Immediately they could see a multitude of unnatural shapes. Fabi pointed at a series of strange contraptions, made of iron and blackened wood.
“These look like fun.” Bones winked at Fabi and held up a set of manacles attached to chains that were embedded in the stone wall.
“This looks more your speed, Bones.” She went to a wooden wheel set up on a support stand.
“Not sure I want to know what that’s for,” Bones said, “but judging by the rest of this stuff, it doesn’t look fun. Check this out.” He ran his fingers lightly over a set of rusty spikes contained inside a coffin-like container shaped roughly like an adult human.
“That’s the iron maiden.” Maddock aimed his light beam on the medieval torture device.
“Classic stockade here.” Fabi pointed to a hinged wooden board with cutouts for head and hands.
There were a plethora of other intimidating instruments but Maddock called a halt to the show and tell. “I think we can safely say this is a place where prisoners were kept.”
Fabi concurred. “This stuff is old enough to be from the 1700s, and it certainly fits with a prison or holding cell of some kind from that period.”
“Let’s look around some more, see what else is down here. It’d be good to know if this passage leads somewhere else in the fort, or if Fabi literally fell into some luck by having the ground drop out from under her.”
Maddock took a few flash photos of the torture devices and the trio moved through the room into the passage, which continued on the other side. As he played his light about the walls here, he began to call the structural integrity of the underground space into question. They reached one section where the ceiling was lower than the rest of the corridor, and Bones in particular had to stoop to make it past.
He squeaked by and then the tunnel-like passage veered off to the right, narrowing as it did so. Maddock led the way with his light. As soon as they had all rounded the turn, Bones said, “Look out!” He dove into Fabi, pushing her out of the way of a chunk of rock that broke loose from the right-side wall near where it joined the ceiling. Both of them ended up lying on the floor, having just cleared the falling hazard.
Fabi turned around to see the pile of stone on the floor and Bones’ black hair streaked with dust. “Honestly, Bones, I never took you for the type of man to push a lady around!”
“No, but I am known to get horizontal with a babe from time to time.” Bones winked.
Maddock was all business, pushing ahead as soon as it was clear no one was hurt. Bones and Fabi moved along behind them, and before long they emerged into another room, this one more square, although still imperfectly shaped. Set into the four corners of this room were four jail cells, iron bars extending from floor to ceiling around each corner. A door was set into each, but they were all swung open as if abandoned in a hurry sometime long ago.
“Holding cells!” Maddock approached one and gripped the iron bars. “Still pretty solid.”
Each of them went to a cell and began to inspect them. After a couple of minutes, Fabi said she might have found something. “Need some light over here.”
Bones had also produced a flashlight and was first to join her in the small cell. Fabi traced her fingertips over a series of engravings in the cell wall.
“Random scribblings of a bored prisoner or something exciting?” Bones squinted as he tried to make sense of the carvings.
“It’s writing.” Fabi sounded less than certain. Maddock joined them in the now crowded cell, and he took snapshots of the inscriptions while Fabi continued her assessment.
“I’m pretty sure this is Spanish, but it seems a little like gibberish.”
Bones looked around and shook his head. “I’d go crazy too if I were stuck in here for any length of time.”
“You already are crazy, Bones,” Fabi quipped.
“Well I must be, to…”
“Guys, c’mon, let’s get on with it.” Maddock waved his light on the engravings.
“Fine.” Fabi turned back to the writing and took down some notes. It was Bones who spoke next, while pointing to the wall.
“I see this word more than once. Does it mean what I think it means?”
Fabi considered the series of characters. “Demonio. It does mean ‘demon’.”
Maddock took a close-up shot of the etched word, then checked his watch. “We should get out of here. Boat, storm…”
The four of them got the point and filed out of the holding cell into the main chamber. After a final look around to be certain they hadn’t overlooked anything that could be a potential clue, they exited to the low chamber by which they had come, the only way out leading from the room. Retracing their steps, the treasure hunters made their way back through the corridor until they reached the torture chamber again.
Shining his light around the space, Maddock looked for signs of either Willis or at least of the rope that he had promised to return with. But he saw neither. He walked toward the opening and called up through it, in case Willis was hanging around just out of sight. “Willis, you there?”
But the voice that came back did not belong to Willis.
“I can hear you down there. Come here where I can see you and keep your hands visible. You're under arrest.”
Chapter 12
Down in the chamber, Maddock heard Willis’ voice next, protesting loudly. A little too loudly, Maddock thought. “Man, I told ya'll my friend done fell through! I'd say it's your job to help him out but I don't believe you two are real cops.”
Maddock heard another voice answer Willis. “We saw you with a girl. We'd like to meet her.” Laughter followed. Something about the way the man said the word “girl” told Maddock these men were up to no good. Bones moved next to Maddock and they exchanged looks.
“What do we do?” Bones whispered to avoid being heard, since so far it seemed that the unknown men were aware only of Willis’ and Fabi’s presence. Before Maddock could answer, a voice called down.
“You, girl! Come out where we can see you. Don’t try anything funny or we’ll have to shoot up that pretty body.”
Fabi sidled up next to Maddock and Bones, still beyond the newcomers’ line of sight down the hole. Maddock whispered, “I’ve got an idea.” He proceeded to relay it. Then Fabi nodded and moved beneath the hole into the beam of the man's flashlight.
A rope dropped down through the hole to the chamber floor. Fabi picked it up and made a show of tentatively grasping it and attempting to climb. She called up through the hole. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to climb this.”
They heard Willis’ voice from somewhere out of sight. “Untie me and I'll pull her up myself. Y’all look like you can’t pull nothing but your own…”
“Shut up!” two different unseen male voices said in turn. A new face appeared at the top of the hole, eyes squinting as the man’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. Maddock and Bones slid into the shadows behind a torture rack while Fabi remained with the rope. One of the unknown voices yelled down from above.
“Tie a loop in the rope and step into it.”
Fabi hesitated. “Sorry, but it's going to take more than one of you to pull me up. I’m not a skinny gal.”
Maddock watched from his place of concealment as a second set of hands appeared at the top of the hole. He put a hand on Bones’ shoulder, a signal that meant get ready. The two men above reached down and began to lift Fabi on the rope. Maddock watched until her feet cleared the floor, and then he and Bones sprung.
Maddock reached the rope and heaved on it, while Bones leapt off a pile of fallen rock like he was making a basketball layup. The tall Indian reached up and grabbed each of the two men pulling on the rope by a wrist and yanked, hard. The two men fell twelve feet from the top of the hole to hit the ground. They lay there a moment, stunned.