"You can't drop anchor here" said Steven.
Sully stared at him, cigar clenched between his teeth, while he killed the engine and dropped anchor.
"Look at that" he grumbled, stubbing out his cigar and putting it in his shirt pocket.
They'd anchored not far from the shore where they picked up Nate the day before.
"It's illegal" continued the Historian as Nate, Sully and Mia grabbed their waterproof packs and hopped out of the boat and into the chest deep water.
They ignored his continues complaints and waded their way through the water until they got to shore and headed into the break between two mountainous slopes on either side of them.
Behind them there was a splashing sound and Steven caught up to them, huffing and puffing.
"They are going to tow the boat," he said.
No one bothered to respond.
Nate pulled out his GPS locator and input the coordinates of the entrance to the burial site. He made a rough plan of his route and headed off through the break and up a steep slope towards the forest. Sully followed with Mia and a complaining Steven taking up the rear.
The hours passed and the sun was high, and despite the dense forest and cover, the air was hot, sticky and full of bugs. That is not to say full of complaining from Steven Masters as well.
Sully wore an expression of pure loathing as he followed Nate while Mia seemed adept at being able to ignore his constant complaining, likely due to years of practise having to work with him.
"We've been walking for hours. Do you even know where you're going?" was the newest complaint.
Nate sighed. He'd been taking them in a roughly direct route to the site entrance however a forest being a forest, a direct route wasn't always possible and they were sometimes met with clumps of trees impossible to navigate or hills so steep it was impossible to climb up - at least not without Masters complaining all the time.
He knew it would be impossible to retrace the exact steps he took the day before but as long as they had the co-ordinates, he was confident enough he could make his way there. It wasn't the first time he navigated a dense forest in search for long lost treasure.
After five hours of trekking, accompanied by the sounds of birds chirping and Steven's constant complaining, Nate was at his wits end and Sully looked like he wished he had his revolver with him. Only a quiet word from Mia, explaining that Steven was best in a library and behind a desk and wasn't made for field work, stopped Nate from telling him to shut up.
"Ahah!" he exclaimed as he rounded a large ash tree and right in front of him was the stack-stoned entrance to the site.
"This is it?" asked Mia with excitement in her voice.
"This is it?" said Steven at the same time with about as much enthusiasm as a man who got socks for Christmas.
Everything was just as he left it, a small pile of dislodged stones sat strewn in front of the carefully stacked larger stones and a small, man-sized hole at the top where Nate climbed out of the underground tunnel.
"This is it" Nate confirmed. "Shall we?"
He scrambled up the rocks and crawled into the hole, followed by Mia. Sully followed afterwards, grunting and huffing as he forced his way through the hole.
"Next time you might want to consider toast and not a full breakfast" Nate said with a grin as he helped Sully down.
Steven's face appeared in the hole, he looked around and grunted. Then started pulling stones away to make the hole bigger.
Behind him, Nate heard Mia sigh. Eventually Steven made a big enough hole and clambered through and rolled, ungracefully, down to where they waited. He got up and brushed himself off.
Nate opened his backpack and handed each of them a torch. He flicked his on and said, "Let's go".
Trailing them, Steven asked, "Has this tunnel been properly secured?"
Nate led them into the chamber and shone his torch on the resting place of the first Hawaiian King and Mia let out a breath of wonder.
"This is it" she whispered, as if making a sound would disturb almost 200 years of rest. She walked up to the platform while Nate and Sully stayed back. Steven went to follow but Nate put out a restraining hand on his chest and shook his head.
Mia approached the wrapped body of King Kamehameha and crouched next to it. She ran her torch over the shrouded body.
"Tapa cloth" she said as she rubbed a loose strand of it between her fingers.
"What's that?" asked Sully.
Mia stood up and wiped her hands on her nylon pants, but it was Steven who spoke, "Ancient Hawaiian customs were that they would wrap the body of the dead in tapa cloth - a paper made from the bark of a mulberry tree."
Sully shone his torchlight over the body, "Why is he bunched up like that?"
"Customs were that they would draw the knees up to the chest and loop a piece of rope around the neck and under the knees. That's why the body is rounded, like he's in a kind of yoga pose" he explained.
"Sounds comfy" Sully grunted.
"Nate can I have the camera, please?" Mia asked.
"Sure" Nate said. He pulled off his pack and handed her the video camera.
With the four of them in there, the chamber was cramped so while Mia was filming, and Steven at her shoulder, Nate indicated to Sully the smaller chamber so they could give them some more room to film and document.
"Well this is cosy" said Sully, leaning against the wall.
Nate grinned, "Yeah, a bit tight, isn't it?"
They glanced around the room in silence before Nate said, "Want to hug?"
"Shut up" said Sully drily, his at an angle to avoid bumping it on the low roof.
Nate shrugged, "If you wanted comfort, you could try a nice office job." he said as he sat down opposite his friend, back against the wall. "Air conditioning, steady pay, low risk of getting shot at."
Sully jammed his unlit, half smoked cigar in his mouth, and sat down, "Now where's the fun in that?"
They sat in silence for a while, running their torchlight over the room, settling on the table, the shelving, the stone bowls and other utensils. From time to time they could hear the murmurings of Mia and Steven, going over their new discovery.
"That Steven is a real dick, isn't he?" said Sully, breaking the quiet.
Nate snorted with laughter and as he did, his torch shone over what looked like a gap in the wall, just above Sully's head.
"What's that?" he said, getting up and dusting himself off. Sully looked up but stayed seated. As Nate got closer, he saw that it wasn't exactly a gap, but the stone was inserted was much too small for the gap it sat in.
Nate jammed his fingers around the side and pried the stone out, dust and debris falling on Sully.
"Hey!" he protested, rolling out of the way.
Shining his light into the hole, he saw a yellowed envelope.
"Look at this," he breathed.
"What is?" Sully asked, peering into the niche. "Oh ho ho," he said and reached in. He carefully grabbed the envelope and extracted it out.
On the back was a faded red wax seal that had been broken. He flipped it over and asked Nate to shine his light on the addressee. The writing had faded but was still legible. Written in looping handwritten script, it read:
Captain James Cook, FRS
HMS Resolution
Kealakekua Bay, The Sandwich Islands
"Captain Cook? The guy who discovered Australia?" asked Sully.
"Yeah, he died here. Sometime in the 1770s I think."
Sully turned the envelope back over and very carefully pried the flap open to find a piece of vellum paper inside. He pulled it out and unfolded it and laid it on the stone table.
They both read the same faded, looping script that was on the front of the envelope:
8 October, 1779
My Dear Friend,
I hope this letter finds you well. I know you are busy however I have one last mission I required of you for King and Country. It will not be easy, and it brings me great sorrow to ask this of you but you are the only man I trust to do it.
A letter has come into my possession from a monk at the Berne Abbey in the Dutch Republic which details a potentially devious plot-
"Hey!" a voice called from the antechamber entrance. Torchlight shone in their faces and Steven Masters approached. "What's that?" he asked.
"Ahh just a piece of paper," Nate said, shuffling across to stand in front of the table. But Steven wasn't fooled, he brushed past Nate and picked up the paper and envelope. His eyes read over the paper and without a word he silently folded it and placed it back in the envelope.
"Where did you find it?" he demanded.
Nate pointed to small niche in the wall, "In there."
Steven, with envelope in hand, shone his torch into the hole and then left the room.
"Who was the King when Cook was alive?" Sully asked.
Nate knew a lot about history but had to search the dark corners of his mind for this one. British history wasn't his forte, "George the third I think."
After a moments silence, Sully said, "I don't know about you kid, but I am curious what mission King George gave Cook before he died."
He walked out of the chamber and Nate followed him back into the main chamber where Steven and Mia were quietly discussing something, envelope still held in Steven's hand.
Mia saw them enter and turned, indicating the envelope, "Steven says you found this in the antechamber?"
Nate nodded, "Yep. In a hidden niche. Seems important."
"It could be" said Mia. "We don't really have any experts on the English Empire here, but Steven went to Cambridge with someone who is."
"You went to Cambridge?" asked Sully with a note of incredulity.
Steven nodded, missing Sully's jibe. "Yes. Kelvin is an associate of mine. He specialises in Georgian-era history and should be able to tell the legitimacy of it and what it means."
He looked at Nate, "Do you mind taking me back up so I can give him a call?"
"Yeah sure" said Nate and indicated him to follow. Sully followed along stating he needed to get some air.
They climbed out of the tunnel into the mid-afternoon, the air was hot with the sun light streaking through the leaves, lighting patches of the leaf-covered ground.
Steven took his phone out and held it up to wait for a signal and then dialled a number. As he waited for the other end to pick it up, he walked away leaving Nate and Sully sitting on some stones near the entrance.
"Do you think Cook even made it out of Hawaii?" asked Sully.
Nate shrugged, "From what I know he died here. I doubt he would have left and come back in time. But it really depends on what King George wanted him to do."
Sully lit his cigar, "Well I don't think he wanted some kalua or poke brought back."
Nate chuckled, "It was probably nothing. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense why the letter was still here if he took off. No, I am sure whatever it was that King George wanted, it was never done. At least not by Cook."
"But then again, the letter was well hidden." Sully said playing devil's advocate.
Nate considered, and eventually conceded this point, "True."
They watched Steven in the distance talking quietly and giving them furtive looks every so often. After ten minutes he put his phone in his pocket and returned to the entrance, "I've organised it with Kelvin. He will try to get here as soon as possible but he is stuck on a dig site at the moment.
"In the meantime, we will send him scans for him to look at."
"Sounds good" said Sully with false cheer. "Hey, do you think we could take a look at the letter?"
"No."
"No?"
"I can't possibly let you see it now. We have a management process for discoveries. The letter will be safely stored away until we take it back to the Bishop Museum for further study.
"And I don't mean to be rude, but I must be frank, you have served your purpose here. You guided us to the site, you have done your job. Leave the rest to the professionals."
And with that, he turned and crawled back into the tunnel.
"'I don't mean to be rude'." Sully mocked.
"That was pretty rude" Nate agreed.