hold him up in the surfing position, and he glanced around him swiftly.
Floating near by, keeping pace with him in the flotsam of debris from
the dam, was one of the treetrunks that had formed part of the raft with
which Sapper had plugged the gap in the wall.
He steered across to this ponderous piece of timber. It was thirty feet
long and floated low in the flood, its back showing like that of a
whale. Its branches had been roughly hacked away by the axemen, and the
spikes that remained provided secure handholds. Nicholas pulled himself
up on he treetrunk, lying on his belly, facing downstream, to with his
legs still dangling in the water. Swiftly he recovered his breath and
felt his full strength returning.
Although it had smoothed out and lost its wave formation, the flood was
still tearing down the chasm at a tremendous pace. 'Still not much under
ten knots,' he estimated. 'When this lot hits Taita's pool, I pity von
Schiller and any of his uglies who are in the tomb. They are going to
stay in there for the next four thousand years.' He threw back his head
and laughed triumphantly.. 'It worked! Damn me to hell, if it didn't
work just the way I planned it.'
He stopped laughing abruptly as he felt the treetrunk veer across the
river towards one of the canyon walls.
'Oh, oh! More trouble.'
He rolled to one side of the treetrunk and kicked out strongly. His
ungainly vessel responded, swinging heavily across the current. It was
sluggish steering, not enough to avoid contact with the rock wall
entirely, but instead of striking full'on it was merely a glancing
collision that pushed him back again into the main flow of the current.
He was gaining confidence and expertise every moment, 'I can ride her
all the way down to the monastery!'
The AL
he exclaimed delightedly. 'At this rate of knots I might even get to the
boats before Sapper and Royan.'
Looking ahead, he recognized this stretch of the chasm that he was
hurtling through. -i@
'This is the bend above Taita's pool. Be there in another minute or two.
I expect the scaffolding has been washed away by now.' He pulled
himself as high on the log as he could without upsetting its balance,
and peered ahead, blinking the water out of his eyes. He saw the head of
the falls above Taita's pool racing towards him, and he braced himself
for the drop.
The long, smooth chute of racing water opened ahead of him, and the
moment before he flew down it he had a glimpse into the basin of rock
below it. He saw at once that his expectations had been premature. The
bamboo scaffolding had not been entirely washed away, although it was
badly damaged. The lowest section was gone, but the Upper part hung
drunkenly down the rock cliff, just touching the surface of the racing
waters. It was swaying and swinging loosely as the current snatched at
it, and incredulously he realized that there were at least two men
trapped
on the flimsy structure, clinging desperately to the ladderway of
lurching, clattering poles. Both of them were trying to claw their way
