Shannon made a sour face. "That's a cheery thought."
Pitt laughed. "He overdoses on Indiana Jones movies."
"Give me a hard time," said Giordino sadly. "You'll be sorry someday."
"I hope it's not soon."
"How wide is the opening?" asked Rodgers.
"Dr. Kelsey might make it through on her hands and knees, but we boys will have to snake our way in."
Shannon peered over the edge at the bottom of the fissure. "The Chachapoyas and the Incas could never have hauled several tons of gold up steep cliffs and then lowered it through a rat hole. They must have found a larger passage somewhere around the base of the mountain above the ancient waterline."
"You could waste years looking for it," said Rodgers.
"It must be buried under landslides and the erosion of almost five centuries."
"I'll bet the Incas sealed it off by causing a cave-in," Pitt ventured.
Shannon was not about to allow the men to go first. Scrambling over rocks and slinking into dark recesses was her specialty. She eagerly slipped down the rope as smoothly as if she did it twice a day and crawled into the narrow aperture in the rock. Rodgers went next, followed by Giordino, with Pitt bringing up the rear.
Giordino turned to Pitt. "If I get caught in a cave-in, you will dig me out."
"Not before I dial nine-one-one."
Shannon and Rodgers had already moved out of sight down the stone steps and were examining the second Demonio del Muertos when Pitt and Giordino caught up to them.
Shannon was peering at the motifs embedded in the fish scales. "The images on this sculpture are better preserved than those on the first demon."
"Can you interpret them?" asked Rodgers.
"If I had more time. They appear to have been chiseled in a hurry."
Rodgers stared at the protruding fangs in the jaws of the serpent's head. "I'm not surprised the ancients were frightened of the underworld. This thing is ugly enough to induce diarrhea. Notice how the eyes seem to follow our movements."
"It's enough to make you sober," said Giordino.
Shannon brushed away the dust from around the red gemstone eyes. "Burgundy topaz. Probably mined east of the Andes, in the Amazon."
Rodgers set the Coleman lantern on the floor, pumped up the fuel pressure and held a lit match against the mantle. The Coleman bathed the passage in a bright light for 10 meters (33 feet) in both directions.
Then he held up the lantern to inspect the sculpture. "Why a second demon?" he asked, fascinated by the fact that the well preserved beast looked as if it had been carved only yesterday.
Pitt patted the serpent on the head. "Insurance in case intruders got past the first one."
Shannon licked a corner of a handkerchief and cleaned the dust from the topaz eyes. "What is amazing is that so many ancient cultures, geographically separated and totally unrelated, came up with the same myths. In the legends of India, for example, cobras were considered to be semi divine guardians of a subterranean kingdom filled with astounding riches."
"I see nothing unusual about that," said Giordino. "Forty-nine out of fifty people are deathly afraid of snakes."
They finished their brief examination of the remarkable relic of antiquity and continued along the passageway. The damp air that came up from below drew the sweat through their pores. Despite the humidity they had to be careful they didn't step too heavily or their footsteps raised clouds of choking dust.
"They must have taken years to carve this tunnel," said Rodgers.
Pitt reached up and ran his fingers lightly over the limestone roof. "I doubt they excavated it from scratch. They probably hollowed out an existing fissure. Whoever they were, they weren't short."
"How can you tell?"
"The roof. We don't have to stoop. It's a good foot above our heads."