Chapter Twenty-Four

Seabury led the way through the underground temple. A domed arch formed the ceiling, and large, cylindrical columns supported huge outer walls along the floor. In contrast to the ancient Javanese paintings and hieroglyphics at the entrance to the cave, tall stone statues now appeared. Armed footmen with swords and shields, jousting knights on horseback stood grim and serious, guarding their stone alcoves.

They wore woolen and hooded surcoats over long tunics. The tunics stood out noticeably under the light, emblazoned with the Knights Templar Red Cross coat of arms covering their armor.

Seabury took note, convinced now of the link between the Freemasons and the Knights Templar—excited now about what they might find inside. Moving on, they passed from one chamber into another. Down a flight of stone steps, through another chamber, and into a tunnel, the light beyond their flashlights suddenly grew brighter.

Along the outer walls on both sides of them, the light glittered. It was hard to believe, and Seabury stopped to catch his breath and pinch himself. “Wow! Will you look at that.” His arm looped around Hornsby. He squeezed him and patted him on the back. Lois and Gretchen hugged each other and laughed out loud, their eyes as bright as stars.

“Can you believe it?” he asked Hornsby. “We’re surrounded by a sea of gold.”

Large veins of pure gold snaked up the side of each wall. Seabury shone his light on them. The soft, yellowish glow of gold stared back at him. Still, the greatest marvel was yet to come. On the floor at the end of the temple lay a pirate’s treasure cove. Open wooden chests with iron sprockets overflowed with treasure. Ruby-studded silver chalices. Gold rings, gold coins, pearl necklaces spilled out of the chests and onto the floor.

In her moment of joy, Gretchen froze instantly in her tracks. She let out a mournful whimper as she stared to her left into the darkness. In a nearby corner, a chest containing the heads of skeletons startled and frightened her.

“Yuck! Scary,” she said. Lois grabbed her arm and turned her away.

Hornsby looked all around, beaming with delight as he made his way to the end of the temple. Seabury heard the sound of rushing water outside, and Hornsby said to him, “It’s the Garden.”

They immerged from the temple into a surrealistic place. Seabury felt it the moment her entered the Garden. A fresh, fragrant air filled his nostrils. The place glittered with a sheen of liquid gold, drifting off for miles in all directions. Further back, the Garden gurgled with the sound of a bubbling brook. Clear, circular pools appeared below lush green trees and patches of bright tropical flowers. Beyond that, a canopy of clouds tipped in silver separated effortlessly. Then below, he glimpsed deer and small furry animals drop their noses into the stream. My word, he thought, spellbound. Paradise on Earth.

The sound of Hornsby’s voice brought a stop to his reverie. “Oh, my word. The Tree of Life. Are we dreaming?” Hornsby shouted.

Seabury turned around. “No, not if what you’re seeing is the same thing I’m seeing. I can’t believe it. We’ve entered the Garden of Eden.”

Lois balked. “It’s just a tropical garden. Don’t get too excited.” She stood back, unimpressed.

“We’ve found Eden Two,” Hornsby beamed. “And this old agnostic is now a believer. There is a God, and He’s built his Garden here in Southeast Asia. If I don’t take another breath, my life has been fulfilled.”

“Come on, Professor,” Lois said, still not convinced that they’d found anything other than a tropical garden here in the belly of a mountain. “Aren’t you being overly dramatic?”

“Not with what I’m seeing. Take a look around. Admit it for once. I’m not saying that the original Garden of Eden wasn’t in Mesopotamia.”

“What are you saying, then?” she snapped at him.

Hornsby rubbed his jaw and shook his head, astonished by what he was hearing. “I’m saying that a second Garden was built here after the Great Flood. This whole area wasn’t mountainous centuries ago. During the last Ice Age, the continents were joined together to form the land of Sundaland on the Sunda Shelf. When the ice receded and the area flooded, mountains vanished, and the area became tropical. Because of volcanoes, earthquakes, and catastrophic shifts along the earth’s surface, mountains began to reappear again.”

He swung his eyes back on the ancient tree alongside the stream. “That’s the Tree of Life…I’m sure of it.” He shook his head, happily. He rubbed back tears welling up in his tired old eyes. He couldn’t control his excitement. “I knew it, I knew it. I did,” he said. “The minute we entered this place, I knew that we’d made the discovery of the century.”

“Nonsense,” Lois said. “It’s just a tropical garden. It has nothing to do with the Land of Havilah, or Mesopotamia, or anything stated in the Bible. You’re wrong again, Professor.”

He shook his head, amazed by her ignorance. “Let me tell you something, Lois. I’ve read the Forbidden Books of Eden…the ones the Church Fathers never allowed into their secret, well-protected Bible. I read them in utter amazement. The Church Fathers’ version is so utterly unbelievable and so allegorically flawed that it draws a rational, scientific mind like mine to question everything about it. Let’s just say for the sake of discussion that what your prophet Ezekiel spoke was true. He had a vision. Don’t all the saints and prophets in your Bible have visions?”

She let the remark go past her.

“Your prophet Ezekiel spoke of waters running out toward the east country. They went down into the desert and out to sea. What his vision really tells us is that the waters didn’t flow out onto a desert at all, but they flowed onto a tropical terrain that could very well have been here in Southeast Asia. The whole earth was not Eden. Eden was a Garden. It was, according to your Bible, God’s delight, God’s pleasure, God’s Paradise. The Garden was built by God, and man was God’s gardener.”

Seabury moved away from the discussion, down to the stream with Gretchen. “Those two…” He pointed back over his shoulder, chuckling. “They’re never going to agree on anything.”

“She’s like that, Seabury. I told you. She can’t be wrong.”

Across the way, Hornsby’s voice lowered. Seabury looked at Gretchen. “You know, I’m finally convinced,” he said. “It’s clear that God must have been hurt and disappointed by Adam’s sin. Likewise, he was also kind and merciful. All along, He must have known that man would sin and be driven from the original Garden of Eden. So, out of a feeling of pity, He built a second Garden after the original Garden was destroyed during the Great Flood. He relocated it to Southeast Asia. The Garden became a stay-over or resting place for the trans-migration of Post Flood Man to China, Australia, and over a land bridge into North and South America. This place proves the theory.”

“Hogwash. Nonsense. Idiotic.” Lois came up and overheard the conversation.

Seabury chuckled at her. “Admit it for once. You’re wrong, Lois.” He extended his arms wide. “Here it is. You’re standing in it.”

Lois smiled thinly. “I don’t believe you.”

Seabury had heard enough. He shook his head and turned away from her. Meantime, the spring bubbled nearby. It skirted the cave and flowed through the outer edge of the Garden down through a deep underground leveret of tunnels out of the mountain. Gretchen watched the spring. It bubbled in a soft misty light, formed a small pool and another, then a series of other larger pools that drained from the Garden.

“It looks so clear,” Gretchen said to the others. She bent down and scooped a handful of water into her mouth.

“Hold it,” Lois snapped at her. “It might be contaminated.”

“Tastes good.” Gretchen scooped more water into her mouth.

“I wouldn’t,” Lois warned.

“I’m thirsty…and it tastes good.”

“I think it’s all right,” said Seabury, joining Gretchen.

In the midst of their conversation, no one noticed him. At the mouth of the temple leading out to the Garden, the Sicilian stood, quietly watching them. His finger inched closer to the trigger and then slipped gently around it.

He hardly felt the weight of the gun in his hand as he raised it higher. A flicker of sunlight shot through a crimson cloud and glinted off the barrel. An excellent marksman, he felt the muscles of his right hand relax as he held the weapon at shoulder-height, ready to fire. It wasn’t a great distance, and the shot should have killed Seabury instantly. At the last second, however, Hornsby’s head popped up into the line of fire, just as the Sicilian pulled the trigger.

Time seemed to suspend for a moment as Hornsby’s shoulders hunched and his body stiffened. Then, his head jolted forward as the bullet tore through his skull and exited in a pink mist out through his left eyeball. As if swept forward by gale-force winds, the old man’s feet flew off the ground. He hurled forward, arms and legs flapping awkwardly. He was airborne for a few more seconds before his dead body came crashing down hard, face-first onto the ground.

Seabury’s head spun back in the direction of the gunfire. Instinctively, he grabbed Lois and Gretchen and yanked them to safety behind the withered trunk of the ancient tree. The Sicilian tramped down into the Garden after them.