Far down below, strange lights danced and played, like little specks of rainbow, brilliant and glowing. It was a strange and magnificent sight, and nobody spoke a word as they stood and looked.
The spray flew so high that it fell on the platform of rock on which they stood, drenching them time and again. But nobody even felt it. They were nothing but eyes and ears, revelling in what must surely be one of the most astounding sights in the world!
The gorge itself went on and on – but there was no water in it beyond this spot – all the great torrent of river fell into this enormous fathomless hole, disappearing endlessly into the heart of the earth. That was the end of the river that ran through Teo Gra, the Deep Gorge.
‘Where does it go to?’ wondered Lucy-Ann, more awed than she had ever been in her life.
‘To think that our boat might have gone over this, if Tala hadn’t seen the cavern!’ thought Philip, and shivered to his very soul.
‘How beautiful!’ thought Dinah. ‘Those broken rainbows down there – I shall never forget them all my life long!’
‘Unbelievable!’ thought Jack. ‘Absolutely unbelievable!’
Tala thought it was time to go back. How long would these children stare and stare? He, Tala, was hungry, and water did not make a meal. He pulled gently at Jack’s sleeve.
Jack turned, startled. Tala put his mouth to Jack’s ear. ‘We go back? Yes?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Jack, though he could quite well have stayed there all day. He nudged Philip, and together they all made their way along the sloping ledge, back to the cavern.
They were silent for quite a while. ‘I feel as if I’d been to church,’ said Lucy-Ann, voicing what they were all feeling. ‘It was so – awe-inspiring, wasn’t it?’
Kiki had not liked the continual drenching spray, and had not seen anything of the waterfall at all. She had hidden herself under Jack’s cardigan, afraid of the noise and afraid of the spray. Now she was very glad indeed to be back in the boat, with a tin of pineapple being opened in front of her very eyes!
Breakfast was an unexpectedly hilarious meal. Everyone laughed a great deal, and Oola surpassed himself by laughing so much at Kiki that he actually fell over the side of the boat. Fortunately he fell on to the rocky ledge beside it.
They packed up as much food as possible when they had finished, and tied string round it, after wrapping it in old papers. Tala hung two tins of lime-juice round his neck, and Oola was also very well laden.
‘Now then – everybody got their torches? Everybody got their parcel of food? Everybody quite sure they will keep in touch with the one in front?’ said Jack.
‘Yes,’ answered everybody, Kiki too.
‘Got the ropes round your waist, Tala?’
‘Tala have rope,’ said Tala. ‘And hook. And Tala have trowel and fork!’
So he had, all tied with string somewhere about his person. He had wanted to take a spade too, but all the spades were heavy, and it didn’t seem possible to drag one about all the time, strong though Tala was.
‘You’re carrying as much as a camel,’ said Philip, with a laugh.
‘Oola carry like camel too,’ said Oola at once, jealous of any praise of Tala from his boss.
‘Oh, Oola carry like two camels!’ said Philip, and the plucky little boy was happy at once.
‘Well, I suppose it’s goodbye to this boat,’ said Philip, looking round it. He stopped and picked up something.
‘What’s that?’ asked Dinah.
‘Oh, just an idea of mine,’ said Philip. He tore a page or two out of one of Uma’s books and stuffed them into his pocket.
‘It’s some pages that Uma marked,’ he said. ‘If he thought them important enough to mark, we may as well take them. You never know – they might come in useful!’
They set off along the little ledge that ran alongside the water in the cavern. They came to the hole that had once been backed by the old brick wall, which Tala’s hand had touched and crumbled into dust.
They went through it and stood in the passageway. It was dark all around them, save for their torches.
‘We’d better just explore this passage upwards and make sure that we can get out that way, before we explore that exciting-looking flight of steps we found,’ said Jack. ‘I expect the passage leads to ground-level.’
‘I sincerely hope so!’ said Philip. ‘Though I have my doubts. Surely if there were a way out up there, other people would have found it and come in by it? Yet that sealed door that fell into bits was still in place.’
‘Yes – and that looks as if nobody had come down here since it was put there,’ said Dinah. ‘Well – let’s go on up!’
They went upwards, shining their torches into the darkness – but some way up the passage they came to a full stop. A wall of stone greeted them, built right across the passage.
This wall was not made of mud bricks that crumbled at a touch! It was made of solid blocks of stone, set in rows, one above the other. Now it was plain why no one had ever come that way! At some time someone must have ordered the stone wall to be built, to block up completely the entrance to whatever was below.
‘No good,’ said Philip, a little cold feeling gripping his heart. ‘No way out here. ‘We’d better go downwards again – to that old flight of steps. They may lead us somewhere!’
24
A Strange and wonderful find
Jack looked at Philip in the light of the torches. Philip pursed up his lips and put on a grim look – they were certainly up against things now! He nodded his head towards the girls, warning Jack not to frighten them. Jack nodded back.
They went down the passage to where the rotten old gate had been. They came to the flight of steps. Although these were of stone, the edges had crumbled badly, which was why Oola had slipped and fallen. Even so, he had not fallen right to the bottom!
‘Tala, you and Jack hold the end of the rope,’ said Philip, who had now taken command. ‘Send the other end down the steps – that’s right. Now, I’ll take hold of it and go down carefully, examining the steps, and counting them – and if I come to a rotten one I’ll shout up what number it is, so that when we all go down we can be extra careful when we come to that step.’
‘Good idea,’ said Jack. He and Tala held the rope firmly and Philip began to go down. Oola was prevented by Tala from pushing in front and going down first, or he would have done exactly the same as he had done before. He was very angry, but it was no good – he had to stay behind.
Philip went slowly and carefully down the steps, counting as he went. ‘One, two, three, four – number four is crumbling, Jack – five, six, seven, eight, nine – number nine is almost gone – ten, eleven . . .’
‘One, two, six, five, ten!’ shouted Kiki, thinking this was a number game. ‘One, two, good fat shoe, nine ten, buckle my hen, three four . . .’
‘Number fifteen is gone – and number sixteen,’ called Philip.
‘Four, nine, fifteen, sixteen,’ repeated Jack. ‘Shout louder, Philip – it’s difficult to hear you now you’re going down.’
‘Right,’ yelled back Philip, holding tightly to the rope, afraid of missing his footing. ‘These steps are jolly steep. You’ll all have to be careful!’ He went on calling up the numbers, but when he came to number thirty-nine they could hardly hear his voice. There had been so many missing or crumbling steps that Lucy-Ann had had to find a pencil in Jack’s pocket and scribble them down in his notebook.
‘I’m at the bottom now,’ yelled Philip.
‘WHAT?’ yelled Jack.
‘I’M – AT – THE – BOTTOM!’ yelled back Philip. ‘Let Dinah come next. BE CAREFUL!’
Dinah set off down the steps. The others heard her counting them, and when she came to a bad one they shouted a warning to her. But Dinah had them all in her memory. She managed very well indeed, holding hard on the rope. At last she was standing beside Philip.
Then came Lucy-Ann. She was more afraid than Dinah, and slipped at the fifteenth
step. But her hold on the rope saved her, and she soon recovered her balance.
Then Jack came, steady and sure of foot. It seemed a very long way down. The steps were very steep at times, and the hole down which they went was not very wide.
‘Now that’s us four here,’ said Philip, shining his torch. ‘Tala, send Oola down!’ he shouted.
But Tala came next instead. He explained that Oola wanted to come down last of all, and didn’t need the rope. He had sent it slithering down the steps after Tala had reached the bottom.
‘He’ll fall and break his leg,’ said Jack, vexed. ‘He’s a fathead!’
But even as he spoke Oola was beside them, grinning in the light of the torches. Now that he knew that so many steps were rotten, he had been careful. He was as surefooted as a cat in his bare feet.
‘Oola here, boss,’ he announced to Philip.
‘Now – where do we go from here?’ wondered Philip. He shone his torch in front of him. There was another passage there, narrower than the one above the steps. Its walls were made of the same kind of bricks they had seen before. The children did not dare to touch them in case they too fell into dust. There was something rather horrible about that!
They went along the passage, which sloped quite steeply downwards, and came to an archway, also built of bricks.
‘I suppose they kept making these archways in order to strengthen the roof of the passages,’ said Jack. ‘It’s amazing that some of them haven’t fallen in.’
‘I bet a lot of them have,’ said Dinah. ‘I hope nobody sneezes while we’re down here – I feel as if it might bring the roof crashing in on top of us.’
‘Don’t,’ said Lucy-Ann sharply. ‘I’m afraid of that too.’
The passage led them to a kind of room, almost round, with a great door at the farther end. The children stopped and flashed their torches round. In one corner was a curious heap of many things, and they went over to them.
But even as they came near, the sound of their footsteps disturbed the air enough to make the little heap crumble into dust! With small sighs it settled into a much smaller heap – but one thing still stood, solid and bright.
‘What is it?’ said Dinah, not daring to touch it. Very carefully Jack picked it up. It shone brightly.
‘A bowl!’ he said. A golden bowl! Set with stones, look, all round the edge. Gold is one of the things that never perishes, or loses its colour – and this bowl has lasted all through the centuries! Isn’t it lovely!’
They all looked at it in awe. How old was it? Three, four, five thousand years old? Who had used it? Who had carved these camels round it? It was beautiful!
‘This must be priceless,’ said Philip, in wonder. ‘It must have contained offerings to some god or goddess that the people of those days worshipped. My word – this is wonderful!’
‘Philip – do you think – is it possible that we’re near the lost temple of that well-loved goddess you read about in Uma’s book?’ asked Lucy-Ann.
‘I should think it’s quite possible,’ said Philip, running his hand round the bowl. ‘We may even now be getting near to the temple itself – or perhaps we are under it – and coming to the compartments beneath it where gifts were stored! My word – no, surely such a thing couldn’t really happen!’
‘It might – it might!’ said Dinah, excitement almost choking her voice.
Oola and Tala were most interested in the bowl, particularly Tala. ‘Gold!’ he said, tapping the bowl. ‘Tala know gold. This gold!’
‘Carry it, Tala,’ said Philip, ‘and don’t dare to drop it! Now, what about this door? It is sealed.’
Oola ran to it, and shook the great seal. It dropped into his hands! Philip went to the door and pushed at it. It suddenly sagged on its hinges and then fell away from them, hanging oddly sideways, leaving a gap big enough for everyone to climb through.
And now it was quite obvious that they were in some old and mighty building! Here were great rooms, stretching one into the other, some with doors that had crumbled, some with no doors at all.
‘They’re rather like great cellars,’ said Jack, as their torches shone down square compartments built of stone, and then on oblong ones, then on communicating passages. It was a vast labyrinth, and piled everywhere were strange heaps of unrecognizable things. Everything had perished except what was made of metal or stone.
‘Look – here’s a tiny statue, standing in a niche of its own,’ said Lucy-Ann, and she picked it up. It was carved out of some curious stone – most beautifully done, with every fold of the robes lovingly wrought. They all looked at it. How old was it? How many, many centuries ago had some craftsman toiled over it in delight for weeks or months? Who had brought it to the temple to give to the goddess? They would never know!
They began to examine some of the things set in heaps. Gold always stood out well, for its colour was unchanged – and there was much gold! Gold statues, gold bowls, gold combs, gold ear-rings, gold ornaments . . .
In one small square room there were swords, their hilts set with precious stones. What stones? Nobody knew! Jack picked up a dagger whose hilt was carved and ornamented with gold. ‘I’d like this!’ he said.
‘We can’t take anything!’ said Philip. ‘Except what we need in order to show the value of our discovery.’
‘Right. Then I’ll take this dagger,’ said Jack, and stuck it into his belt.
‘I’ll take this gold comb,’ said Dinah. ‘I’ll wear it in my hair!’
‘I’ll have this tiny statue,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I wish it really could be mine – it’s beautiful. But of course, these things can never belong to any one person – they belong to the whole world, because they are bits of real, long-ago history’
‘You’ve said exactly what I was thinking myself, Lucy-Ann,’ said Philip. ‘I’m taking along this cup – at least, I think it’s a cup. It’s gold – and look at the carvings of bulls all round it! Marvellous!’
They went on until at last they came to the end of the store-rooms. They felt quite bemused by the thousands of things they had seen! No robbers had been here, that was certain. Here were treasures that had been undisturbed through all the ages that had passed since they had been given to the goddess of the temple!
‘Boss, Oola wants sun,’ said Oola to Philip. ‘Oola doesn’t like dark. Doesn’t like this place.’
‘Well – I expect we all feel that we want a bit of sun,’ said Philip. ‘But has anyone seen a way upwards, a way out of these underground cellars? Ihaven’t!’
25
Is there a way out?
They had all been so interested and absorbed in the treasure they had found that they had quite forgotten their danger. Jack sat down on a stone seat. He sat down gingerly, half afraid it might crumble as did so many things in these store-rooms. But it was of stone, and bore his weight safely.
‘There must have been some way down to these storerooms,’ he said. ‘Two or three ways, I should have thought, because they’re so vast in extent. Anyone see any steps downwards?’
‘Only those we came in by,’ said Philip. ‘Maybe that was the only entrance.’
‘No. I should think that was a secret entrance, used by the priests,’ said Jack. ‘There must have been some more usual way into this place. I imagine that the temple itself was immediately overhead – it must have been an enormous place!’
‘Yes – but don’t run away with the idea that it’s there still, rising magnificently into the air!’ said Philip. ‘It was in ruins thousands of years ago, and other buildings may have been set above it, and yet others above them! We may be far down under the earth – and probably are. You read bits of those books in Uma’s boat, didn’t you? We are in a long-ago, lost, forgotten place, which we have happened on by chance.’
Everyone listened to this in silence. Lucy-Ann gave a little shiver. Long-ago – lost – forgotten – they were somehow sad, frightening words. It was strange too, to think that above their heads might be ruins of several other t
emples, also lost and forgotten.
‘I want to get out of here,’ said Lucy-Ann suddenly. ‘I feel frightened now.’
‘Let’s have something to eat,’ said Jack at once. Everyone always felt better after a meal, he had noticed – including Lucy-Ann, whose imagination was more vivid and sensitive than that of the others!
So they sat down in one of the temple store-rooms and enlivened the centuries-old silence by chatter and even laughter, for Kiki decided to join in the meal and the chattering too.
‘Where’s your hanky?’ she demanded of the surprised Tala. ‘Blow your nose! One, two, how do you do? Wipe your feet, knock-knock, who’s at the door? A-whoooooo-shoo!’
Her sneeze was so realistic that Tala and Oola stared in wonder. Then Kiki practised various kinds of hiccups, and Tala gave one of his guffaws, which echoed round and round the little stone chamber in a most remarkable way, quite silencing Kiki. It also disturbed a small, mouldering heap of things in a nearby corner, and they subsided with one of the odd little sighs that the children now knew so well.
‘There, Tala – see what your laugh has done,’ said Jack, pointing. ‘You’ll have the whole place down on our heads if you laugh as loudly as that!’
Tala was quite horrified. He gazed at the roof by the light of his torch as if he really thought it might be coming down. Oola gazed too. He was very silent, and obviously scared and unhappy. He kept very near to Philip.
Tala threw down the wrapping from his sandwiches. ‘No, don’t do that, Tala!’ said Jack at once. ‘Please pick that up! It’s a shame to litter up a place like this with modern newspapers!’
Tala picked up the paper, looking as if he thought that Jack was quite crazy. Philip felt about in his pocket, and pulled out the two or three pages he had torn out of one of Uma’s books – the ones on which Uma had made notes.