Eyes of Fire

Breathe! he commanded himself, sucking air through his regulator at last. He went back to the basics he had learned, had taught. Breathe continuously. Regain control, respond, react.

It’s just a skeleton. This poor fellow has been dead forever and ever. He’s no danger to me….

The thought didn’t help. He imagined that any second the skeleton would raise its hand higher, that the bony fingers would point straight at him, that the bones would begin to rattle and talk….

It was a dead man, for God’s sake!

Just a dead man. With gems where his eyes should have been. He was a well-preserved dead man with remarkable ruby eyes, and that was that.

Regain control, respond, react. Fool! Didn’t he teach those very words almost daily?

He didn’t know what trick of pressure or temperature had kept these skeletons in such uncannily good shape, but they were miraculously here, inside what must have been the captain’s cabin of the galleon. And though the windows had burst and the denizens of the sea had moved inside, perhaps the fact that the cabin walls had withstood the sea so well had helped preserve the dead who had perished within.

How they’d come to be here, he didn’t know. But they had nearly done him in, nearly drawn a silent scream from him, and he had very nearly succumbed to a watery death himself. In fact, he was certain that his hair would be white from shock when he reached the surface again.

None of that meant anything to him at the moment. Nor did the fact that he should never have been diving alone, despite being an expert diver with several thousand hours of diving time under his belt. It was because of that that he should have known better. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had come down a mere thirty feet instead of the nearly one hundred he was down now, he shouldn’t have been diving alone. He taught the buddy system strenuously in his classes.

But he’d never imagined a morning like this one. The culmination of a dream. He had at last come across something in his research that had set off a light in his mind, and that light had burned so brightly that he hadn’t been able to wait. He hadn’t even been able to wait to tell Sam, to give her a clue, even knowing how much it would mean to her. She had been with Jem and some first timers and bubble watchers out on the Sloop Bee. With beginners, it would be some time.

And this…oh, God! With the right information, the answer had been so simple, and once he had realized it, he hadn’t been able to wait.

Sam. Sam should have known. Sam should have been with him. Sam, with her ever-trusting, encouraging smile. Sam who never found fault, who believed, who laughed and teased and made life easy. She should have been here with him now. He couldn’t repay her for not being here, not even with every single bit of treasure he found.

He simply hadn’t been able to wait to test his theory.

His dreams had sent him flying across the waves. Intrigue and fascination had brought him here, near the Steps.

The Seafire Isle Steps.

The Steps, of course, were a mystery in themselves. They began a mere thirty feet below the surface in the water northwest of Seafire Isle; they deepened with the ocean floor for another twenty-five feet, then simply disappeared. Just like stone steps in other areas of the sea that were supposed by some to lead the way to Atlantis. Others thought them a doorway in the wicked mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. He was quite certain that there were logical answers for every mystery beneath the sea. Just as there was a logical answer to the mystery of the Spanish galleon Beldona, the prized ship of King Philip, which had sailed the golden corridor between the New World and the old so many years ago. Historians had thought for years that she had gone down in one of the vicious storms that raged across the seas, a hurricane of deadly proportions.

There was an answer to everything. An explanation.

Just as there had been an explanation for the fact that a skeleton had stared at him with burning eyes….

He could still see them blazing. Eyes of fire.

Nitrogen narcosis, he warned himself. He was seeing things. But the eyes did truly seem to burn. He bent low, studying them more closely….

There was something different about the skeleton. He should have been able to place his finger on it. He should know the truth about the ship.

His ship, as he thought of her.

The Beldona. He had found her! Sonar had missed her, radar had missed her. Shifting currents and restless sands had hidden her beneath a coral shelf.

Suddenly something about the skeleton caught his eye. He leaned closer, laughter bubbling in his chest.

Whoa, he thought. Stay calm! He warned himself.

But once again, far beneath the surface, he couldn’t wait.

The magnitude of his discovery suddenly hit him. No, he couldn’t wait. This was pure vindication.

He couldn’t wait to tell her. Couldn’t wait to share these secrets, deeper than any he had ever imagined. He’d discovered the past, and so much more. Many people had mocked him for being a dreamer. Very few had believed. And now…the laugh would be on them.

She would know that he’d been right to fight for the discovery. Maybe the time had come when he could divulge a few of his own secrets. Maybe this would make the time right.

He closed his eyes.

Or did he?

Because he was seeing things again.

The sea was playing tricks on him.

It was as if she was suddenly with him.

She couldn’t be. But he could see her.

He could see her, hair waving like a banner, eyes as brilliant as those orbs of fire that had so shocked him. In his mind he could hear her throaty laughter, feel what they shared.

He blinked.

She remained.

She was there with him, her eyes glittering behind her scuba mask.

No…

He blinked again, this time closing his eyes tightly. He had known better—much better—than to dive alone, especially this deep. But it didn’t matter now. He knew the truth. He had solved the mystery, and there was so much more to it than they had ever begun to imagine….

He had to regain control.

He opened his eyes again.

He was alone.

Bubbles surrounded him. His own, he assured himself. He was all alone.

Alone with a bunch of dead men.

Nitrogen narcosis…

He needed to go up. Now.

Because he needed help, of course. Needed Sammy and Jem, and probably others, too. But for now his ecstasy was like something ready to explode inside him. He wanted to share his sheer joy.

They would have to guard the secret until they were safe. There was so much more than just the treasure involved. If the wrong people knew what he had discovered…

He was going to need help. The truth was going to have to come out, and once that was done, they would be able to bring up the treasure.

By God, the treasure!

He turned, listening again to the sound of his own breathing, a continual hiss and heave against his ears in the confinement of the cabin. He tried to assess the magnitude of what he had found.

He was startled from his thoughts when something suddenly fell against him. He shifted his light around.

Another dead man. But this one…