up it to the top of the cliff.
In that fraction of a second Nicholas saw a flash of steel'rimmed
spectacles under a maroon beret, and realized that the man nearest the
top of the cliff was Tuma Nogo.
Then Nogo succeeded in reaching the top of the scaffolding and
disappeared over the top of the cliff. That one glance was all Nicholas
had time for before his log was plunged into the water-chute, gathering
speed until it was tearing downwards at a steeply canted angle. The
point dug in as it hit the surface of the pool at the bottom, and the
log almost pole-vaulted end over end, but Nicholas clung on to his
handholds, and gradually it righted itself.
For a few moments the log was stalled in the vortex below the falls, but
almost at once, the current grabbed it again and it gathered speed,
bearing away down the length of Taita's pool as ponderously as a wooden
man-'-war.
Nicholas had a second of respite in which to look around the basin of
Taita's pool. He saw at once that the entrance tunnel to the tomb was
entirely submerged and, judging by the water level up the cliff wall, it
was already fifty feet or more beneath the surface. He felt a leap of
triumph. The tomb was once more protected from the depredations of any
other grave-robber.
Then he looked up the battered remnants of the bamboo scaffolding skewed
down the cliff, torn half away from the ancient niches in the rock, -and
he saw the other man still clinging to the wreckage. He was twenty feet
above the water level, and seemed frozen there like a cat in the high
branches of a windswept tree.
At that moment Nicholas realized that his log was swinging in the grip
of the river, curling in towards the dangling scaffold. He was about to
try to steer it clear, when the man on the framework high above him
turned his head and looked down at him. Nicholas saw that he was a white
man, his face a pale blob in the gloom of the canyon, and a moment later
he recognized him with a stab of hatred through the chest.
'Helm!the exclaimed.'Jake Helm.'
He had an image of Tamre, the epileptic boy, crushed beneath the
rockfalls and of Tessay's burned and battered face. His outrage and
hatred surged. Instead of steering the log away from the scaffold, he
reversed his thrust and swung in towards the cliff. There was a
breathless interval when Nicholas thought he might miss, but at the last
moment the leading end of the log swung sharply and the point of it
crashed into the trailing end of the bamboo, hooking-on to it.
The log's weight and momentum were irresistible. The bamboo poles
crackled and snapped like dry kindling, and then the whole rickety
structure tore loose from the wall and came crashing down over the log.
Helm swung out overhead, then released his grip and dropped feet first
into the water close alongside the log. He went deep below the surface.
While he was under, Nicholas pulled himself up to sit astride the log
and grabbed a length of bamboo pole that had broken off the scaffolding
and was floating alongside.his perch.
The log was trapped in a back eddy of the swollen river, and now it
