Sam pulled back on the drill and carefully removed the extension and the original bit. Sam inserted the rigid fiber-optic borehole viewer into the hole and extended it downward. The image of what the viewer was seeing was visible on Remi’s laptop screen. The end of the viewer was a color video camera and a bright light, so the image was very clear and natural. After Remi had turned the viewer on and gotten the picture, she moved it up and down a little. “I think we’re in luck,” she said. “You’re all the way to the top of the rectangle and either you cracked the upper stone surface with the drill or just pushed between two stones. The next layer looks like wood. It has a grainy texture.”

She turned the screen toward him. He said, “It looks like wood to me too. There’s no bark on it, so it may be thick planks instead of tree trunks.”

“Then get back to work.”

Sam reinserted the bit and attached its threaded extension and began to drill. The wood was hard and had a dense grain, but he definitely could tell he was drilling through wood and not stone. He was cautious because if he broke the drill, he didn’t have another. At the end of about ten minutes, it abruptly sank a few inches. “We’re through the wood,” Sam said. “We’re there.”

He removed the drill and its extension and set them aside. He and Remi fed the fiber-optic rig down into the new shaft while Remi watched the image on the screen. When the tip light and camera reached the place where the drill had sunk suddenly, the space opened up and the computer image changed.

As they lowered and turned the rig, they could see the inside of the rectangular space clearly. “It’s the tomb,” said Remi. “I’m recording it.” With difficulty, Sam turned his body in the narrow space of the box to join her in front of the computer screen. They could see a body, now a skeleton, lying on a mat at the rear of the tomb. He was dressed in a rich red costume, with a cape, a pair of high boots, and a piece of headgear unlike anything they’d ever seen. This hat, or helmet, was at least two feet in length, shaped like a narrow cone, with a complicated design of gold that protruded an inch or two from the front above the forehead. He wore a belt with a long straight sword in a scabbard and a dagger that was about half as long. His coat was held in place by gold buttons, and then more gold buttons studded his outfit. The chamber was well supplied with weapons, including a round shield with a silvery plated surface, bows, and quivers full of arrows. They could see jade and gold jewelry, carved ivory boxes, saddles and bridles decorated with more gold.