“My brain was still full of all the facts, like an old stew kettle, but the spine was stiffening up, and I couldn’t turn my head without some difficulty, which I need to do to point out features on the tours. Had to swivel at the waist like a wooden soldier. Then my eyesight started to go. Not much call for a half-blind guide, so I thought it best to call it quits.”

Whittles led the way through rooms filled with Micronesian folk art. There were masks, totems, and carved grotesque figures on every wall and in every corner. He settled his visitors on a screened-in porch and scuttled off to get them some cold bottled water.

In his travels around the world, Austin had seen clones of Whittles, peripatetic Englishmen who attach themselves as guides to famous cathedrals, ancient palaces, and forgotten temples, absorbing every fact, large and small, and becoming local celebrities in the process.

Austin had met Whittles during a tour of Nan Madol, and the depth and breadth of his historical and cultural knowledge had impressed him. Years before, Whittles had served as a navigator aboard a merchant ship that had stopped at Pohnpei and been entranced by its beauty and history. Retiring early from the merchant marine and relying on his savings, he moved to the island and led a monklike existence centered on the ruins. Nan Madol became not only his livelihood but his whole life.

Whittles came back with the water, settled in a chair, and asked Lee what she knew about Nan Madol.

“Not a lot, I must confess,” she said. “Only that it has been called the Venice of the Pacific.”

“Nan Madol is a far cry from the city on the Adriatic,” he said, “but it is impressive nonetheless. It consists of ninety-two artificial islets dating back to 1100 A.D. The builders rafted hexagonal basalt pillars to the tidal flats and reef off Tenwen, some of the pillars more than twenty feet long, and stacked them horizontally to make artificial, flat-topped islets. A grid of shallow canals connects the islets to one another. Because the city is so remote and mysterious, and located where nothing of this sort should exist, it has given rise to theories that Nan Madol was part of the lost continent of Mu or Lemuria.”

“What do you think, Mr. Whittles?” Lee asked.

“I think that the reality is more prosaic but still marvelous. The city was the site of temples, administrative centers, burial vaults, houses for priests and nobles, and a pool said to have been the home of a sacred eel . . . How may I help you, Dr. Lee?”

“Do you know of any ruins engraved with unusual carvings similar to those on another island?”

“Only one instance,” Whittles said. “The temple known as the Cult of the Healing Priests. I’ve heard reports of a similar temple elsewhere but have never been able to verify it.”

“What exactly was this cult?” Austin asked.