Free Gold of the Gods by Bear Grylls Page B

motto.'
    'It looks more like the map of a rabbit
warren than a map of a Lost City,' said
Christina as the twins peered over Beck's
shoulder at the intricate mosaic of lines
scrawled in faded, black ink.
    'I've been thinking about it again,' said
Beck. 'I think it's in three parts. Three
different sections of the journey.' He looked
up at the mountains, where the jagged outline
of the highest peaks was etched against
the deep blue of the morning sky.
    Suddenly, with a shout, Marco grabbed
the map case from Beck's grasp and held it
up to the sky. A thick wavy line had been
drawn across the top of the parchment.
Lines ran off it down the page, with here
and there a cross and some words in an
ancient Spanish script. Marco held it up to
his eyes so that the light shone through the
parchment. He squinted at it, moving it
slowly from side to side. Finally he held
it still.
    'Look,' he said, the excitement rising in
his voice. 'This must have been Gonzalo's
view of the mountains when the ships
landed. He's got every little ravine and peak.
The outline of the mountains is almost
exactly the same as the line on the map. You
can see it through the parchment. They're
an almost perfect match.'
    Under a notch in the high mountains, a
straggling line led down to a large cross.
Next to it, in bold capitals, were the
words:
    AQUI. 8 DIC. AÑO DE. NUESTRO SEÑOR MDXXII
    ' Here. December the eighth. The Year of Our Lord fifteen twenty-one ,' whispered
Marco. 'This must be where the
conquistadors landed. It fits completely.
The lines running down from the mountains
must be rivers. The other lines must be
paths through the jungle. It's all beginning
to make sense.'
    Euphoria gripped the crew as land drew
closer. But as the sun passed overhead and
the afternoon wore on, the wind began to
blow more strongly. Brooding storm clouds
were massing above them. Almost black
towards their base, they were stacked
hundreds of metres into the sky. At its top,
one of the clouds had flattened out like an
anvil in a blacksmith's forge.
    'Q nims,' said Beck. 'Cumulonimbus
clouds. Bad sign. I was hoping we would
have landed before the storm broke but no
such luck. We could do with some fresh
water but that little lot could drown a city.'
    Christina was grim faced. 'I don't need a
survival expert to tell me that, Beck. Those
clouds look like they could sink the Titanic ,
not just the Bella Señora .'
    The breeze was now blowing fiercely
towards the land. The sea was surging
beneath them, lifting the raft and dropping
it again in the troughs between the waves.
Beck could see strips of white sand where
the beach was sandwiched between the
green of the jungle and the blue of the sea.
All along its length, the line was broken by
the dark gashes of rocky headlands.
    He gazed anxiously up at the sky. If the
storm had come just a few hours later, they
could have chosen their landing spot at
leisure. But with the strength of the wind
and the current, steering with the tiller was
becoming almost impossible. As the shore
came closer, Beck winced. His worst fears
were being realized. The raft was being
blown straight towards a headland between
two bays. Stretching out towards them was
the telltale white froth of a line of surf
where a sandbank had built up beyond the
headland, and the waves split in two like
the traffic on a motorway intersection.
    Further in, on either side of the headland,
giant rollers thundered onto the beaches. 'It
won't be long now,' shouted Beck above the
roar of the wind. 'I'll do what I can to keep
the raft in the hollows between the waves. If
we start surfing on the crests, we'll be
thrown straight onto the rocks.'
    As Beck shouted instructions, Christina
and Marco did what they could to steady
the raft. Ringo had abandoned his perch on
the mast, his screeches blown away on the
wind as he circled above them. But now a
huge wave was raising them up and the
twins felt themselves being lifted skywards,
as if a giant hand were hurling them towards
the