Temple

The old priestess then turned hurriedly to a stone pedestal behind her. I saw on the pedestal an object covered with a purple silk-like cloth.

The priestess picked up the object-cloth and all—and despite the insistent pounding on the walls, handed it solemnly to Renco. I still could not see what lay beneath the cloth. Whatever it was, it was about the size and shape of a human head.

Renco took the object respectfully.

Boom! Boom!

Why was he moving so slowly, I wondered incredulously, as my eyes darted to the shuddering stone walls around us.

Once the object was safely in his hands, Renco slowly removed its cloth.

And I saw it.

And for a moment, I could do nothing but stare.

It was the most beautiful, and yet at the same time the most fearsome-looking idol I had ever seen.

It was completely black, carved out of a square block of a very unusual type of stone. It was rough and sharp at the edges, the workmanship crude, uneven. Out of the middle of the block had been carved the visage of a fierce mountain cat with its jaws bared wide. It looked as if the cat— deranged with rage and fury—had managed to push its head out of the very stone itself.

Imperfections within the rock—thin rivulets of the most shade of purple—ran vertically down the cat's face, making the image appear even more fearsome, if indeed such a thing were possible.

Renco covered the idol once again. As he did so, the old priestess stepped forward and placed something around his neck. It was a thin leather cord with a dazzling green gem stone attached to it—a magnificent shining emerald that was easily the size of a man's ear. Renco accepted the gift with a solemn bow and then turned quickly to face me.

'We must go now,' said he.

Then, with the idol under his arm, he made for the hole in the floor. I hurried after“ him. The four burly warriors all took hold of the great stone slab that would cover our exit.

The old priestess did not move.

Renco climbed down into the sewer. I lowered myself after him. As I did so, however, I noticed something quite peculiar.

The vault was silent.

The pounding outside had stopped.

And as I pondered this curiosity some more, I realized with some dread that the pounding had in fact ceased some goodly time before.

It was then that the entrance to the vault exploded inwards.

A great flash of white flared out around the edges of the huge stone doorway, and an instant later, the whole six-foot doorstone just blasted out into a thousand fragments, showering the vault room with fist-sized rocks.

I couldn't explain it. A battering ram could not possibly have fragmented so large a stone so instantaneously…

And then the smoke and dust in the doorway cleared and I saw the great black barrel of a cannon in the space where the doorstone had been.

My mind reeled.

They had blown open the vault door with a cannon!

'Come on!' Renco called from the sewer beneath me.

I immediately started lowering myself into the hole, just as the first Spanish soldiers came charging in through the dustcloud, firing their muskets in every direction.

And as I disappeared through the hole in the floor, the last thing I saw was the Captain, Hernando Pizarro, striding into the vault room with a pistol in his hand. His eyes were wild, and his head turned this way and that as he searched the vault for the idol that he so longed for.

And then, in a single horrifying instant, I saw Hernando look down in my direction and stare directly into my eyes.

I sloshed madly through the dark sewer tunnels, trying with all my might to keep up with Renco. As I did so, I heard shouts in Spanish echoing off the hard stone walls of the tunnels, saw long ominous shadows stretching out around the corners behind us.

Ahead of me, Renco just plunged onward through the filthy water with the Incan idol under his arm.

We hastened through the tunnels, waist-deep in the water, ducking left, bending right, weaving our way through the dark stone labyrinth back toward the river entrance and freedom.

After a while, however, I began to notice that we were racing in the wrong direction.

Renco was not heading back toward the river entrance.

'Where are we going!' I called forward.

'Just move!' he called back.

I turned a corner just as a torch on the wall above my head was blasted from its mount by a musket shot. I turned and saw a team of six conquistadors wading through the tunnel behind me, the flaming torchlight of the passageway glinting off their helmets.

'They're right behind us!' I called.

'Then run faster!'

More musket shots rang out, loud as thunderclaps, deafening my ears. Their projectiles exploded against the damp stone walls around us.

Just then, ahead of me, I saw Renco leap up onto a ledge and push up with his shoulder against a stone slab in the ceiling—a slab which I saw bore in its corner the same mysterious symbol that I had seen before, the circle with the double 'V' inside it. I leapt up onto the ledge after him and helped him heave the stone upward, revealing the starry night sky.