"Sorry, I can't translate Greek."
"Not Latin?" Giordino asked skeptically.
The raised carving was indistinct in the shimmering light that filtered through the ice. Pitt moved in until his face mask nearly touched the wooden plaque.
"Greek," Pitt stated firmly.
"Certain?"
"I used to go with a girl who was an Alpha Delta Pi."
"Hold on. You've thrown the bone pickers into spasms."
After nearly two minutes, Giordino's voice returned over the earphones.
"Gronquist thinks you're hallucinating, but Mike Graham says he studied classical Greek in college and asks if you can describe the lettering."
"First letter resembles an S shaped like a lightning strike. Then an A with the right leg missing. Next a P followed by another handicapped A and what looks like an inverted L or a gallows. Then an 1. Last letter is another lightning strike S.
That's the best I can do."
Listening over the speaker inside the shelter, Graham copied Pitts meager description on the page of a notebook.
He scrutinized what appeared to be a word for several moments.
Something was out of place. He struggled to jog his memory, and then he had it. The letters were Cl
assical but Eastern Greek.
His thoughtful expression slowly turned incredulous. He furiously wrote a short word, tore out the page and held it up-in modern capitals it read, S A R A PI S
Lily stared at Graham questioningly- "Does it mean anything?"
Gronquist said, "I think it's the name of a Greek-Egyptian god. "
"A popular deity throughout the Mediterranean," agreed Hoskins. "Modern spelling is usually 'Serapis. "'
"So our ship is the Serapes," murmured Lily pensively, Knight grunted.
"So we might have either a Roman, Grecian or Egyptian shipwreck. Which is it?"
"We're over our heads," answered Gronquist. "We'll need the expertise of a marine archaeologist who knows ancient Mediterranean shipping to sort this one out."
Below the ice, Pitt moved across the starboard side of the hull, stopping where the planking vanished into the ice. He swam around the sternpost to the port. The planking looked warped and bowed outward. A few kicks of his fins, and he could see a section that was stove in by the ice.
He eased up to the opening and slipped his head inside. it was like looking in a dark closet. He saw only vague, indiscernible shapes. He reached in and felt something round and hard. He gauged the distance between the broken panels, The gap was too small to squeeze his shoulders through.
He grasped the upper plank, planted a finned foot against the hull and pulled. The well-preserved wood slowly bent but refused to give. Pitt tried both feet and heaved with everything he had. The plank still held firm. When he was just about to call it quits the treenails suddenly tore off the inside ribs and the waterlogged wood peeled away, throwing Pitt backward in awkward slow motion against a large rock.
any respectable card-carrying marine archaeologist would have gone into cardiac arrest at such irreverent brutality toward an ancient artifact, Pitt felt totally unsympathetic toward academic scruples. He was cold and getting colder, his shoulder began to ache from the impact on the rock, and he knew he couldn't stay down much longer.
"I've found a break in the hull," he said, panting like a marathon runner. "Send down a camera."
"Understood," replied the stolid voice of Giordino. "Come back and I'll pass it to you."
Pitt returned to the dive hole and followed his bubbles to the surface.
Giordino lay on his stomach on the ice, reached down and handed Pitt a compact underwater video camera/recorder.