chamber. It was inviting, beckoning them almost seductively. They almost
ran down the last few steps in . to . the chamber lined with the reed
baskets and pottery wine jars. But as they reached the leveffloor of the
store room they ran into an invisible barrier that stopped both of them
dead and sent them reeling backwards.
"God!" Nicholas clutched at his throat, his voice a strangled choke.
"Get back. Got to get back."
Royan was inking to her knees, also gasping and hunting for breath.
"Nicky!" she tried to scream, but her breath was trapped in her lungs.
She felt that a steel noose had encircled her chest and, as it
tightened, the breath was being forced out of her.
"Nicky! Help me!" She was strangling, like a fish thrown up on the bank.
The strength drained from her limbs, and her vision began to break up
and fade. She did not have the strength to stand.
He stooped over her and tried to lift her, but he was almost as weak. He
felt his own legs buckling, no longer able to support even his own
weight.
erately as he suffocated.
"Four minutes," he thought desp i to brain death I "That's all we have
got. Four minutes and oblivion. We have to get airer her armpits From
behind her, he slipped his arms und locked his hands together over her
breasts. Again he and ied to lift her, but his strength was gone. He
began to tr ds the stairs down which they had walk backwards towar run
so lightly, and every pace required a huge effort. She was already
unconscious, lying inert in the circle of his arms. Her limp legs
trailed across the stone floor as he dragged her back.
The lowest step caught his heels and he almost toppled his balance over
backwards. with an effort he regained and lugged her back up the steps,
her feet sliding and bumping loosely over the treads. He wanted to shout
to his lungs Hansith for help, but he did not have me air in to utter a
sound.
, she's dead," he told himself, and if you drop her no ps, his lungs
hunting for he struggled up another five ste precious air and finding
none. His strength oozed out of wobbled and as his vision slid and him a
drop at a time A
11 distorted.
"Please God, let me
"Let me breathe," he pleaded.
breathe."
Miraculously, like a direct answer to his prayer, he felt slide down his
panting throat and the precious oxygen ngth began flooding back swell
his lungs. At once his stre Royan's chest and lifted and he tightened
his grip around her bodily. He staggered up the remaining steps with her
sprawled out Of the mouth of the body in his arms and shaft on to the
slabs of the tunnel at Hansith's feet.
"What is is, effendi? What has happened to you and the lady?"
Nicholas had no breath to answer him. He laid Royan in the position for
mouth-tolmouth resuscitation, and slapped her cheeks.
"Come on!" he pleaded with her. "Speak! Talk to me!" There was no
response, so he knelt over her, covered her open mouth with his own and
blew down her throat, until from the corner of his eye he saw her chest
swelling and inflating.
He sat back for a count of three. "Please, my darling, please
breathe!'There was no colour in her yellow, corpselike face.
He bent over her and covered her mouth again, and as he filled her lungs
with his own breath he felt her stir under him.
"That's it, my darling," he told her. "Breathe! Breathe for me."
At the next breath she pushed him away and sat up groggily, staring
round at the circle of faces that hovered over her anxiously. She picked
out Nicholas's pale face amongst the black faces of the men.
"Nicky! What happened?"
"I am not sure - but whatever it was, it almost got both of us. How are
you feeling now?"
"It was as though an invisible hand had me by the throat, and was
strangling me. I couldn't breathe, and then I passed out."
"It must be some kind of gas filling the lower levels of the passage.
You were only out for less than two minutes," he reassured her. "It
takes four minutes of oxygen starvation to kill the brain."
"I have a terrible headache." She pressed her fingers to her temples. "I
heard your voice calling me back. You called me "my darling"." She
dropped her eyes.
"Just a little slip of the tongue." He lifted her to her feet and for a
moment she swayed against him, her breasts soft and warm against his
chest.
"Thank you once again, Nicky. I am so deeply in your debt already, I
will never be able to repay you."
am sure we will be able to work something out."
She was suddenly aware of the niens eyes watching her and drew away from
him. "What kind of gas? And how did it get there? Was it another of
Taita's tricks, do you think, Nicky?"
"One Of the gases of decay, most probably," was his the lower part of
the opinion. . "Because it is trapped in passage, it must be a
heavier-than-air type. I would guess that it is probably carbon dioxide,
although it could be something like methane. I think methane is heavier
than air, isn't it?"
"Did Taita do it deliberately?" The colour was returning to her cheeks,
and she was recovering swiftly.
I don't know, but those baskets and jars are suspicious.
er that question when we have had a I will be able to answ chance to
examine their contents." He touched her cheek tenderly. "How are you
feeling? How is your headacheT
"Better. What do we do now?"
he to
"Clear the gas from the chamber, Id her, "and as soon as possible."
He used a candle from his emergency pack to, test for-the gas level in
the shaft. With it burning in his right hand he went back down the
steps, holding it low'to the floor, descending a step at a time. The
candle flame burned brightly, dancing to the movement of air as he went
down. Then, abruptly on the sixth step above the floor level of the
chamber, the flame turned yellow and snuffed out.
wall in white chalk, and He marked the level on the shaft, "Well, at
called up to Royan at the head of the still here. Must be carbon least
it's not methane. I am dioxide."
"Pretty conclusive test," she laughed. if it goes boom, it's methane."
the blower fan," Nicholas Hansith, bring down shouted to the big monk
Holding his breath as though he were snorkelling under water, Nicholas
carried the fan down the lower steps and set it up on the floor of the
chamber. He set the fan speed at "High' and immediately retreated up the
shaft, drawing a huge breath as soon as he was above the chalk mark on
the wall.
"How long will it take to clear the gas?" asked anxiously, looking at
her wrist-watch. Royan
"I will test with the candle every fifteen minutes.
It was an hour before the gas had dispersed enough to enable him to
reach the floor of the chamber again, and breathe the air down there.
Then Nicholas ordered Hansith to bring down a bundle of firewood and
build a fire in the centre of the stone floor, to heat and circulate the
air more rapidly.
While he was doing this, Nicholas and Royan examined one of the baskets
that stood against the wall.
"The crafty old ruffian!" Nicholas Muttered half in exasperation and