"Thieves," she said, as if reading my thoughts. "They've plundered the pyramids many times." That was hardly uncommon with regard to Maya ruins. So why should it not happen to these strange alien buildings as well?

"Ah, but look," I said, "at what they've left behind. I want to climb one of these. Let's tackle the smaller one. I want to see if I can make it to the platform on top."

She knew as well as I did that that is where a thatched-roof temple might have stood in ancient times. As for the age of these monuments, I had no indication. They might have been built before the Birth of Christ or a thousand years after. Whatever, they seemed marvelous to me and they maddened my already boyish sense of adventure. I wanted to get out my camera.

Meantime, the spiritual tumult continued. It was wondrously intriguing. It was as if the air were whipped by the spirits. The sense of menace was strong.

"Good Lord, Merrick, how they're trying to stop us," I whispered. The jungle gave forth its chorus of cries, as if answering me. Something moved in the brush.

But Merrick, after stopping for only a few moments, pressed on.

"I have to find the cave," she said in a dull flat voice. "They didn't stop us last time and they're not going to stop you and me now." On she went, the jungle closing all too readily behind her.

"Yes," I cried out. "It's not one soul, it's many. They don't want us near these pyramids."

"It's not the pyramids," she insisted, chopping at the vines and pushing through the undergrowth. "It's the cave, they know we are going to the cave."

I did my best to keep up with her, and to aid her, but she was definitely the one clearing our path. We had gone some yards when it seemed the jungle grew impossibly thick and that the light was suddenly altered, and I realized we had come to the blackened doorway of an immense edifice, which spread its sloping walls to our right and our left. It was a temple, surely, and I could see the impressive carvings on either side of the entrance, and also above as the wall rose to a great apron of stone with intricate carvings visible in the scarce high rays of the desperate sun.

"Lord, Merrick, wait," I called out. "Let me photograph this." I struggled to reach my small camera, but I would have to remove my backpack and my arms were simply too tired.