Tala came thrusting forward. He shone his very powerful torch through the hole and on to the bricks. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Old bricks. Very, very old. Tala see bricks like this before. Tala’s father dig them deep, deep down.’
‘Whew!’ said Jack, startled. ‘It looks as if this, then, might be a place where people long, long ago built tombs for their kings or queens. They were big places, weren’t they? – deep underground – with passages leading to them.’
‘We’d better read a few pages of those books of Mr Uma’s, in the boat,’ said Philip. ‘Let’s go back and see if we can’t find out something about this place – surely that great waterfall must be marked, for instance.’
Tala squeezed into the hole, and struck the nearby bricks hard with the flat of his hand. To the boys’ utter amazement they collapsed into dust!
‘Tala clever! Tala see father do same, Tala remember!’ said Tala triumphantly. ‘Ai, Ai! Now what you do, Oola, son of a monkey!’
Oola had pushed Tala roughly aside and had squeezed past him, taking Tala’s breath away. He leapt through the broken wall and stood beyond, flashing Tala’s powerful torch.
‘Here, here! A road is here!’ he called, in excitement. ‘Oola go!’
‘Come back, you idiot!’ yelled Philip. ‘Don’t get separated from us. OOLA, come back!’
Oola had already disappeared, but came back at once. ‘Oola here, boss,’ he said, in a subdued voice. Philip looked at him sternly, and then he and Jack also got through the hole in the wall, followed by the others.
Yes. Oola was right. Here was an underground way. Was it a passage made down to some old tombs? Had anyone else found it? Perhaps it was an underground cellar to some temple – or palace?
‘Come on – let’s go down it,’ said Jack. ‘This is too exciting for words. Keep together, everyone. Kiki, stop dancing about on my shoulder. Your feathers tickle. Keep still!’
‘Keep still!’ repeated Kiki at the top of her voice. ‘KEEP STILL!’
Then everyone suddenly stopped in fright. An enormous giant-like voice echoed all round them. ‘Keepstillkeepstill-KEEPSTILLKEEPSTILL.’
Lucy-Ann clutched at Dinah and made her still more scared. Jack was startled at first and then laughed – and immediately his laugh ran round and round, and came back to him, eerie and scornful. ‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha . . .’
‘Oh dear – it’s only an echo,’ said Jack, lowering his voice so that the echo could not so easily catch it. ‘It made me jump out of my skin. It’s shut Kiki up all right!’
But at that moment Kiki lifted her head and let out one of her cackles of laughter – and immediately everyone closed their ears in horror. The echo came at once, sounding like a hundred jeering giants laughing together.
‘For goodness’ sake, Kiki!’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘Don’t do that any more!’
‘Come on,’ said Jack. ‘Are we all here? Where’s Oola?’
But Oola had gone. There was no sign of him.
‘Blow him!’ said Jack. ‘Where is he? We simply must keep together!’
‘Together!’ shouted the echo. ‘Together!’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Jack, angrily, and back came the echo. ‘Shutupshutupshutup.’
Oola came into sight behind a rock. He was terribly scared of the echo, for he had never in his life heard one before. ‘Come on, Oola,’ said Philip, not unkindly. ‘Keep close to me. I won’t let the echo eat you!’
They made their way down the sloping passage. It was quite empty. The walls were of brick, and here and there an archway of brick had also been made.
‘Mud bricks,’ said Jack. ‘Not quite the same shape as ours – more the shape of long loaves of bread with rounded tops. Hallo – here’s a big door. Can we get through? I expect it is locked.’
Thousands of years ago it had not only been locked but sealed too, for the old seal still hung there, waiting to fall into dust. Jack pushed the great carved door gently – and to his horror it fell into fragments, giving a little sigh as it went. It was absolutely rotten!
What was beyond? Philip flashed his torch and saw only a blank wall of rock. Then the light picked out something else – a flight of steps going down into the earth – down, down, down!
By this time the little company was so excited that nothing could stop them continuing their way underground! ‘Come on – let’s go down!’ said Philip, and put his foot on the first step. ‘Everybody here? Follow carefully – it’s jolly steep. Talk about an adventure – this is the best one we’ve ever had!’
22
The mystery is solved
Before Philip could go down to the second step, someone pushed roughly past him, almost making him fall. Oola’s voice cried out loudly.
‘No, boss, no. Danger here, boss. Oola go first, boss. Oola go first!’
And Oola began to climb down before Philip could even grab at him. ‘Come back!’ yelled Philip, really angry. ‘You hear me, Oola? Come back! What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Ai! Ai!’ came a doleful yell, and there was suddenly the sound of a series of thuds. ‘Ai! Ai!’
‘He’s fallen,’ said Jack, in alarm. ‘Gosh, isn’t he a little idiot! These steps may be as rotten as that gate! Now what are we to do?’
Tala called out. ‘Tala go get rope. Rope in boat. Tala go now.’
There didn’t seem anything else to be done about it. Philip yelled down to Oola.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Oola not hurt. Bump-bump-bump! Oola climb up again, boss!’
‘Don’t try! You may fall even farther next time!’ shouted Philip.
‘Gosh – he certainly saved you from falling, Philip,’ said Jack. ‘You’d have gone down with a crash. We were idiots not to think of that.’
‘Let’s sit down while we wait for Tala,’ said Dinah. ‘Poor Kiki – you don’t like all this, do you? You’ve lost your tongue!’
They talked as they waited for Tala. They were all quite determined to go on. For one thing, they had to find a way out, that was certain. Jack wanted to go back up the passage to see if it led to the open air far above them. But Philip firmly said no.
‘That would be idiotic just now,’ he said. ‘We’d be properly separated then . . . Oola down there – Tala gone to the boat – and us exploring somewhere else. The main thing at the moment is not to lose touch with one another. Ah – is this Tala? Good old Tala, he deserves a medal!’
It was Tala, with a rope from the boat. He had also brought a grappling hook, which was very sensible of him.
‘Rope coming down now, Oola!’ shouted Philip. Tala forced the great hook into a jutting-out piece of rock. He tied the rope to it, and he and Philip let the thin, very strong rope run down the old steps. Oola, down below, felt it slithering against him, and caught the rope in his two hands. With Tala and Philip pulling, and his own efforts at climbing, he was soon at the top.
‘Well, thanks for falling down instead of me,’ said Philip, clapping him on the back. ‘But don’t do it again.’
‘Oola guard boss,’ was all that the small boy had to say. Philip turned and spoke to the others.
‘Well, now that we’ve talked over everything, we are all agreed that the best thing to do is to go back to the boat and have a meal and a rest. What’s the time? Half-past six – gosh, no, it’s half-past eight! Would you believe it!’
‘Half-past eight at night?’ said Lucy-Ann, and she looked at her own watch to make sure. ‘Yes, so it is. Well, when it’s as dark as this all the time, it’s difficult to know what the time is!’
‘We’d better have a meal, and a night’s sleep, not just a rest,’ said Jack. ‘We’ll all feel fresh in the morning. Then what do we do, Philip?’
‘We have a good breakfast – we study the books up there in the boat, in case we can find out anything about this place, and get some idea whereabouts we are,’ said Philip. ‘Then we tie ropes round our waists, we each make up a fat parcel of food and we start off.’
‘Right, boss,’ sai
d Jack, and made everyone laugh.
‘Anyone think of anything else?’ asked Philip. Nobody did, so the little party started off back to the boat. Through the hole in the wall, back through the watery tunnel, and lo and behold, there was the boat, rocking very gently on the big pool just off the gorge.
They all had a meal, and Kiki ate so much that she began to hiccup.
‘Hiccup! Pardon! Hiccup! Pardon! Go in the corner!’
‘Yes, that’s where you ought to go,’ said Jack. ‘Greedy bird. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
‘Let’s get those books now and have a look at them,’ said Dinah, when they had finished their meal. ‘I’m not a bit sleepy. I feel awfully excited, really. I just wish we could be sure that Mother and Bill are all right.’
‘I don’t think we need worry too much, seeing that Bill is there,’ said Jack. ‘He’s come through tougher spots than this. I think Uma has put them both carefully in hiding somewhere while he finishes whatever hush-hush affair he’s on – something away in Cine-town, I’ve no doubt.’
‘Do you remember how he tried to pretend he was so interested in archaeology and old buildings and things like that?’ said Dinah. ‘He thought he would put Bill off the scent!’
‘Well, pretence or not, he’s got some jolly interesting books here,’ said Philip, who now had them all out on the deck, in front of him. ‘Here, take one each – and see if you can track down this River of Adventure in any map, if you can find one – it will be called River of Abencha, don’t forget.’
Neither Tala nor Oola took up a book. They did not feel confident about reading scholarly books of that sort – in fact, Oola could hardly read at all. They sat and lazed, feeling pleasantly full.
‘Here’s a map!’ said Dinah suddenly. ‘Oooh – a good one too. Look, it unfolds out of the inside cover of this big book. No wonder we didn’t find it before!’
They all looked at it. Jack gave an exclamation. ‘It shows the river – see – going all the way down the page. This is fine. “River of Abencha” – that’s the one. Now, let’s trace the villages we’ve called at.’
‘Here’s Ala-ou-iya,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘It’s such a pretty name, I think. And I like its meaning too – the Gateway of Kings!’
‘Yes – and here’s Ullabaid, where we went to see that temple, and the children were frightened by Philip’s snake,’ said Dinah, pointing.
‘And Chaldo, see – where that horrible Mr Uma kidnapped Bill and Mother,’ said Philip. ‘And where we took his motor-boat. And here’s Hoa, where we got the water and bread.’
They traced the river down the page, their fingers passing over the names of villages they did not know. They were looking for the village of Wooti, to which Uma had probably taken Bill and his wife.
‘Here it is,’ said Jack. ‘We did pass it then – look, it’s where the river begins to widen. We were in midstream then, and didn’t see it. Blow! We went right by it. Now see how the river widens in the map!’
They were following the curving river line with great interest. Philip gave an exclamation.
‘It does divide – look! I thought it did. See, it actually divides into three. One bit flows to the east, one goes on to the south – and the third one is only just a tiny line – that must be the one that narrows into the gorge we went into. Yes, it is.’
They all looked. The third leg of the river was called, quite simply, ‘Teo gra’, which, Tala explained, meant Deep Gorge, or Tunnel. It came to a very sudden end on the map. That seemed strange!
‘Funny! Where does the gorge water go to eventually?’ wondered Philip.
‘Underground, I should think,’ said Jack. ‘After all, it was pretty well underground already when we shot off into this cavern. After the waterfall it might be right underground. My word – I’m glad we didn’t go with it! We certainly should be right off the map too!’
‘Well, we’ve solved the mystery of the dividing river,’ said Philip, pleased. ‘Now let’s try and find out what underground cities or temples or tombs are near here. Are there any marked on this map?’
‘There aren’t,’ said Jack. ‘I tell you what – let’s look up Ala-ou-iya, Gateway of Kings, in some of these books. They might tell us something about the district round this curious gorge.’
They looked up Ala-ou-iya. Most of the books said exactly the same thing, to the effect that this part of the country was very rich in buried palaces and temples, and that only part had been excavated.
‘Listen to this,’ said Jack suddenly, and began to quote. ‘ “It is known that in the land around the strange and mysterious Deep Gorge there was once a most magnificent temple, far exceeding in beauty any other temple of that day (about seven thousand years ago). Excavations have continually been made, as it is likely that some of the greatest finds in the history of archaeology will be found here, and treasures beyond price. The temple was erected in honour of a well-loved goddess, and to her were brought gifts from kings and noblemen for many, many generations. These were probably placed in the underground compartments of the temple, and securely sealed. Whether robbers have been at work during the thousands of years since history lost sight of the temple is not known.” ’
‘I say!’ said Philip and Dinah together. ‘Is it true, do you think?’
‘Well – this is a very serious, solemn sort of book,’ said Jack. ‘I expect it doesn’t go in for fairy-tales – only for what is true, or what is likely to be true.’
‘What about that queer passage we found – and those steps leading downwards, through that old door?’ said Lucy-Ann, sounding quite out of breath with excitement. ‘Could we – could we possibly have found the way to some sort of old temple or palace, do you think – with the dust of thousands of years burying its ruins?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Jack. ‘After all – the entrance we found is not the usual one! I don’t expect anyone has ever gone into this cavern before – how could they? Nobody in their senses would ever go into the gorge in a boat. We wouldn’t have, either, if we’d studied a map and seen it marked.’
‘And another thing,’ said Dinah. ‘I bet this gorge wasn’t as deep as it is now, all those centuries ago. It must have been quite shallow then – it takes hundreds of years to make a deep gorge, cut right down into rock, like this one. I expect that all those thousands of years ago the gorge was quite shallow – perhaps not a gorge at all – and therefore our cavern entrance wouldn’t be almost above water, as it is now – it would be far away below it. Nobody could possibly get into it then.’
‘Dinah’s right,’ said Philip. ‘The river-bed would be higher than this cavern, in those far-off days. That means that we have found a way underground to any old ruined cities there are here, that nobody else has ever found!’
This was a very startling thought. They stared at one another, deeply excited. And then a loud noise made them jump. It was poor Tala, so tired that he was fast asleep and snoring, even in the midst of this truly exciting talk.
‘We’d better try to go to sleep too,’ said Jack, laughing. ‘Do you know it’s midnight now? Leave the ship’s lamp on, Philip. You can turn it down to a glimmer – but I’m sure we’d all feel happier if we had a night-light tonight!’
It wasn’t long before everyone was sound asleep, and the tiny glimmer of a light showed no movement at all in the boat, except when Philip’s snake slid out of his shirt and went scouting round to find something to eat.
It found nothing at all and had to return to the warmth of Philip’s shirt, still hungry. It settled down again – and after that there was nothing to be heard except quiet breathing – and the constant, menacing roar of the torrent outside the cavern.
23
An astounding sight
Dinah woke first and switched on her torch. A quarter to eight! Goodness! She awoke the others at once and they all sat up, yawning and stiff. Tala turned up the light in the ship’s lamp. He glanced round to see that everyone was all right.
‘
Ai! Ai!’ he cried. ‘Oola is gone!’
‘Gone! He can’t have gone!’ cried Philip – and, at that very moment, Oola came into the cavern from outside, dripping wet!
‘Where have you been?’ asked Philip sternly. ‘You are wet. Did you fall into the water? You cannot swim!’
‘No, boss. Oola not fall,’ said the boy. ‘Oola go to see waterfalling! Oola go to see wonderful thing.’
‘Well, I’m blessed!’ said Philip. ‘You little scamp! You might have been killed! How did you go?’
‘Oola show boss,’ said the boy eagerly. ‘Wonderful, wonderful! Boss come? Quite safe, boss!’
He ran along the ledge beside the water in the cavern, and stood at the opening. He turned and beckoned, his face shining. ‘Come, boss. Oola show you.’
‘Well, we’ll see what he means,’ said Jack, feeling a sudden surge of excitement. What a thing to see – that waterfall pouring down from the gorge, hurling itself over, and disappearing underground!
Oola had his torch, for although it was day very little light penetrated down between the tall narrow cliffs. Tala unhitched the ship’s lamp and took that along too, feeling the same excitement.
The roar of the waters increased tremendously as they came to the entrance. Outside was a broad rocky ledge, just above the level of the tumultuous water.
‘Follow Oola!’ cried the boy. ‘Safe, quite safe! Go higher soon.’
The spray from the water about three feet below them soon soaked them through. The ledge went steadily higher and was certainly broad enough to be quite safe.
Soon it had risen to about twelve feet above the water, and now the daylight was much stronger. The children snapped off their torches, and put them into their pockets.
The roar became louder and louder and beat painfully on their ear-drums. Oola led them onwards and up, and then stopped dramatically.
‘Here, boss!’ he shouted, his voice quite unheard in the din of waters. ‘River gone!’
The six gathered together on a little natural platform, and gazed down. The floor of the gorge came to an abrupt end just below them, and dropped in a sheer cliff of rock hundreds of feet down. Over this edge poured the swirling, tumultuous water in a mass of foam and froth and spray. It plunged down, and down, and down – nobody could see where it ended, for it went into utter darkness.