he ever felt was when he was flung against the side wall of the
sink-hole, travelling as fast as the falling waters, and the bones of
his right shoulder shattered. He could not scream again through his
sodden lungs, but soon the pain faded into oblivion.
As his corpse was drawn swiftly through the subterranean shaft it became
mangled and 'dismembered on the jagged rock sides, and was no longer
recognizable as human.
17'
by the time it was discharged through the butterfly fountain on the far
side' of the mountain. From there the torn fragments were washed down
the diverted Dandera river to join, at last, the wider and more stately
waters of the Blue Nile.
he waters pouring through the gap in the dam i wall picked up the yellow
front-loader and tumbled it over the waterfall into the chasm as though
it were a child's toy. Nicholas had a glimpse of it in the air below
him. Even as he fell himself, he realized that if he had stayed with the
machine he would have been crushed beneath it. The huge machine struck
the surface of the pool in a fountain of white spray and disappeared,
Nicholas followed it down, falling free, even managing J11 to keep his
head uppermost, feet foremost, as he swooped I down the waterfall. The
flood that carried him cushioned his fall, so that instead of being
dashed against the exposed boulders at the bottom, he bounced and
tumbled in the racing torrent. He came to the surface fifty yards
downstream, tossed his wet hair out of his eyes and glanced around him
quickly.
The tractor was gone, swallowed deep into the pool at the foot of the
waterfall, but ahead of him was a small island of rock in the middle of
the river. With a dozen overarm strokes -he swam to it and clung to a
rocky spur.
>From there he looked up at the sheer walls of the chasm an remembered
the last time he had been trapped down here. The ation 'ie a felt at
the destruction of the dam and the flooding of Pharaoh's tomb
evaporated.
He knew that he would not be able to climb those slick, water-smoothed
cliffs that offered no handholds and which belled outwards in an
overhang over his head.
Instead he weighed the chances of working his way back upstream to the
foot of the falls. From here it looked as though there was some sort of
funnel or crevice up the east side of the chute which might offer a
ladderway to the top, but it would be a hard and dangerous climb.
The volume of water coming over the falls was not as heavy as he had
expected, considering the vast body of water that was being held back by
the dam. He realized then that the greater part of the wall of gabions
must still be in place and that this torrent was only the result of
water escaping through the narrow gap he had torn in the centre of the
wall. The remainin gabions must still be 9 holding in place under their
own weight. However, he realized that they could not hold much longer
and that the river must soon plough them aside and burst through in full
force. So he abandoned the idea of swimming back to the foot of the
falls.
