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
falls. The current pushed him against the side of the basin, close in
beneath the chute of the falls. He reached out and found a handhold on a
clump of mossy fern growing out of a crack in the wall.
Here, at last, he had a chance to rest and consider his position. It did
not take him long, however, to realize that his only way out of the
chasm was to follow the course of the river and to take his chances with
whatever lay downstream. He could expect rapids, if not another set of
falls like this one that thundered away close beside him.
If only there were some way up the wall! He looked up, but his spirits
quailed as he considered the overhang that formed a cathedral roof high
above him.
While he still stared upwards, something caught his eye. Something too
regular and regimented to be natural.
There was a double row of dark marks running vertically up the wall of
rock, beginning at the surface of the water and climbing up the wall to
the rim almost two hundred feet overhead. He relinquished his hold on
the clump of fern and dog-paddled slowly down to where these marks
reached the water.
As he reached them he realized that they were niches, cut about four
inches square into the wall. The two rows were twice the spread of his
arms apart, and the niche in one row lined up in the horizontal plane
exactly with its neighbour in the second row.
Thrusting his hand into the nearest opening, he found that it was deep
enough to accommodate his arm to the elbow. This opening, being below
the flood level of the waters, was smoothed and worn, but when he looked
to those higher up the wall, above the water mark, he saw that they had
retained their shape much more clearly. The edges were sharp and square.
'My word, how old are they to have been worn like that?' he marvelled.
