was still alive in spite of the violence of nature that had crashed a whole tree on to the hut.
I swung the machete and began to chop him free, which was not too difficult because he lay in the angle between floor and wall which had protected him from the tree in the first place, and I was soon able to drag him free and to put him in better comfort out of the sun. When I had done that he was still unconscious but his colour had improved and there didn't seem much wrong with him apart from the dark bruise on the side of his head. I thought he would presently regain consciousness naturally, so I left him for more important work.
The compressor parts had been hidden in a hole near the hut and covered with earth, but the whole area was covered with torn tree branches and other debris, including whole tree trunks. I wondered momentarily where they had come from and looked across the cenote to the hillside behind, and the sight of it took my breath in sharply. The ridge had been wiped clean of vegetation as if Rudetsky's gang had worked on it with power saw and flame- thrower.
There had been a wind -- a big wind -- that had assaulted the shallow-rooted forest trees and torn them clean out. I turned to look again at the hut and saw that the tree whose roots stuck up so ridiculously into the air must have been hurled from high on the hillside to strike downwards like some strange spear. And that was why the whole camp area, as far as I could see, was a wreck of timber and leafage.
The hillside was scraped clean to reveal the bare rock that had been hidden beneath the thin soil and, on top of the ridge, the temple of Yum Chac stood proudly against the sky very much as it must have looked when Vivero first saw it. I stepped back to get a better view of the whole ridge and looked past the ruined hut, and a great feeling of awe came upon me.
Because I saw Vivero's sign written in burning gold in the side of the ridge. I am not, in any sense, a religious man, but my legs turned to water and I sank down upon my knees and tears came to my eyes. The sceptic, of course, would write it off as a mere trick of the sun, of light and shade, and would point to parallels in other parts of the world where some natural rock formations are famous and well known. But that sceptic would not have gone through what I had gone through that day.
It may have been a trick of light and shade, but it was undeniably real -- as real as if carved by a master sculptor. The setting sun, shining fitfully through scudding clouds, shed a lurid yellow light along the ridge and illuminated a great figure of Christ Crucified, The arms, spread along the ridge, showed every tortured muscle, and the nail heads in the palms of the hands cast deep shadows. The broad-chested torso shrank to a hollow stomach at the foot of the ridge, and there was a gaping hole in the side, just under the rib cage, which a sceptic would have dismissed as a mere cave. All the rib structure showed as clearly as in an anatomical drawing, as though that mighty chest was gasping for breath.
But it was the face that drew the attention. The great head lolled on one side against a shoulder and an outcrop of spiky rocks formed the crown of thorns against the darkening sky. Deep shadows drew harsh lines of pain from the nose to the corners of the mouth; the hooded eyes, crow-footed at the corners, stared across Quintana Roo; and the lips seemed about to part as though to bellow in a great voice of stone, 'Eloi! Eloi, Lama Sabacthani!'
I found my hands trembling and I could imagine what impression this miracle would have made on Vivero, a child of a simpler, yet deeper, faith than ours. No wonder he wanted his sons to take the city of Uaxuanoc; no wonder he had kept it secret and had baited his letter with gold. If this had been discovered in Vivero's time, it would have been one of the wonders of the Christian world, and the discoverer might even have been revered as a saint.
Probably this effect was not a daily occurrence and might depend on certain angles of the sun and, perhaps, times of year even. The Mayas, brought up in a different pictorial tradition and with no knowledge of Christianity, might not even have recognized it for what it was. But Vivero certainly had.
I knelt entranced in the middle of that devastated camp and looked up at this great wonder which had been hidden for so many centuries under a curtain of trees. The light changed as a cloud passed over the sun, and the expression of that huge and distant face changed from a gentle sorrow to inexpressible agony. I suddenly felt very afraid, and closed my eyes.
There was a crackle of twigs. That's right; say your prayers, Wheale,' said a grating voice.
I opened my eyes and turned my head. Gatt was standing just to one side with a revolver in his hand. He looked as though the whole forest had fallen on top of him. Gone was the neat elegance of the morning; he had lost his jacket, and his shirt was torn and ragged, revealing a hairy chest streaked with bloody scratches. His trousers were ripped at the knees and, as he walked around me, I saw that he had lost one shoe and was limping a little. But even so he was in better shape than I was -- he had a gun!
He rubbed his hand over one sweaty cheek, streaking it with dirt, and lifted the other which held the revolver. 'Just you stay right there -- on your knees.' He walked on a little further until he was directly in front of me. 'Have you seen what's behind you?' I asked quietly. 'Yeah, I've seen it,' he said tonelessly. 'Some effect, hey? Better than Mount Rushmore.' He grinned. 'Expecting it to do you some good, Wheale?'
I said nothing, but just looked at him. The machete was at my side and within reach of my lingers if I stooped a little. [ didn't think Gatt would let me get that far.
'So you been praying, boy? Well, you gotta right.' The cultivated accent had vanished along with the elegance of his clothes; he had gone back to his primitive beginnings. 'You got every right because I'm gonna kill you. You wanna pray some more? Go right ahead -- be my guest.'
I still kept my mouth shut, and he laughed. 'Cat got your tongue? Got nothing to say to Jack Gatt? You were pretty gabby this morning, Wheale. Now, I'll tell you something -- confidential between you and me. You got plenty time to pray because you're not going to die quick or easy. I'm going to put a hot slug right in your guts and you'll take a long, long time to join our pal over there.' He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'You know who I mean -- Holy Jesus up in the sky.' There was a maniac gleam in his eyes and a tic convulsed his right cheek. He was now right round the bend and beyond the reach of reason. Gone was any idea he might have had of making me dive for the treasure -- all he wanted was the violence of revenge, a booby prize for being cheated.
I looked at the gun he was holding and couldn't see any bullets in it. What I don't know about firearms would fill a library of books, but the revolver I'd used had rotated the cylinder when the trigger was pressed to bring a cartridge under the hammer, and before the gun was fired that cartridge would be visible from the front. I couldn't see any such cartridge in Gait's gun.
'You've caused me a lot of trouble,' said Gatt. 'More trouble, than any man I knew.' He laughed raucously. 'Get it? I put that in the past tense because guys who cause me any kind of trouble don't stay alive. And neither will you.' He was relaxed and enjoying his cat-and-mouse game.
I was anything but relaxed. I was about to stake my life on there not being two kinds of revolver. Slowly I stooped and curled my fingers around the handle of the machete. Gatt tensed and jerked the gun. 'Oh, no,' he said. 'Drop it!'
