Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗

Uncoiling the second rope Vusamanzi cautiously climbed down the treacherous floor of the crack. The crack widened as it descended, and the roof receded into the gloom above their heads. It reminded Craig of the great gallery in the heart of Claeops" pyramid, a fearsome cleft through living rock, daAgerously steep, so they had to steady themselves with the rope at every pace. They had almost reached the limit of the rope, when Vusamanzi halted and stood tall on a tilted slab, lit by his own lantern, looking likea black Moses descended from the mountain.

"What is it?" Craig called.

"Come on down!" Tungata ordered, and Craig scrambled down the last slope and found Vusamanzi and the others perched on the rock slab peering over the ledge into the still surface of a subterranean lake.

"Now what?" Sally-Anne asked, her voice muted with awe of this deep and secret place.

The lake had filled the limestone shaft. Across the surface, a hundred and fifty feet away, the roof of the shaft dipped into it at the same angle as the floor on which they stood.

Craig used the flashlight that they had salvaged from the wrecked Cessna for the first time. He shone it into the water that had stood undisturbed through the ages so that all sediment had settled out of it, leaving it clear as a trout stream. They could see the inclined floor of the gallery sinking away at the same angle into the depths. Craig F ill switched off the flashlight, conserving the batteries.

"Well, Sam." Craig put one hand on his shoulder. "Here's sh." Tungata's chuckle was your big chance to swim likea ri brief and insincere, and they both looked at Vusamanzi.

"Where now, revered father?"

"When Taka-Taka came to these hills and my grander saved the king's body from defilement, father and my lath J there had been seven long terrible years of drought scorching the land. The level of the water in this shaft was much lower than it is now. Down there," Vusamanzi pointed into the limpid depths, "there is another branch in the rock. In that place they laid Lobengula s body. In the many years since then, good and plentiful rains have blessed the land, and each year the level of these waters has risen. The first time I visited this place, brought here by my father, the waters were below that pointed rock-" Briefly Craig switched on the flashlight and in its beam the splintered limestone lay thirty feet or more below the surface.

"But even then the king's grave was far below the surface."

"So you have never seen the grave with your own eyes?" Craig demanded.

"Never," Vusamanzi agreed. "But my father described it to met Craig knelt at the edge of the lake and put his hand into the water. It was so cold that he shivered and jerked his hand out. He dried it on his shirt, and when he looked up, Tungata was watching him with a quizzical expression.

"Now you just hold on there, my beloved Matabele brother," Craig said vehemently. "I know exactly what that look means and you can forget all about it."

"I cannot swim, Pupho my friend."

"Forget it," Craig advised him.

"We will tie one of the ropes around you. You can come to no harm."

"You know where you can put your ropes."

"The torch is waterproof, it will shine underwater," Tungata went on with equanimity.

"Christ! Craig said bitterly. "African rule number one: when all else fails, look around for the nearest white face."

"Do you remember how you swam across the Limpopo river for a ridiculous wager, a case of beer?" Tungata asked sweetly.

"That day I was drunk, now I'm sober." Craig looked at Sally-Anne for support and was disappointed.

"Not you al soP "There are crocs in the Limpopo, no crocs here she pointed out.

Slowly Craig beg4 nato unbutton his shirt, and Tungata smiled and began readying the rope. They all watched with interest while Craig unstrapped his leg and laid it carefully aside. He stood one-legged in his underpants at the edge of the pool while Tungata fastened the end of the rope around his waist.

"Pupho," Tungata said quietly, "you will need dry clothes afterwards. Why do you wish to wet these?"

"Sarah," Craig explained and glanced at her.

"She is Matabele. Nudity does not offend us."

"Leave him his secrets," Sarah smiled, "though I have none from him." And Craig remembered her nakedness in the water below the bridge. He sat on the edge of the rock slab and pulled off his underpants, tossing them on top of the heap of his clothing. Neither of the girls averted their eyes, and he slid into the water, gasping at the cold. He paddled out gently into the centre of the pool and trod water.

"Time me," he called back to them. "Give me a double tug on the rope every sixty seconds. At three minutes, pull me up regardless, okay?"

"Okay." Tungata had the coils of rope between his feet, ready to feed out.

Craig hung in the water and began to hyperventilate, pumping his lungs likea bellows, purging them of carbon dioxide. It was a dangerous trick, an inexperienced diver could black out from oxygen starvation before the build-up of CO, triggered the urge to breathe again. He grabbed a full lung and flipped his leg and lower body above the surface in a duck dive, and went down cleanly into the cold clear water.

Without a glass face-plate, his vision was grossly distorted, but he held the flashlight beam on the sharp pinnacle of limestone thirty feet below and went down swiftly, the pressure popping and squeaking in his ears.