Leopard Hunts in Darkness - Smith Wilbur (книга бесплатный формат .TXT) 📗
"Look out below!" Craig ducked under the surface, and the pole hit the water above him with a heavy splash.
Tungata clambered out of sight, and his voice came "Carefully, Pupho! The ladder is breaking up! back, Craig pulled himself out of the water, and sitting on the bottom rung strapped on his leg.
OW
God, that feels good." He patted it affectionately, and gave a few trial kicks.
"I'm coming up," he called.
He had not reached the halfway point when he felt the structure move under him and he flung himself upwards too violently.
One of the poles broke with a report likea musket shot, and the entire structure lurched sideways. Craig grabbed the side frame, just as three or four cross-rungs broke away under him and fell, hitting the water below with a resounding series of splashes. His legs were dangling in space, and every time he kicked for a foothold, he felt the timberwork sag dangerously.
"Pupho!" I'm stuck. I can't move or the whole bloody thing will come down."
"Wait!" A few seconds of silence and then Tungata's voice again. "Here's the rope. There is a loop in the end." it dropped six feet from him.
"Swing it left a little, Sam." The loop swung towards him.
"A little more! Lower, a little lower!" It dangled within reach.
"Hold hard! Craig made a lunge,4i it and got his arm through the loop.
"I'm coming on!" He released his hold on the side frame and swung free.
He was too weak to climb.
"Pull me up!" Slowly he was drawn upwards, and even in that dangerously exposed position, Craig appreciated the strength that it needed to lift a full-grown man this way- Without Tungata, he would never have made it.
He saw the glow of the lamp reflected off the walls of the shaft and getting closer, and then Sally-Anne's head peering over the edge of the platform at him.
"Not far now. Hold on!" He came level with the edge of the rock platform, and there was Tungata braced against the far wall, a loop of the rope over his back and shoulder, hauling doublehanded on the rope with the cords standing out in his throat and his mouth open, grunting with the effort. Craig hooked his elbow over the edge and then as Tungata heaved again he kicked wildly and wriggled over the edge on his belly.
It was many minutes before he could sit up and take an interest in his surroundings again. The four of them were huddled, shivering and sodden, on a canted platform of water-worn limestone, just large enough to accommodate them.
Above them, the vertical shaft continued upwards, disappearing into darkness, the walls smooth and unseal, able. The ladder work built by the old witch-doctors reached only as high as this platform. In the silence, Craig could hear the drip of water somewhere up there in the darkness and the squeak of bats disturbed by their voices and movements. Sally' Anne held the lamp high, but they could not make out the top of the shaft.
Craig looked about the ledge. It was about eight feet Hill wide, and then in the far wall he saw the entrance to a subsidiary branch of the tunnel, much lower and narrower than the main shaft, cutting into the rock on the horizontal.
"That looks like the only way to go," Sally' Anne whispered. "That's where the old witch, doctors were headed." Nobody replied. They were all exhausted by the climb and chilled to the bone.
"We should keep going!" Sally-Anne insisted, and Craig roused himself.
(Leave the bags and rope here." His voice was still hoarse and scratchy from the tear gas and he coughed painfully.
"We can come back for them when we need them." He did not trust himself to stand. He felt weak and unsteady and the black drop of the shaft was close at his side. He crawled on hands and knees to the opening in the far wall.
"Give me the lamp." Sally-Anne handed it to him and he crawled into the low entrance.
There was a passage beyond. After fifty feet the roof lifted so that he could rise into a crouch and, steadying himself against the wall with his free hand, go on a little faster. The others were following him. Another hundred feet, and he stooped through a last low natural doorway of stone and then stood to his full height. He looked about him with swiftly rising wonder. The others coming out of the opening behind him jostled him, but he hardly noticed it. He was so enraptured by his new surroundings.
They stood in a group, close together, as if to draw comfort and courage from each other, and they stared.
Their heads revolved slowly, craning upwards and from side to side.
"My God, it's beautiful," whispered Sally-Anne. She took the lamp from Craigi hand and lifted it high.
They had entered # cavern of lights, a cavern of crystal.
Over countless ages I the sugary crystalline calcium had been deposited by water seepage over the tall vaulted ceiling and down the walls. It had dripped onto the floor and solidified.
It had crafted marvelous sculptures in glittering iridescent light. On the walls there were traceries, like ancient Venetian lace, so delicate that the lamplight shone through them as though through precious porcelain. There r were cornices and pillars of monolithic splendour Joining the high roof to the floor, there were suspended marvels of rainbow colours shaped like the wings of angels in flight.
Huge spiked stalactites hung as menacingly as the bur rushed sword of Damocles, or as the white teeth in the upper jaw of a man-eating shark. Others suggested gigantic chandeliers, or the pipes of a celestial organ, while from the floor the stalagmites rose in serried ranks, platoons and squadrons of fantastic shapes, hooded monks dressed in cassocks Of mother-of-pearl, wolves and hunchbacks, heroes in gleaming armour, ballerinas and hobgoblins, graceful and grotesque, but all burning with a million tiny crystalline sparks in the lamplight.
