painted, decorated in the usual Indian style—stone statues of jaguars guarded the entrance, carvings of demonic cat like creatures lined the walls. Inside, the Captain found a dark foul-smelling chamber, in the centre of which stood a bare stone altar. On our journey we had been told of a fabled Idol that was housed inside the temple-shrine at Pachacimac. The Indians say that this is their God who created them and sustains them, and who is the source of all their power.
But we found no Idol at Pachacimac. Just a bare altar in a foul-smelling room.
The Captain then ordered the vault in which the pagan Idol had been housed be pulled down and the principal men of the town be executed at once for their dissembling. So, too, the attendants to the Idol. Once this was done, the Captain then taught the villagers many things touching our Holy Catholic Faith, and taught them the sign of the cross…'
From: The New York Times
December 31 1998, p. 12
Scholars Go Ga-Ga Over Rare Manuscripts
TOULOUSE, FRANCE: Medieval scholars were presented with a rare treat today when monks from the San Sebastian Abbey, a secluded Jesuit monastery in the Pyrenees Mountains, opened up their magnificent medieval library to a select group of non-ecclesiastical experts for the first time in over three hundred years.
Of key interest to this exclusive gathering of academics was the chance to see first-hand the abbey's renowned collection of handwritten manuscripts, notably those of St Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus.
It was, however, the discovery of certain other manuscripts—long since believed to have been lost that sparked cries of delight from the select group of historians who were granted entry to the abbey's labyrinthine library.
The lost codex of St Aloysius Gonzaga, or a heretofore undiscovered manuscript believed to have been written by St Francis Xavier, or—most wonderfully of all the discovery of an original draft copy of the fabled Santiago Manuscript.
Written in 1565 by a Spanish monk named Alberto Luis Santiago, this manuscript commands almost legendary status among medieval historians principally because it was assumed to have been destroyed during the French Revolution.
The manuscript is believed to outline in the most stark, brutal detail the conquest of Peru by the Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s. Famously, however, it is also understood to contain the only written account (based on its author's firsthand observations) of a murderous Spanish captain's obsessive hunt for a precious Incan idol through the jungles and mountains of Peru.
Ultimately, however, this was to be a 'look-but-don't-touch' exhibition. After the last scholar was (reluctantly) escorted from the library, its massive oak doors were firmly sealed behind him.
One can only,hope that it won't be another three hundred years before they are opened again.
PROLOGUE
San Sebastian Abbey
High in the French Pyrenees
Friday, January 1 1999, 3:23 am
The young monk sobbed uncontrollably as the cold barrel of the gun was placed firmly against his temple.
His shoulders shook. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
'For God's sake, Philippe,' he said. 'if you know where it is, tell them!'
Brother Philippe de Villiers knelt on the floor of the abbey's dining area with. his hands clenched behind his head. To his left knelt Brother Maurice Dupont, the young monk with the gun to his head, to his right, the other sixteen Jesuit monks who lived in the San Sebastian Abbey. All eighteen of them were on their knees, lined up in a row.
In front of de Villiers and a little to his left stood a man dressed in black combat fatigues and armed with a Glock-18 automatic pistol and a Heckler & Koch G-11 assault rifle, the most advanced assault rifle ever made. Right now the black- clad man's Glock was resting against Maurice Dupont's head.
A dozen other, similarly garbed, similarly armed men stood around the wide dining room. They all wore black ski masks and they were all waiting upon Philippe de Villiers' response to a very important question.
'I don't know where it is,' de Villiers said through clenched teeth.
“Philippe…' Maurice Dupont said.
Without warning, the gun at Dupont's temple went off, the shot ringing out in the silence of the near- deserted abbey. Dupont's head exploded like a watermelon and a wash of blood splattered all over de Villiers' face.
No-one outside the abbey would hear the gunshot.
The San Sebastian Abbey lay perched on a mountaintop nearly 6000 feet above sea level, hidden among the snowcapped peaks of the French Pyrenees. It was 'as close to God as you could get', as some of the older monks liked to say.
San Sebastian's nearest neighbour, the famous telescope platform the Pic du Midi Observatory, was nearly twenty kilometres away.
The man with the Glock moved to the monk on de Villiers' right and placed the barrel of the gun against his head.
'Where is the manuscript?' the man with the gun asked de Villiers a second time. His Bavarian accent was strong.
