Then she leaned back in the sling, hanging on with only her left hand,
as she groped for Nicholas's binoculars which hung from their strap on
to her chest. She was twisted at an awkward angle as she held the
glasses to her eyes and tried to manipulate the focus wheel with one
hand. He saw that she was obviously having difficulty picking up the
round mark on the wall and keeping it in the field of the lens, for the
sling was swinging from side to side and at the same time revolving
slowly.
She struggled at the end of the rope for what seemed to Nicholas a very
long time, but probably was no more than a few minutes. Then abruptly
she dropped the binoculars on to her chest, threw back her head and let
out a scream that, despite the roar of falling water, carried clearly to
Nicholas a hundred feet beneath her. She was kicking her legs joyfully
and waving her free hand at him, wild with excitement, as Aly began
paying out the rope once more. Still screaming incoherently, she was
looking down at him with a face that seemed to light up the cathedral
gloom of the gorge.
'I can't hear you,' he yelled back, but the falls defeated both their
efforts to communicate.
Royan was wriggling about in her seat, shouting and gesticulating
wildly, and now she let go the harness with her other hand and leaned
further out to keep him in sight as the sling revolved. She was still
twenty feet above the water when she almost lost her balance entirely,
and very nearly toppled backwards out of the sling.
'Careful there,' he yelled up at her. 'Those glasses are Zeiss. Two
thousand quid at the Zurich duty-free!'
IC
This time his vo' must have carried, for she stuck her tongue out at
him in a schoolgirlish gesture. But her movements became more
circumspect. When her feet were almost touching the water she signalled
on the rope to stop her descent and hung there, fifty feet across the
pool from him.
'What did you find?' he shouted across.
'You were right, you wonderful man!'
'Is it man-made? Is it an inscription? Could you read it?, 'Yes, yes and
yes to all three of your questions! She grinned triumphantly as she
teased him.
'Don't be infuriating. Tell me.'
'Taita's ego got the better of him once again. He couldn't resist
signing his work.' She laughed. 'He has left us his autograph - the hawk
with a broken wing!'
'Marvellous! Plain bloody marvelous!the exalted.
'Proof that Taita was here, Nicky. To carve that cartouche, he must have
been standing on a scaffolding.
Our first guess was right. That niche you are holding on to is part of
his ladder to the bottom of the gorge.'
'Yes, but why, Royan?' he yelled back at her. 'Why was Taita down here?
There is no evidence of any excavation or building work.'
They both looked around the gloomy cavern. Apart from the tiny rows of
niches, the walls were unbroken, smooth and inscrutable until they
