He was looking down at the body of Gatt which lay sprawled on me wooden dock. His mouth was open in a ghastly grin -- but it wasn't really his mouth. 'It's Gatt,' I said unemotionally. 'I told you I'd kill him,'
I was drained of all emotion; there was no power in me to laugh or to cry, to feel sorrow or joy. I looked down at the body without feeling anything at all, but Harris looked sick. I turned away and looked towards the helicopters. 'Where are those bloody divers?'
They came at last and I explained haltingly what they were to do, and Pat interpreted. One of the men put on my harness and they jury-rigged an oxygen bottle and he went down. I hoped he wouldn't frighten Katie when he popped up in the cave. But her Spanish was good and I thought it would be all right.
I watched them carry Fallon away on a stretcher towards one of the choppers while a medico bandaged me up. Harris said in wonder, 'They're still finding bodies -- there must have been a massacre.'
'Something like that,' I said indifferently.
I wouldn't move from that spot at the edge of the cenote Until Katie was brought up, and I had to wait quite a while until they flew in proper diving gear from Campeche. After that it was easy and she came up from the cave under her own steam and I was proud of her.
We walked to the helicopter together with me leaning on her because suddenly all the strength had left me. I didn't know what was going to happen to us in the future -- I didn't know if such an experience as we had undergone was such a perfect beginning to a marriage, but I was willing to try if she was.
I don't remember much about anything after that, not until I woke up in a hospital in Mexico City with Katie sitting by the bedside. That was many days afterwards. But I vaguely remember that the sun was just coming up as the chopper took off and I was clutching that little gold lady which Vivero had made. Christ was not to be seen, but I remember the dark shape of the Temple of Yum Chac looming above the water and drifting away forever beneath the heavily beating rotors.
The end.
