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"Aye, it's inspiring." He gazes up at the skylight too, for a long moment, his lips curled in the faintest of smiles. "Cannae believe we're here."
"Neither can I."
Errol rises and begins to strip off his clothes.
"What are you doing now?" I ask. "Please don't tell me we need to be naked to enter the rest of the cavern."
He chuckles. "No, lass. I'm going to wring out my clothes. You might want to do the same."
"Oh, sure, I will."
After we both do that, Errol and I explore the cavern. But soon, we realize the ledge must not be the cavern itself. It's more like an entryway. How do we access the main area? I can't see any doorways or holes in the walls. Errol insists there must be a way. If Kincaid's map ended here, then we just need to look harder.
"I think you were right," he says. "The cavern must have changed over the past hundred and twenty years. The original entrance has probably caved in. Let's keep looking around for a bit longer." He waves toward one side of the cavern. "You look over there, while I search on the other side."
"Okay."
I explore the cavern with my hands and my eyes, using a small flashlight Errol had retrieved from his bag to enhance my vision. He took an identical flashlight. But I still can't see anything that resembles a crack, much less an opening into a secret world of forgotten treasures.
"Ah-ha!" Errol shouts, the sound echoing inside the chamber.
I rush over to him. "What did you find?"
He slaps a palm on the wall beside the pool. "I used your GPR device to see how much rock lies between us and the canyon outside. Turns out, I can blast a hole in this wall quite easily."
"Blast a hole? Why on earth would you do that?"
"To create a tunnel to the outside."
"Yeah, but—" I can't figure out what to say. I'd known before we undertook this expedition that Errol loves to blow things up, but this seems like an inappropriate time to suggest doing that. "What if the whole cavern caves in?"
He clasps my hand and kisses the palm. "Trust me,gràidh. I've done this before. No one has ever died while working with me."
"I trust you, but not the composition of this cavern."
"Do you think I'd ever do anything that might hurt you? The GPR gave me enough data to convince me I can open up a doorway here."
Well, either I trust him or I don't. There's no middle ground. So I nod and say, "Do it, Errol."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Errol
I extract a block of C-4 from my bag and cut off two small portions, then tape them to the wall at strategic points. Ashley has started to wring her hands, but she'll feel better once the blast is over. I urge her to move to the other side of the cavern, and I join her over there once I've set the timer. She huddles against me with her eyes tightly squeezed shut and her fingers curled like talons.
"Plug your ears, lass," I say. "The big boom is coming."
She shoves her fingers into her ears, and I do the same as I turn us both so my body shields her.
The explosion rocks the entire cavern, but only powdery bits shower down onto the floor and into the water. I push Ashley away and grasp her upper arms. "All right, love?"
She nods. "But the wall is still there."
"Not for long."
I stride over there and kick at the wall. A cloud of debris is still settling around the hole excavated by the explosion, but I keep kicking until the last remnants fall away, revealing the canyon beyond. Sunlight filters through the debris cloud.
Ashley hurries over to me. "That's unbelievable. The wall was only six inches thick there? But we swam through more than that."
