hands were frozen just shy of four o'clock. Time was running out when the watch had stopped, and Indy wasn't sure of how long ago that had been.
Indy reached for lever five, then hesitated.
"You wouldn't have made it this easy," Indy said finally. "Maybe it doesn't matter if you choose three or five. Perhaps it's more a matter of where you're standing—or sitting."
There were five broad flagstones surrounding the throne—two in front, two on the sides, and one in back.
"Move over, Qin."
Indy climbed up onto the jade throne and sat as gently as he could in the emperor's lap. Still, a cloud of dust rose from the corpse. Indy winced. Then he reached down, grasped lever number one firmly in his right hand, and tugged.
The flagstones in front of the throne fell open with an explosive sound that reminded Indy of a trap being sprung on a gallows. At the same time, the aperture in the center of the domed chamber opened. A rumbling shook the throne room as tons of fine sand poured from the aperture and into the shaft that had been revealed.
Then, as the sand stopped, the throne began to rise.
Above, Indy could see a glimmer of starlight in a pinkish sky. Below, he could see the shaft beneath the throne as it rose from the floor. Indy fought an urge to jump down. Whatever happened, the safest place in the entire tomb was probably sitting with Qin.
The throne was rising at an angle of several degrees off center, so that even though the sand fell into the shaft in front of it, the throne would rise up through the same aperture.
As it rose, it gained speed.
The throne passed through the aperture in the ceiling, twenty feet above the floor, and continued up at the same slanting angle. Indy could smell the fresh night air, and he could see a wider circle of fading stars at the end of the shaft.
The throne was going even faster now, and traversed the last hundred feet of shaft in a few seconds. Suddenly it was thrust from the side of the mountain and stopped, in a cloud of corpse dust, with a jerk. Qin's skull rolled from his shoulders, bounced once on the arm of the jade throne, then disappeared down the mountainside.
Indy was thrown from Qin's lap, but managed to grasp lever number five on his way over. It was the wrong one. He felt the mechanical click, then the throne began to recede back into the side of the mountain.
Below him, Indy heard a gasp.
"Ai!"
A squad of Japanese soldiers, who had been holding Lo at bayonet-point, were looking up in slack-jawed wonder at the spectacle of the jade throne, what was left of the emperor, and Indiana Jones hanging in the morning sky. Lo made use of the moment to flee, and none of the soldiers turned to chase him.
Given the choice between the certain death of being crushed against the side of the mountain and probable death at the hands of these Japanese raiders, Indy choose the latter. He released his grip on the lever and dropped to the feet of the Japanese soldiers.
The mountain rumbled, and the shaft seemed to disappear. Then, the round door where he had entered—which Lo had replaced before the soldiers arrived—gave a shudder and was sucked inward as the tomb regained its original pressure differential.
Indy greeted the soldiers with a wry smile and a salutation in Japanese:
"Ohio gozaimash'ta."
One of the soldiers made a move toward Indy with his bayonet, but the squad leader knocked it aside.
"Not to tell us good morning!" the squad leader screamed at Indy in English. "Not to say anything! What is your name?"
Indy was silent.
"What is your name?"
"You told me not to say anything."
"Silence!"
The squad leader drove the toe of his boot into Indy's ribs.
"You didn't have to do that," Indy said, doubling over in pain.
"What is your name?"
"Babe Ruth," Indy said.
"Stand up."
Indy stood.
The squad leader took the Webley from Indy's holster and stuck it into his own belt. Then he took the satchel and removed the ivory moon from it. He held it up for the others to