Descendants of the Scythians - Страница 6

“Oh, I’m amazed, Artem, I’m amazed at how perceptive you are! I haven’t uttered a word that could suggest that it was you I had in mind describing a rash young man. And you’ve been so quick in making the right guess. Bang — and there you are. Oh, yes, you are right in saying that you’ve found nothing, that you’ve trampled nothing into the ground, that you’ve violated nothing… except discipline. Yes, I grant you that. But what if you had found something? Wouldn’t you have acted in the way I’ve just described? Can you, my dear friend, be absolutely sure you woudn’t? Be honest now!”

“No, I’m not sure,” Artem had to admit.

“That means?”

“That means that it could have happened just the way you described. Or rather, I’m almost sure it would have happened that way.”

“I appreciate your honesty.”

“But, Dmitro Borisovich, I haven’t found anything, really, except, maybe for…”

Artem stopped mischievously. The archeologist looked up.

“Except for what?”

’’Except for this stone wall.”

“What?”

The archeologist sprang to his feet.

“Where? Which kind of stones?”

Artem pointed silently to the rough masonry and shone the lamp on it. Jagged outline of roughly hewn stones with barely visible joints emerged from darkness.

“The wall? Yes, that’s a wall, no mistaking it. The masonry probably dates back to antiquity,” Dmitro Borisovich muttered to himself, his excitement mounting as he ran his fingers over the stones. A profound change had come over him: he was a different man. His lecturing stance disappeared, and the quiet composure of an accomplished scholar was gone now! He alternately stood on tiptoe, squatted, leaned this way and that, examining the joints, and then, as if remembering something, he would step back suddenly to get an overall look at the stones, shining his lamp on them.

Artem looked at the archeologist at first with respect, then with bewilderment, and finally, in amazement, even mixed with scorn. After a while, the young man chuckled slyly and screwed up his eyes: his turn had come at last! He began speaking, carefully weighing the rhythm of his words:

“And now this overzealous, but no longer… er… young man has found something… or maybe somebody else has pointed out this ‘something’ to him. It doesn’t really matter. The main thing is — he has seen something interesting,” Artem went on, mimicking the archeologist’s mocking voice of a short while ago. “He is excited, this not very young, or rather quite elderly man. He examines the find, a wall, for instance. He touches it here and there, almost dancing in his archeological rapture. And note, that in his mindless dancing this elderly but overactive man tramples the ground all around the find, quite oblivious of the fact that in the ground there can be some very important… Ouch! Dmitro Borisovich! Please! I won’t do it any more! Just a little joke! Please!”

Artem was writhing in an attempt to free the ear that had suddenly been caught in the vice-like grip of the archeologist’s strong fingers.

“Dmitro Borisovich, I’ve stopped, you hear? Let go!”

“All right, I’ll forgive you, but only because you’ve shown me this wall. All the same, Artem, you’re much too impudent! How dare you mimic your elders? It’s not at all appropriate! Obviously, Ivan Semenovich hasn’t taught you anything about discipline. But in the present circumstances there are more important matters to discuss. This wall is quite extraordinary! Why don’t you tell me about it straight away? Why not? Answer me!”

“Dmitro Borisovich, it was you who kept talking, all I could do was keep my mouth shut and listen,” Artem said, carefully massaging his sore ear.

“Now you’ve got the cheek to blame me for not letting you talk?”

“No, it’s not that… just didn’t get the chance…”

“It’s no good, I repeat, no good. But we’ll talk about it later. Now, take the lamp and shine it over here.”

For some time Dmitro Borisovich ran his agile fingers along the joints between the stones. One was reminded of the sure, deft movements of a surgeon during an operation. At last, the archeologist whistled triumphantly, stopped his search and gave the young man a meaningful glance.

“Artem, this wall promises a lot of discoveries. I’m quite sure of it. Now we’ll try to get to the other side, just you and I. You’ve earned it. We’ll start in a moment!”

Artem held his breath — was this really happening to him? But the archeologist added:

“Before we do anything else, we must photograph the wall the way it is now. You can’t touch it before it’s photographed.”

Then, his composure restored, the archeologist prepared his small camera, equipped with a flash. After taking pictures from various angles, he approached the wall again.

“Now,” he said with satisfaction, “we can try to dig through it.”

Artem looked at the archeologist apprehensively:

“Dmitro Borisovich, you won’t be charged with having committed archeological sacrilege, will you?”

“Why should I be?”

“Well, they’ll say you’ve started digging through the wall without special permission. It was you yourself who told me that once.”

“Yes-yes-yes, I did tell you!” Dmitro Borisovich interrupted the young man. “What kind of archeologist would I be if I didn’t have a valid archeological license with me for the duration of the vacations?”

“What kind of license?”

“An authorization granted by the state to carry out any archeological excavations I see fit. See? And I’ve got the permit right here in my pocket. So now, young man, get your pickaxe ready,” ordered the archeologist curtly.

“Yes, sir. I’m not sure though I’ll be able to remove any of these stones. This mortar or whatever it is must have hardened into stone…”

“All right, we’ll see. Shove the pointed end under this stone…”

“And why this stone and not some other?”

“Do it first and we can talk later. Have you done it?”

“Yes.”

“Now use the pick as a lever and push the stone upward. Careful! Good. And I’ll get it from my end. Good. Careful! Push harder!”

The stone in fact yielded to their effort rather easily. Dmitro Borisovich must have examined the joints very thoroughly indeed…

“Now, don’t push too hard. Let’s lower it softly to the ground.”

They did it. A black hole opened in the wall. Dmitro Borisovich brought the lamp closer and looked in.

“See, Artem, there’s a hollow place behind it. There must be something just waiting for us to investigate it. Aha, I see you’re impatient to crawl through. That’s exactly what I was trying to warn you against. Not yet, wait. Let’s get another stone out. This one here.”

The second stone proved much harder to budge. The mortar had gotten so hard it made the stone impossible to move. The archeologist had to begin chipping the mortar with frequent well-aimed blows of his pick. At last, the second stone was placed beside the first one on the soft ground. Now the opening was wide enough to allow a man to crawl through.

“It’s not a very convenient entrance. But we’ll have to use it anyway. Here we go.”

In a trice, Dmitro Borisovich disappeared through the opening, holding the lamp out in front of him. Artem who was watching the archeologist’s movements with some apprehension, was very envious: the older man would be the first to see what was behind the mysterious wall. But the young man did not have to wait too long, for in a few seconds, from behind the wall came somewhat muffled voice of the archeologist:

“Artem, climb in, quick.”

Artem found himself in a low, shallow cave. He could easily reach the ceiling with his hand. A wall of roughly hewn stones separated it from the blind alley leading from the main cave. In all likelihood, the wall had been built by ancient people hundreds of years ago! But why there?

The wall sealed off the little cave from which, by the looks of it, there was no way to get any further. No openings, obvious or potential, were discovered. Could it be a sort of a burial vault? But again, nothing to support this theory was found. Nothing, except for a layer of century-old fine dust on the floor and protruding parts of the wall…

Dmitro Borisovich and Artem then began thoroughly examining all the walls of the cave in hope of finding some clue. There were carvings on the walls in other passages, weren’t there? So there was probably a chance of finding something similar here. But no, even a very thorough search failed to produce any carvings, pictures or other signs of human activity.

“No doubt we have here a natural recess walled off from the rest of the passage,” said the archeologist in a low voice. “It is absolutely clear this has been done for some specific purpose. So far so good. But what was the purpose? A storage place? Most unlikely, with all that dust here and nothing else.”

“Maybe someone was here before us and took everything there was to take away with him?” Artem put forward another theory.

“No, that’s absolutely out of the question. I’ve examined the stone wall very carefully and found no traces of it’s ever having been tampered with. Absolutely no signs or traces to suggest an earlier visit. Besides, would the robber take such great pains to put the stones back and mortar them? I don’t think your theory holds in view of this implausibility. Anyway, it’s inconceivable… Why should this empty hollow have been sealed off by a wall?…”