Descendants of the Scythians - Страница 86

There was nothing else to do but hope they would not collapse for another minute, but, of course, they could give way under the immense weight of the other rocks pressing on them from above, any moment, either squashing the explorers or closing the gap.

“Quickly! Quickly! The rocks can fall in any moment!” Ivan Semenovich shouted.

But his friends hardly needed any urging. Dmitro Borisovich and Lida ran right behind the geologist, with Artem who carried the bag and a spear, bringing up the rear, Diana at his side. They raced as fast as their legs would carry them, jumping over big pieces of rock. Quickly!

A moment later they were inside the gap; they had disappeared into the darkness as though they had been swallowed up by it. They were not a moment too soon, as another party of priests had scrambled onto the ledge. Howling wildly and brandishing their weapons in a frenzy, they rushed after the strangers. But the latter had already made it through the gap into what turned out to be a cave. But which way should they go in this pitch-black darkness? The only source of light was the gap through which they had come in. And the enemy would be there in a few seconds! Ivan Semenovich was the first to stop as he ran smack into a stone wall, hurting his leg. It was impossible, quite impossible to move quickly in this utter darkness which seemed especially impenetrable after the light outside, subdued though it was. And the enemy would surely find some way of locating the explorers in the limited space of the cave!

Still out of breath after running, Ivan Semenovich said between gasps:

“Artem… give me… give me… the charges…”

“But 1 have only one left, Ivan Semenovich!”

“All right… give it to me… And all of you… move on… further away from the gap… I’ll stay behind for a while.”

“But…” Artem began to object, but was silenced by the angry and peremptory voice of the geologist who snapped: “Move on, I tell you! None of your lip! Move on!”

He snatched the charge from Artem’s hands, turned, and ran back toward the gap through which the voices of their pursuers could be already heard. Ivan Semenovich stopped, lit a match and put it to the fuse. As it began to smoke, the geologist looked back, but his friends were not to be seen in the blackness of the cave. Then, with a wide sweep of his arm, lie cast the charge into the gap. He followed it with his eyes as it flew — a little black thing with a tiny dot of fire at its end, then he turned and ran to catch up with his friends.

A few moments later the blast wave hit him in the back, almost knocking him down. He ran on under the impetus, stumbling against stones, and at last he tripped on a rock and fell.

The continuous thunder of crashing rocks filled the cave. The light that filtered through the gap, disappeared as the two gigantic stone slabs fell in the swirling billows of black smoke and dust; the gap was completely sealed with rocks falling from above, now that the slabs holding them back and supporting them were gone. A huge pile of stones grew at the place where only a short while ago, there had been a gaping crack.

The cave the explorers had found themselves in, was securely cut off the Scythian world. There was no more danger of being attacked by the priests. The deafening noise of the falling rocks subsided; only the reverberating echo could still be heard dying away, and an occasional stone clacking as it rolled down.

Soon everything grew absolutely still; not a sound could be heard from the outside either. An impenetrable darkness enveloped Ivan Semenovich.

He scrambled to his feet, wiped the sweat from his brow, and heaved a sigh of relief. But which way was he to go to join his friends?

It was quite futile to try to see anything in the darkness — he could not see his hand in front of his face. Where were his friends? Hopefully they were not hurt in the explosion or in the subsequent avalanche of rocks and stones.

Suddenly a bright white flame sprung up somewhere in the distance. It must be a miner’s lamp! Ivan Semenovich remembered Artem boasting he had managed to preserve one lamp through all their tribulations. So, if he still had it in the bag Ivan Semenovich had seen him running with, he must have lit it, good boy!

The light made it possible to see some of the surrounding rocks. Even the first look revealed they were not just the usual jagged pieces of stone — they were conical-shaped stalagmites rising from the floor of the cave. And yes, some gigantic stalactites could be discerned hanging from above! Another stalactite cavern? Or was it, by any chance, the same one they had come through before their fantastic adventures had begun?

Ivan Semenovich gazed about, but it was impossible to tell whether it was the same cave. In any case, it was a gigantic cavern, too, judging by what he could see in the feeble light. Great boulders and pieces of rock were piled at the place where the gap had been.

“Ivan Semenovich!” he heard Artem calling him. “Ivan Semenovich! Do you hear me? Are you all right? Where are you? Answer me!”

“I’m here! I can hear you, and I can see the light too,” he called back. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll join you in a minute.”

And the geologist smiled in the darkness, his first full smile of relief in a long time, and began walking towards the light of the lamp, climbing over rocks, going around the stalagmites; they were exactly like the ones they had seen in the other cave.

Diana almost swept him off his feet as she shot out from the darkness, jumping at him and licking his face.

“All right, all right, enough of that,” he said disentangling himself from the dog.

As the geologist came closer he saw Artem holding the lamp high in the air: it was tied to the spear — that was why the light reached so far. Now Artem lowered it as there was no need to light the way for the geologist.

Dmitro Borisovich looked very picturesque indeed! With a Scythian helmet on, he was holding his battle-axe in the hands. Good, no one was hurt, everybody was here. But why did they look so despondent, except, of course, for the ever- cheerful Diana?

“What’s wrong, my friends?” the geologist said. “Aren’t you happy we have escaped? We’ve left all the dangers behind — now the priests won’t be able to do us any harm, even with their arrows!”

His attempt at a joke did not make any impression on his friends. They looked as dejected as before.

“All right, what’s the matter?” he said rather sharply. “What has come over you? We have escaped certain death; you should be mad with joy! But you look as though… Dmitro Borisovich, tell me, what’s the matter?”

The archeologist shrugged his shoulders:

“Yes, we’ve escaped from the priests, that’s true. But what are we going to do next, Ivan Semenovich?”

“What do you mean, what are we going to do next?”

“Well, aren’t we sort of sealed off in some cave?” Artem cut in. “We don’t know where to go… if there is anywhere to go.”

“I don’t follow you, Artem,” Ivan Semenovich said with genuine surprise. “We’ve been extraordinarily lucky so far! We had just enough dynamite to delay the attack and then open and close a gap in the crags. We even have a lamp, a thing which none of us thought of carrying around, except you, Artem. If one considers what we’ve been through, it’s almost a miracle! And you whine and say ‘sealed off,’ ‘nowhere to go’! We have not even started looking for the way out!”

Dmitro Borisovich said hesitantly, glancing inquiringly at the geologist:

“Yes… to look for the way out… But which direction are we to choose? It’s impossible to decide which way to go. We don’t know anything about this cavern. So where do we go from here? We can go right or left, this way or that way with the same little chance of hitting on the egress… Or rather with no chance, if you want.”

Quite unexpectedly Ivan Semenovich burst out laughing, his laughter reverberating among the stalagmites.

“My good friends, I don’t recognize you! Is it really you? What’s come over you?” he said after his laughter subsided. “Lida, are you also part of this dejected company? Now, try to remember what we talked about more than once during that tedious funeral journey?”

Lida looked at the man with uncertainty: there were so many subjects they had touched upon!

“Too bad, too bad!” he said with a mock reproach. “And I thought it had made a profound impression on you then. Ah, well, never mind. You’ll soon see what I mean. Now, cheer up! It’s a shame to sulk after we’ve had such a narrow escape! We’re on our way home, and you look so dismayed! We’re as good as back on the surface, in our world…”

“I think it’d be more correct to say that we’re still very much under the surface, in an unexplored cavern,” Dmitro Borisovich said gloomily.

“All right,” the geologist said with a smile. “If you can’t figure out why I’m sure we’ll soon be on our way home, I’ll explain it. Sit down and listen.”

He was the first to sit down on a boulder; then he pulled out his notebook that had only a few pages left.

“You see, my book worked so hard it lost a lot of weight,” he said making another attempt at a joke. “Lida maintained such a lively correspondence with Artem… But there’re still some pages left. It’ll be enough.”

He opened the notebook to a page with a technical drawing that looked like a diagram. His friends stood around him, craning their necks to see it.