Inside Saint-Sulpice, Silas carried the heavy iron votive candle holder from the altar back towardthe obelisk. The shaft would do nicely as a battering ram. Eyeing the gray marble panel thatcovered the apparent hollow in the floor, he realized he could not possibly shatter the coveringwithout making considerable noise.

　　Iron on marble. It would echo off the vaulted ceilings.

　　Would the nun hear him? She should be asleep by now. Even so, it was a chance Silas preferrednot to take. Looking around for a cloth to wrap around the tip of the iron pole, he saw nothingexcept the altar's linen mantle, which he refused to defile. My cloak, he thought. Knowing he wasalone in the great church, Silas untied his cloak and slipped it off his body. As he removed it, hefelt a sting as the wool fibers stuck to the fresh wounds on his back.

　　Naked now, except for his loin swaddle, Silas wrapped his cloak over the end of the iron rod. Then,aiming at the center of the floor tile, he drove the tip into it. A muffled thud. The stone did notbreak. He drove the pole into it again. Again a dull thud, but this time accompanied by a crack. Onthe third swing, the covering finally shattered, and stone shards fell into a hollow area beneath thefloor.

　　A compartment!

　　Quickly pulling the remaining pieces from the opening, Silas gazed into the void. His bloodpounded as he knelt down before it. Raising his pale bare arm, he reached inside.

　　At first he felt nothing. The floor of the compartment was bare, smooth stone. Then, feeling deeper,reaching his arm in under the Rose Line, he touched something! A thick stone tablet. Getting hisfingers around the edge, he gripped it and gently lifted the tablet out. As he stood and examined hisfind, he realized he was holding a rough-hewn stone slab with engraved words. He felt for aninstant like a modern-day Moses.

　　As Silas read the words on the tablet, he felt surprise. He had expected the keystone to be a map, ora complex series of directions, perhaps even encoded. The keystone, however, bore the simplest ofinscriptions.

　　Job 38:11A Bible verse? Silas was stunned with the devilish simplicity. The secret location of that whichthey sought was revealed in a Bible verse? The brotherhood stopped at nothing to mock therighteous!

　　Job. Chapter thirty-eight. Verse eleven.

　　Although Silas ............