She patted his shoulder and smiled, then pointed at the other side of the enclosure. She and Sam crouched, went to that side, and got ready. Then they popped up at the same time, ready to fire. The men were not visible. In the light of the growing fires, Sam stared but saw nobody.

Remi tugged on the back of his belt. “Don’t give them time to aim at you.”

Sam ducked. “Listen,” he said. “We’ve driven them back.”

“For a while,” she said. “As soon as the fire burns that brush away, they’ll be back.”

Sam shrugged. “It bought us a little time.”

“Thanks, Sam. I’ll still love you for at least two more hours.”

“After that, what?”

“We’ll see,” she said. “It depends on their marksmanship.”

They sat on the walkway, holding hands. Every few minutes, one of them would go along the walk, pick a spot, and pop up to look. The fires flamed along the strip, taking brush and trees but not going any farther because of the pyramids on each side.

As the moon set, Sam looked down the strip. “I think they’ll be coming soon,” he said. “And it looks as though more of them have arrived. It makes you wonder who they can be.”

“This is starting to get depressing,” she said.

He went through his pockets. “How much ammo have you got left?”

“Twenty rounds. Eight in each pistol, and one spare magazine with only four in it.”

“I’ve got fifteen. And five shells in the shotgun.” He hugged her. “I’m sorry to say, we’re about done.” They sat leaning their backs on the wall, silent.

Remi sat up straight. “Sam!”

“What?”

“The pool. It’s not a cenote, like a well.”

“No?”

“It has a current. You could barely feel it, but all the artifacts we found were off to the side, and it moved us in the same direction. It’s a sinkhole over an underground river.”

He looked into her eyes. “Are you saying that’s the gamble you’d like to take?”

She nodded. “If we stay here, we run out of bullets, and we’ll be at their mercy. I don’t want to go that way. I’d rather drown.”

“All right,” he said. “We’ll give it our best try.”

She glanced out over the wall. “The fires are about to the end. I can see the men moving down there. We don’t have much time.”

Sam and Remi hurried down the steps and got their dive equipment ready and changed into their wet suits. Sam brought the waterproof bag of artifacts out of his pack. “Put the guns, phones, and ammo in here.”

While Remi gathered them into the bag and sealed it, Sam put a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and shoes in the net bag for each of them and lowered their pack into the water.