'I remember,' she agreed. 'You said the pressure into the underwater
opening was too great, and that we would have to find another method of
getting in there.'
'Correct.' Nicholas smiled mysteriously. 'Well, Sapper here has already
earned the exorbitant fee that I have promised him - promised, I
emphasize, not yet paid. He has come up with the alternative method.'
Now she too became serious and unfolded her legs.
She placed both feet on the floor and leaned forward attentively, with
her elbows on her knees and her chin cupped in her hands.
'It must have been all those brains of his that pushed out his hair. I
mean, it's very neat thinking. Although it was staring us both in the
face, neither you nor I thought of it.'
Stop it, Nicky,' she told him ominously, 'you are doing it again.'
'I am going to give you a clue.' He ignored the warning and went on
teasing her blithely. 'Sometimes the old ways are the best. That's the
'if you are so clever, how come you aren't famous?' she began, and then
broke off as the solution occurred to her.
'The old ways? You mean, the same way as Taita did it?
The same way he reached the bottom of the pool without the benefit of
diving equipment?'
'By George! I think she's got itV Nicholas put on a convincing Rex
Harrison imitation.
'A dam.' Royan clapped her hands. 'You propose to redam. the river at
the same place where Taita built his dam four thousand years ago.'
'She's got it Nicholas laughed. 'No flies on our girl!
Show her your drawings, Sapper.'
Sapper Webb made no attempt to disguise his selfsatisfaction as he went
to the board that stood against the facing wall. Royan had noticed it,
but had paid no attention to it, until now he pulled away the cover and
proudly displayed the illustrations that were pegged to it.
She recognized immediately the enlargements of the photographs that
Nicholas had taken at the putative site of Taita's.dam on the Dandera
river, and others that he had taken in the ancient quarry that Tamre had
shown them. These had been liberally adorned with calculations and lines
in thick black marker pen.
'The major has provided me with estimates of the dimensions of the river
bed at this point, and he has also calculated the height that we will
have to raise the wall to induce a flow down the former course. I have,
of course, allowed for errors in these calculations. Even if these
errors are in the region of thirty percent, I believe that the project
is still feasible with the very limited equipment we will have available
to us.'
'If the ancient Egyptians could do it, it will be a breeze for you,
Sapper.'
'Kind of you to say so, major, but 'breeze' is not the word I would have
chosen.'
He turned to the drawings pegged beside the photographs on the board,
and Royan saw that they were plans and elevations of the project based
upon the photographs and Nicholas's estimates.
'There are a number of different methods of dam construction, but these
