Nicholas cried as he jumped to his feet. The

  tiny creature was racing straight towards the lip of the cliff. Blindly

  leaped out into empty space and flipped into a somersault as it fell,

  dropping from their sight, down almost two hundred feet into the chasm

  of the Dandera river.

  "That was a filthy bit of luck." Nicholas jumped over the bush that had

  hidden them and ran to the rim of the chasm. Royan followed him and the

  two of them stood peering down into the giddy void.

  "There it is!" She pointed, and he nodded. "Yes, I can see it."

  The carcass lay directly below them, caught on an islet of rock in the

  middle of the stream.

  "What are you going to do?" she asked.

  "I'll have to go down and get it." He straightened up and stepped back

  from the brink. "Fortunately it's still early.

  We have plenty of time to get the job done before dark.

  I'll have to go back to camp to fetch the rope and to get some help."

  It was afternoon before they returned, panied by Boris, both his

  trackers and two of the skinners. They brought with them four coils of

  nylon rope.

  Nicholas leaned out over the cliff and grunted with relief "Well, the

  carcass is still down there. I had visions of it being washed away." He

  supervised the trackers as they uncoiled the rope and laid it out down

  the length of the clearing.

  "We will need two coils of it to get down to the bottom he estimated

  and joined them, painstakingly tying and checking the knot himself. Then

  he plumbed the drop, lowering the end of the rope down the cliff until

  it touch the surface of the water, and then hauling it back and

  measuring it between the spread of his arms.

  "Thirty fathoms. One hundred and eighty feet. I won't be able to climb

  back that high," he told Boris. "You and your gang will have to haul me

  back up."

  He anchored the rope end with a bowline to the hole of one of the wiry

  thorn trees. Then he again tested it meticulously, getting all four of

  the trackers and skinners to heave on it with their combined weight.

  "That should do it," he gave his opinion as he stripped to his shirt and

  khaki shorts and pulled off his chukka boots. On the tip of the cliff he

  leaned out backwards with the rope draped over his shoulder and the tail

  brought back between his legs in the classic. absed style.

  "Coming in on a wing and a prayerP he said, and jumped out backwards

  into the chasm. He controlled his fall by allowing the rope to pay out

  over his shoulder, braking with the turn over his thigh, swinging like a

  pendulum and kicking himself off the rock wall with both feet. He went

  down swiftly until his feet dangled into the rush of water, and the

  current pushed him into a spin on the end of the rope. He was a few

  yards short of the spur of rock on which the dead dik-dik lay, and he,

  was forced to let himself drop into the river. With the end of the rope

  held between his teeth he swam the last short distance with a furious

  overarm crawl, just beating the current's attempt to sweep him away

  downstream.

  He dragged himself up on to the island and took a few moments to catch

  his breath, before he could admire the beautiful little creature he had

  killed. He felt the familiar melancholy and guilt as he stroked the

  glossy hide and examined the perfect head with the extraordinary

  proboscis. However, there was no time now for regrets, nor for the

  searching of his hunter's conscience.

  He trussed up
the dik-dik, tying all four of its legs together securely,

  then he stepped back and looked up. He could see Boris's face peering

  down at him.

  "Haul it up!" he shouted, and gave three yanks on the rope as the agreed

  signal. The trackers were hidden from his view, but the slack in the

  rope was taken up and then the dik-dik lifted clear of the island and

  rose jerkily up the wall of the chasm. Nicholas watched it anxiously.

  There was a moment when the rope seemed to snag when the carcass was

  two-thirds of the way to the top, but then it freed itself and snaked on

  up the cliff.

  Eventually the dik-dik disappeared from his sight, and there was a long

  delay until the rope end dropped back over the tip. Boris had been

  sensible enough to weight it with a round stone the size of a man's

  head, and he was hanging over the top of the cliff, watching its

  progress and signalling to his men to control the descent.

  When the end of the weighted line touched the surface of the water it

  was just out of Nicholas's reach. From the top of the cliff Boris began

  to swing the line until the end of it pendulumed close enough for

  Nicholas to grab it.

  With a bowline knot Nicholas tied a loop in the end of the line and

  slipped it under his armpits. Then he looked up at Boris.

  "Heave away!" he yelled, and tugged the dangling rope three times. The

  slack tightened and then he was lifted off his feet. He began to ascend

  in a series of spiralling jerks and heaves. As he rose, the belled wall

  of the chasm arched in to meet him, until he could fend off from the

  rock with his bare feet and stop himself spiralling at the end of the

  rope. He was fifty feet from the top of the cliff when suddenly he

  stopped abruptly, dangling helplessly against the rock face.

  "What's going on?" he shouted up at Boris.

  "Bloody rope has jammed," Boris yelled back. "Can you see where it is

  stuck?"

  Nicholas peered up and realized that the rope had rolled into a vertical

  crack in the face, probably the same one that had almost stopped the

  dik-dik reaching the top.

  However, his own weight was almost five times that of the little

  antelope, and had forced the rope much more deeply into the crack.

  He was suspended high in the air, with a drop of almost a hundred feet

  under him.

  "Try and swing yourself loose! Boris shouted down at him. Obediently,

  Nicholas kicked himself back and twisted on the rope to try and roll it

  clear. He worked until the sweat streamed down into his eyes and the

  rope had rubbed him raw under the arms.

  "No use," he shouted back at Boris. "Try to haul it out with brute

  force!

  There was a pause, and then he saw the rope above the crack tighten like

  a bar of iron as five strong men hauled on the top end with all their

  strength. He could hear the trackers chanting their working chorus as

  they threw all their combined weight on the line.

  His end of the line did not budge. It was a solid jam, and he knew then

  that they were not going to clear it. He looked down. The surface of the

  water seemed much further than a hundred feet below.

  "The terminal velocity of the human body is one hundred and fifty miles

  an hour," he reminded himself. At that speed the water would be like

  concrete. "I won't be going that fast when I hit, will I? he tried to

  reassure himself.

  He looked up again. The men on the top of the cliff were still hauling

  with all their weight and strength. At that moment one of the strands of

  the nylon rope sheared against the cutting edge of the rock crack, and

  began to uncurl like a long green worm.

  "Stop pulling!" Nicholas screamed. "Vast heaving!" But Boris was no

  longer in sight. He was helping his trackers, adding his weight to the

  pull.

  The second strand of the rope parted and unravelled.

  There was only a single strand holding him now.

  It was going to go at any moment, he realized. "Boris, you ham-fisted

  bastard, stop pulling!" But his voice never reached the Russian, and

  with a pop like a champagne cork the third and final strand of the rope

  parted.

  He plunged downwards, with the loose end of the severed rope fluttering

  above his head. Flinging both arms straight upwards over his head to

  stabilize his flight, he straightened his legs, arrowing his body to hit

  feet first.

  He thought about the island under him. Would he miss its red rock fangs

  or would he smash into it and shatter every bone in his lower body? He

  dared not look down to judge it in case he destabilized - his fall and

  tumbled in midair. If he hit the water flat it would crush his ribs or

  snap his spine.

  His guts seemed to be forced into his throat by the speed of his fall,

  and he drew one last breath as he hit the surface feet first. The force

  of it was stunning. It was transmitted up his spine into the back of his

  skull, so that his teeth cracked against each other and bright lights

  starred his vision. The river swallowed him under. He went down deep,

  but he was still moving so fast when he hit the rocky bottom that his

  legs were jarred to the hips. He felt his knees buckle under the strain,

  and he thought that both his legs had been broken.

  The impact drove the air out of his lungs, and it was only when he

  kicked off the bottom, desperate for air, that -he realized with a rush

  of relief that both his legs were still intact. He broke out through the

  surface, wheezing an coughing, and realized that he must have missed the

  island by only the length of his body. However, by now the current had

  carried him well clear of it.

  He trod water on the racing stream, shook the water from his eyes and

  looked around him swiftly. The walls of the chasm were streaming past

  him, and he estimated his speed at around ten knots - fast enough to

  break bone if he hit a rock. As he thought it, another small island

  flashed past him almost close enough to touch. He rolled on to his back

  and thrust both feet out ahead of him, ready to fend off should he be

  thrown on to another outcrop.

  "You are in for the whole ride, he told himself grimly.

  "There is only one way out, and that is to ride it to the bottom."

  He was trying to calculate how far he was above the point where the

  river debauched from the chasm through the pink stone archway, how far

  he still had to swim.

  "Three or four miles, at the least, and the river falls almost a

  thousand feet. There are bound to be rapids and probably waterfalls

  ahead," he decided. "From here it does not look good. I' say the betting

  is three to one against getting through without leaving some skin and

  meat on the rocks behind you."

  He looked up. The walls canted in from each side, so that at places they

  almost met directly over his head. There was only a narrow strip of blue

  sky showing, and the depths were gloomy and dank. Over the ages the

  river had scoured the rock as it cut its way through.

  "Damned lucky this is the dry season. What is it like down in here in

  the rainy season?" he won
dered. He looked up at the high-water mark

  etched on the rock fifteen or twenty feet above his head.

  Shuddering at the image he looked down again, concentrating on the river

  ahead. He had his breath back by now, and he checked his body for any

  damage. With relief he decided that, apart from some bruising and what

  felt like a sprained knee, he was unhurt. All his limbs were responding,

  and when he swam a few strokes to one side to avoid another spur of

  rock, even the sore knee worked well enough to get him out of trouble.

  Gradually he became aware of a new sound in the canyon. It was a dull

  roar, growing stronger as he sped onward down The walls of the chasm

  converged upon each other, the gut of rock narrowed and the flood seemed

  to accelerate as it was squeezed in and confined. The sound of water

  built up rapidly into a thunder that reverberated in the canyon.

  Nicholas rolled over and swam with all his strength across the current

  until he reached the nearest rock wall.

  He tried to find a handhold, a place where he could anchor himself, but

  the rock was polished smooth by the river. It slipped past under his

  desperately grasping hands, and the river bellowed in his head. He saw

  the surface around him flatten out and smooth like solid glass. Like a

  horse laying back its ears as it gathers itself for a jump, the river

  had sensed what lay ahead.

  Nicholas pushed himself away from the rock wall to try and give himself

  room in which to manoeuvre, and pointed his feet once more down river.

  Abruptly the air opened under him and he was launched out into space.

  All around him white spurning water filled the air, and he was swirled

  off balance and tossed like a leaf in the torrent The drop seemed to

  last for ever, and his stomach swooped against his ribs. Then once more

  he struck with all his weight and was driven far below the surface.

  He fought his way up and abruptly burst out through the surface with his

  breathing whistling up his throat.

  Through streaming eyes he saw that he was caught up in the bowl of

  swirling water below the falls. The waters revolved and eddied, turning

  in a stately minuet upon themselves.

  As he turned, he saw first the high sheet of white water of the falls

  down which he had tumbled, and then still turning, the narrow exit from

  the basin through which the river resumed its mad career downstream. But

  for the moment he was safe and quiet here in the back-eddy below the