Saxon hauled the raft onto shore. Trout opened a cooler and passed around cold bottles of water. He was unable to contain his curiosity. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Did you find King Solomon’s mine?”

A faint smile came to Zavala’s lips. “He’s your husband,” he said to Gamay. “Maybe you should break the bad news.”

Gamay sighed. “Someone beat us to it.”

“Gold prospectors?” Trout said.

“Not exactly,” Zavala said. He got to his feet and retrieved the carrying bag from the beached raft. He pulled out the pewter box, which he handed to Trout. “We found this in the mine.”

Paul’s eyes blinked rapidly as he stared with speechless disbelief at the name embossed on the lid. He handed the box to Saxon.

Saxon was less restrained. “Thomas Jefferson!” he burst out. “How can that be?”

Gamay slipped a small knife out of a leg sheath and gave it to Saxon. “Why don’t you do us the honors?”

Despite his excitement, Saxon exercised extreme care as he picked away at the rusted fastener. The lid had been sealed with wax, but it opened easily. He gazed into the box for a few seconds, and then lifted out two soft squares of vellum, wrapped in stiff waxed paper and marked with lines and Xs and tightly written script. He put the squares together where their ragged edges matched.

“It’s the rest of the Phoenician map,” he whispered. “It shows the river and bay.”

Gamay took the vellum from Saxon’s trembling hands and studied the markings without comment before passing them to her husband.

“The plot thickens,” she said.

“This plot is as thick as clam chowder,” Trout said with a shake of his head. “Where exactly did you find this stuff?”

Gamay described their dive into the cave and down the shaft. Zavala picked up the narrative, laying out their exploration of the cave tunnels and the chamber where the box rested on a stone platform.

Saxon had recovered from his shock and put his mind to work again.

“Fascinating,” Saxon said. “Any indication of gold?”

“Nothing that we could see,” Gamay said.

Saxon’s eyes narrowed. “Either there was gold and you didn’t see it or the mine had been played out and abandoned.”

“In either case, how does what they found fit in with the stories of King Solomon’s fabled gold mine?” Trout said. “Is this Ophir or not?”

“Yes and no,” Saxon said. He chuckled at Trout’s puzzled expression. “Some people believe Ophir was not a specific location, but the name given to several different sources of the king’s gold. This may have been one of his mines.”

Gamay stared out at the placid surface of the lake. “What better place to hide something than an abandoned mine with nothing of value in it?”

“Which brings us back to the Phoenician expedition,” Saxon said. “Its purpose was to hide a sacred relic.”