I'd been on the hunt for a sunken Civil War cargo laden with treasure and now I was getting mixed up in fabled lands and technologies of long-ago mythical island kingdoms. Lemuria was in the Pacific, but its twin center of learning and advancement according to popular thought was in the Atlantic where my treasure legend originated from.
I sat back in my chair thinking it all out. Did I perhaps have the key to finding Atlantis in the bag over by the door?
I hoped not!
Atlantis was the prize on every treasure hunter's radar, but it wasn't on mine. I wanted nothing to do with the insane wealth and prestige that finding Atlantis could bring me. I was content as things were.
If I could find the wreck of the Southern treasure fleet and do well enough to recover ten percent of its wealth I'd have enough money to pay off what I owed on the Celestia's Prize, pay my crew a little extra and put away a little money in a bank for a rainy day.
I would be content with that. Finding Atlantis would be a different story.
I'd have every cutthroat there was not to mention every nation bordering the Atlantic Ocean trying to hone in and claim a share of the prize. I didn't want that, but what was I to do?
I had to pay the bills somehow. This ship wasn't free. Even sitting stationary in harbor was costing money. Money I didn't have to spare.
I glanced at the bag on the floor. Was I getting ahead of myself?
Maybe. But then, maybe not.
Something was evident though in the mess that my legend had become, the Confederate South had not had a technological breakthrough in maritime navigation.
That truth was made evident by both the condition of the device's older creation and by Captain Rogers's note. He had said that the South had found it. He'd also said that he'd tried to destroy it, but had failed.
It was clear to me from his note that the warning against finding something to do with treasure was about something other than the treasure that the fleet had been carrying. Could the warning be real?
I stood up and went to the bag and rummaging around inside I found the captain's warning note and took it back to the computer. I sat down and read the warning message again feeling the corresponding chill course through me that I had the first time I'd read it.
Something leaped out at me this time. Part of a sentence in the note seemed to line up with a verse that I had read in the Bible.