Taking a lead from Don Jose and others, with a side tunnel theory. Dig straight way way down, well below the water level of the "trap flood". Then go up somewhat, and dig a tunnel at an angle back towards the surface. Figure tunnel diameter would have to be large enough to move said "treasure" and folks to do so. So what, similar to your average mine shaft? Then excavate out a larger area once height was reached to fit all the "treasure". It would have to still be deep enough from the surface to prevent the ground above from settling, like it did over the pit. Also dependent on the soil conditions, said storage area would need bracing installed to prevent collapsing. So rather then one large open area, maybe several smaller shafts branching out horizontally from where the up tunnel stopped.
Okay, all dug out, goodies installed.Somewhere along the line, they also dig to construct the trap. Now pack a couple barrels of gun powder at the beginning of the up tunnel, and light them off. That part of the tunnel collapses, and Mother Nature takes care of the rest of camouflaging it. Then fill in the original tunnel with left over debris from all the digging.
Clean up the camp site, and make haste out of the area, knowing that first person trying to dig out the original tunnel will trip the trap, flooding the tunnel, and further hiding the up tunnel to the storage area.
To aid in recovery, you wouldn't need an X marking the spot, just a general area of the storage vault(s). If they used one large one be fairly easy to dig down and hit some portion of it. If they used several horizontal shafts, then all you would need is to get to part of one, then just follow it back to the hub, and there's the rest of them.
Either way that's a heck of an excavation! We're talking manual labor, hauling up the debris by ropes in baskets? All that dirt piled up would make one heck of a pile, little hard to disguise. Then a bunch of carpenters, so to say, to cut/form all the wood needed, like the wooden floors found every so many feet down in the original shaft. Not to mention bracing for the shafts(s). So you would need a crew for that. Even if they cut up their boats, somebody had to know how to do it properly. This would not have been a couple of guys doing this over a weekend. My thinking, this would have involved a heck of a lot more then some Knights off a boat. Way too many folks needed to handle all that was involved.
Not even counting the support staff. Not like they had a 7/11 store nearby to grab some lunch and Slurpee's to drink. They would have to have at least a few folks out hunting game, and collecting water/berries, and fishing, and such, then some cooks to prepare said meals for the crews. Oh and the new guys, the ones who got stuck digging the privies and carrying those baskets of dirt to the dump site.
And don't forget the supervisors, can't be a union job without them. The guys who knew how to properly dig down so far, then properly construct the up tunnels, and the vault(s) and the trap. You know the white hats.
Oh and sailors too, somebody had to be able to drive the ship(s) to the site, without getting lost.
Okay so now we have at least what 7 guys/Knights to do the job. We got us a digger, a carpenter, a hunter, a cook, the new guy who gets all the dirty work, a supervisor, and a sailor. So now those guys finish up, hopefully they didn't cut up all their ship(s) as they would have no way off the island. Not like they were on Star Trek and could beam up to the mother ship. Oh wait, maybe it was Aliens.
Nah, a bunch of Knights who sure were smart, but were they also conceivably that good at all the other types of work involved to do this on their own.
Think about it, smart guys don't do dirty work unless it's absolutely necessary. Smart guys would have had a crew(s) with them to handle all the effort required. Could they all have fit on one boat? Maybe, but I doubt a construction project of this size would be a small effort.
So just me again, but we'll say at least two boats. Two boats parked for however long it took to do the deed. And a bunch of folks traipsing all over the place, hunting, fishing, cooking, cutting wood, digging, hauling, and so on. And lets not forget that pile of dirt. And in all that, not one person got sick or injured and died. I guess they could have tossed said body in the ocean if it occurred, but heck we got diggers, lets just dig a grave.
And I forgot one. These guys were religious, so what a bout a Padre/Priest/Monk to lead them?
All that, and nobody mentions seeing anything, nor speaking of it? Nobody passing by in another boat happens by and doesn't question it? Natives don't see smoke from the mainland, and go check it out? Nobody knows nothing, like Sgt. Schultz?
And where did they all go afterwards? Did the Knights pull a Pirate "dead men tell no tales" bit on the rest of the crew(s)?
If they did where are the bodies? If they didn't where did those folks go? Home and never mention the job, yeah sure. To the mainland, and either died or killed by the Indians? Marry into the tribe? Or just disappear in the the mist?
I'm a straw brained scarecrow, but I didn't fall off the turnip truck.
Damn these guys were good.
