"What are we going to do?"
She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Don't you know that we have to get the tablet out of the fissure as soon as possible? We've wasted too much time as it is. I want the tablet cleaned and on display by the time the king arrives the day after tomorrow."
"Aren't you rushing things a bit? I thought archaeology was slow and detailed work."
She smiled at him. "It is, but we have an emergency. Every hour that tablet remains in the crevice, the danger of losing it increases." Now she was sounding as anxious as he had been before she walked into the vapors.
"Why do you want to show it to the king?" he asked. "Don't you think his trip here might be a way of harassing you for coming back?"
She laughed. "Come on now."
"What's so funny?"
"The king may be petty, but he doesn't change his plans and take emergency trips because of someone like me. I really doubt that he even knows I'm here."
"You don't think there's any danger now from your family's political enemies?"
She shook her head. "No, especially not in Delphi.
Don't worry. We're safe, and when the king sees the new find, he'll see that even earthquakes have a good side to them."
Indy shrugged, still perplexed by the sudden urgency to remove the tablet and her benign attitude toward the king. "So what do you want me to do?"
"Everything is being prepared. You'll be making the descent right at noon."
"What about the vapors?" he asked.
She brushed her mane of thick dark hair off her shoul ders. "I've taken them into account. This morning they rose at 9:03 a.m., five hours and thirty-five minutes after the last rising, an increase of six minutes in the interval. The same pattern."
He took out his pocket watch, and started to calculate the next rising.
She watched him a moment, then said: "At 2:44. You'll have plenty of time. All you have to do is set the net in place over the tablet, and chip away the earth at the base of it."
"What if the vapors start early?" He was curious about her reaction, since she'd said little about her experience.
"We have no reason to believe that they won't continue to follow the pattern," she answered, evading the intent of his question.
Indy glanced at his pocket watch again, then put it away. It was 10:35. He wondered what they were going to do until noon. "I suppose I should get some rest before noon. You going back to the hotel?" If she recognized his sly overture, she didn't show it.
"I said we have work to attend to, Jones. Let's go to the workshop, I want to go over the tools with you."
She walked at a quick pace toward the hotel where the horses were hitched. "Coming, Jones?" she called over her shoulder.
He tugged at his fedora, and strode after her.
"Hey, what about Doumas?" Indy asked as they mount ed their horses.
She frowned. "What about him?"
"I heard he was against my going down for the tablet."
She waved a hand. "Oh, he's over that now. It was just a matter of wounded pride."
Indy nodded, but he couldn't help thinking about Doumas's connection with the Order of Pythia. As they rode out of town, he wondered if the archaeologist was as interested as Panos and his son in protecting Dorian from outsiders. If so, going into the crevice with him anywhere in the area could be dangerous. But Doumas was also interested in the tablet, he rationalized, and probably would do nothing to endanger its recovery.
They'd ridden almost halfway to the workshop when Indy spotted a lone figure standing on the roadside.
As they neared him, he saw it was the old man in the Greek sailor hat who had talked to him in the taverna.
The Crazy One. With everything else that had happened since that night, he'd forgotten about him. He tried to recall what the man had said to him. Something about Pythia. She would swallow him. That was it. Now it meant considera bly more than it had at the time. Still, it was probably just an old-timer's barroom babble.
The old man stared as they cantered by. "Do you know him?" Indy asked.
She smiled, and it was obvious that she did. "He's no one to be concerned about."
"I've heard he's a member of the Order of Pythia, and that he's made predictions."
She laughed, and shook her head. "Maybe that's why he's known as the village fool. No one takes him seriously." As if to tell him she didn't want to talk about the old man any longer, she prodded the sides of her horse and galloped ahead.
Indy chased her all the way to the stable where they left
the horses, then walked to the nearby workshop. It was a wood frame building that looked on the inside like a dusty, poorly lit library. But instead of books, the rows of shelves held artifacts. As far as he could tell, none was the type of ancient handiwork that would interest treasure hunters. No gold, silver, or valuable stones. No sign of a single piece of the vast treasure that Croesus had donated for a single reading: one hundred seventeen bricks of precious metals, a gold lion weighing five hundred seventy pounds, a four-and-a-half foot statue of his pastry cook, and a variety of other treasures. The entire fortune had long ago vanished, claimed by emperors and kings and others. Nero alone had stolen five hundred gold statues from Delphi.
Most of the shelves were stacked with row after row of hand-size tablets on which were inscribed ancient read ings. A dozen or so were laid out on the long table where Dorian did most of her work. "Been catching up on your reading?" Indy asked as he ran his fingers over one of the tablets.
"I read a couple of hundred tablets yesterday," she said.
"Why?"
"I haven't read any of them for years. It's good to refresh myself from time to time on the nature of the readings."
Indy picked up one of the tablets, and translated the ancient Greek. It was a mundane reading regarding a merchant's plans to sell six hundred bales of wool to a new customer. The oracle had told him to hold firm on his price, then drop it slightly before sealing the bargain, and he would establish a strong, profitable relationship with the customer that would last years.
He laid the tablet down, wondering what Dorian could gain from reading such material. Maybe it was simply a way of relaxing after her breakdown. He was interested in hearing about her experience, but the only time he'd
broached the subject, she had said nothing to reveal her thoughts about the matter.
He watched her as she removed a shoulder bag from a locker, and carried it over to the table. She spread out six picks with heads of different lengths, and explained that all of them originally had been the same size, but were worn by use.
"Many archaeologists prefer to use trowels because they cause less damage to artifacts. But I've found that if you're careful, the pick is a much handier tool. Go ahead and take one."
Indy ran the point of the one he selected over his palm. "You sure I won't damage the tablet?"
"Not unless you hit it. Take your time and work around the base. From what's visible I'd say that about six to eight inches of it is buried. You don't have to go very close to it."
"Why did they use large tablets sometimes, and smaller ones other times?" he asked.
"Most of the readings were recorded on small ones. But important readings that were not for one individual, but for everyone, were sometimes inscribed on larger tablets like the one you'll recover."
Indy pointed to a set of brushes inside her bag, and asked if he would need one. She shook her head.
"The tablet will be cleaned after it is out of the hole."
She reached into the bag, and picked up a brush with wiry bristles. "But take , this one just in case you hit something unexpected. And before I forget here is a torch holder and a mallet to pound it into the wall."