"There it is, just as the colonel described it," said Gunn.
"One of us is supposed to shout 'Eureka,' " exclaimed Giordino, happy at last to get out of the wind and rain.
"I don't know about you, but I'm getting rid of my rain gear and backpack so I can be comfortable."
"I'm with you."
Within minutes, their backpacks were removed and their foul-weather gear laid out inside the tunnel for the return trip to the aircraft. They removed flashlights from their backpacks, took a final swig of coffee, and stepped deeper into the subterranean vault. The walls were smoothly carved without bumps or indentations. There was a strangeness about the place, heightened by the eerie darkness and cavernous howl of the wind from outside the entrance.
They walked on, half curious, half uneasy, following the beams of their lights, wondering what they were going to find. The tunnel suddenly opened into a square chamber. Giordino tensed and his eyes hardened as his light traced out the skeletal bones of a foot, femur, hip, and then ribs and spinal column, attached to a skull with traces of red hair still visible. The remains of tattered and moldy clothing still clung to the bones.
"I wonder how this poor devil came to be here," said Gunn, feeling numbed.
Giordino swung his flashlight around the room, illuminating a small fire pit and various tools and furniture- all of them looked handmade from wood and lava rock. There were also the remains of seal hides and a pile of bones in the opposite corner.
"Judging from the cut of what's left of his clothes, I'd say he was a marooned sailor, a castaway on the island for God only knows how long before he died."
"Odd the colonel didn't mention him," said Gunn.
"The Madras made an unscheduled stop for water after being blown far off the normal sailing track in 1779. This lost soul must have arrived later. No other ship called on the island for probably another fifty or hundred years."
"I can't begin to imagine how terrible it must have been for him, alone on an ugly rain-cold pile of volcanic rock with no prospects of rescue and the threat of a lonely death hovering over him."
"He made a fire pit," said Giordino. "What do you think he used for wood? There's little but scrub brush on the island."
"He must have burned what brush he could scrounge…" Gunn paused, knelt on one knee, and moved his hand through the ashes until he found something. He held up what looked like the remains of a toy chariot with two badly fire-scarred horses. "The artifacts," he said gloomily. "He must have burned the artifacts that contained wood to stay warm." Then Gunn shone his light in Giordino's direction and saw the beginnings of a smile arc across his face. "What do you find so funny?"
"I was just thinking," mused Giordino. "How many of those awful cabbages do you think the poor fellow must have eaten?"
"You won't know how they taste until you've tried one."
Giordino probed his beam on the walls, revealing the same type of inscriptions that he'd briefly seen in the Telluride chamber. A black obsidian pedestal rose from the center of the floor where the black skull had sat until removed by the British colonel. The lights also picked out a cave-in of fallen rocks that spilled down, covering the far wall of the chamber.
"I wonder what's on the other side of this rock pile."
"Another wall?"
"Maybe, maybe not." There was a vague certainty in Gunn's voice.
Giordino had learned many years before to trust the intelligence and intuitive genius of little Rudi Gunn. He looked at him. "You thinking there's another tunnel on the other side?"
"I am."
"Damn!" Giordino hissed under his breath. "Our friends from Telluride must have gotten here first."
"What makes you think that?"
Giordino played his beam over the rockfall. "Their modus operandi. They have a fetish for blowing up tunnels."
"I don't think so. This fall looks old, very old, considering the dust that has filled in among the rocks. I'll bet my Christmas bonus that this fall occurred centuries before the colonel or the old castaway stepped in here, and neither was curious and bothered to dig through and see what was on the other side." Then Gunn crawled up on the spread of rocks and played his light over the pile. "This looks natural to me. Not really a heavy fall. I think we might have a chance at getting through."
"I'm not sure my testosterone is up to this."
"Shut up and dig."
Gunn, as it turned out, was right. The rockfall was not massive. Despite his grumblings, Giordino worked like a mule. By far the stronger of the two, he tackled the heavier rocks, while Gunn worked at casting aside the smaller ones. There was a ruthless determination in his movements as he picked up and heaved hundred-pound rocks as if they were made of cork. In less than an hour, they had excavated a passage large enough for them to crawl beyond.
Because he was the smallest, Gunn went first. He paused to shine his light inside.
"What do you see?" asked Giordino.
"A short corridor leading to another chamber less than twenty feet away" Then he squirmed through. He stood up, brushed himself off, and removed several more rocks from the opposite side so Giordino, with his broad shoulders, would have an easier passage. They hesitated for a moment, beaming their combined lights into the chamber ahead, seeing strange reflections.
"I'm glad I listened to you," said Giordino, as he walked slowly forward.
"I have positive vibes. I'll bet you ten bucks nobody beat us to it."
"Skeptic that I am, you're on."
Feeling a little apprehensive now, and with a growing sense of trepidation, they stepped into the second chamber and swept their lights around the walls and floor. There were no inscriptions in here, but they froze at the astonishing sight revealed under the yellow-white beams of their flashlights, staring in almost religious awe at the twenty mummified figures that sat upright in stone chairs hewn from the rock. The two that faced the entrance sat on a raised platform. The rest were grouped to the sides in the shape of a square horseshoe.
"What is this place?" Giordino whispered, half expecting to see ghosts lurking in the shadows.
"We're in a tomb," Gunn muttered unsteadily. "Very ancient, by the look of the clothing."
The mummies and the black hair on their skulls were in a remarkable state of preservation. Their facial features were perfectly intact and their garments were complete, with red, blue, and green dyes still discernible in the fabric. The two mummies at the end sat on stone chairs elaborately carved with various species of sea life. Their finery appeared more intricately woven and colorful than the others. Copper bands with exquisite engraved designs inlaid with what Gunn recognized as gemstones of turquoise and black opal circled their foreheads. High conical caps rested on their heads. They wore long elaborate tunics with delicate seashells mixed with polished obsidian and copper disks sewn in exotic patterns from collar to hem. All the feet were encased in tooled-leather, loose-fitting boots that came halfway up the calf.
The two were obviously of higher rank and importance than the others. The skeleton on the left was larger than the one on the right. Though all the mummies had worn their hair long in life, it was a matter of simple deduction to tell the males from the females. Males have more prominent mandibles and ridges above the eyes than do females. Interestingly, their headbands or crowns were the same size, as if they had equal power. All the males sat to the right hand of the central figure in a row at an angle. All were dressed similarly, but the weaving of their garments was not as elegant. The turquoise and black opal were not as prevalent. The same configuration was represented by the females who sat to the left of the more richly adorned mummy.
A line of beautifully polished spears with obsidian heads was stacked against one wall. At the feet of each skeleton were copper bowls with drinking cups and matching spoons. Both bowls and spoons had holes with leather thongs, as if they could be slung around the neck or shoulder, indicating that these people had always carried their individual and personalized dinnerware with them. Handsome pottery, well-polished with delightful hand-painted delicate geometric designs on their surfaces, were laid out next to the stone chairs, along with large copper urns filled with withered leaves and flowers that must have been aromatic at the time the dead were interred. They looked handmade by artisans of great skill.