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Again Albright objected to the “careless” manner in which the earth was torn asunder, and again Halstead ignored his protests, citing the fact that he knew exactly what lay underneath the surface. Williams was once again snapping pictures with his camera, shuffling from one end of the growing trench to the other, while Hess recorded the digging on film from a stationary position. Albright screamed when large flint boulders arranged in circular patterns were found just below the surface and tossed aside by workmen, but Halstead silenced him with an aiming of his carbine at the archeologist’s chest. Albright satisfied himself with manual examinations of the boulders and with the furious scribbling of diagrams in his notebook by the dying daylight. The full moon had risen above the valley, lighting the team of forty natives and their four overseers with the help of large torches set at each of the four corners of the trench, when the first stone step was revealed at one end of the site. Halstead hopped down from his perch on the lip of the trench and grinned in the concotion of torchlight and moonlight at the wide-eyed faces of Albright and the workmen staring down at the stone step located exactly where Halstead had dropped his finger a few hours before. “Are you recording this, Williams?” Halstead asked, before being answered with the pop of a flashbulb. “Good. Let’s keep digging.” At the heated direction of the foreman, the workers now split into two distinct groups, one that cleared away the dirt in the vicinity of the step with brushes and trowels and another that continued to clear away the rest of the trench with picks and shovels. Halstead had retaken his position above the digging, his carbine hanging from his shoulders by a leather strap. “You’ll find sixteen of these steps, Doctor Albright,” he called over to the professor observing the work from a side of the trench. “They lead down to a walled-up door, beyond which we’ll find a thirty foot passageway that leads to a second door.” “And beyond?” Albright prompted while glancing up from his journal. “Ah, well, Doctor, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, now would I?” Halstead laughed at the moon above. |