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She turned the screen toward him He said, “It looks like wood to me too There’s no bark on it, so it may be thick planks instead of tree trunks”

“Then get back to work”

Sam reinserted the bit and attached its threaded extension and began to drill The as hard and had a dense grain, but he definitely could tell he was drilling through wood and not stone He was cautious because if he broke the drill, he didn’t have another At the end of about ten h the wood,” Sam said “We’re there”

He removed the drill and its extension and set the down into the new shaft while Reht and camera reached the place where the drill had sunk suddenly, the space opened up and the coed

As they lowered and turned the rig, they could see the inside of the rectangular space clearly “It’s the to it” With difficulty, Sam turned his body in the narrow space of the box to join her in front of the co on a mat at the rear of the tomb He was dressed in a rich red costuear unlike anything they’d ever seen This hat, or helth, shaped like a narrow cone, with a coold that protruded an inch or two fro straight sword in a scabbard and a dagger that was about half as long His coat was held in place by gold buttons, and then old buttons studded his outfit The cha a round shield with a silvery plated surface, bows, and quivers full of arrows They could see jade and gold jewelry, carved ivory boxes, saddles and bridles decorated with old

They htness of the coe, and searched for the e fro every ite that could be it, have you?”

“No I’ up, then went to work on it He removed the metal tubes that housed the cable and then he re, black, insulated optical fiber On the far end was the rounded tip with the light and the tiny camera Slowly, carefully, he inserted the flexible cable into the drill hole Many tihten it or twist it to get around a snag At last, afterit in, it cleared the drill shaft, then curled a bit so they could see the sides of the stone cha”

“There,” said Remi “There it is”

She took the fiber-optic cable and twirled it with her fingers so she could aie was a set of deep scratches o Attila filius Munzuci It went on, and Reet every bit of it recorded, then sent it to Selma’s computer, and then copied it on the disk, which she took out and put into the deep cargo pocket of Saan to dismantle their equipan to open the hinged bottom of the box, Sam stopped

“Wait,” Sa Footsteps”

Reht, and pulled it out of the hole Sam put it into one of the backpacks, with the drill and bit, while Remi put the computer into the other backpack

They listened Reh the opening at the edge “It’sthis way, of all the million ways”

The footsteps grew louder and louder, as did the hter They were loud and jovial There was the clank of a bottle dropping into an empty steel drum used as a trash barrel Sa

The footsteps passed by so close that Reht she could pick out each man from the others There was one who seemed to have a stone in his shoe because his as scrape-thuet it out from under his foot He called out to his friends as they moved off

Next there was a creaking sound The man had sat on top of their box He took off a shoe, and when he shook it to get the stone out, they could hear the squeak of the dowels in the holes He put his shoe back on and tied it, and then they heard him trot off after his friends