The Royal Way
 The locations are, at the beginning of the book, the ship from Marseille to Indochina and a brothel; later it is set in Cambodia, Laos and Siam. The most important characters are young adventuresome Claude Vannec and an old experienced adventurer named Perken, a Dane with German associations. They relate to each other because of their nonconformism, which lets them collaborate to obtain their personal goals: the quest for the reliefs (for which they are motivated both archeologically and financially), as well as the search for a lost adventurer called Grabot. They succeed in stealing the reliefs. But they are abandoned by their guide and in a dangerous jungle. Because they fear the government, they chose a way through the uncontrolled territory of the Moïs. This region is dangerous, too – but on the other hand Grabot is supposed to be there. The adventurers have to defeat hostile vegetation and traps (e.g. swamps, giant insects, fleams). A deal is made with the Stiengs, but disintegrates as the adventurers find Grabot enslaved horribly. Now the adventurers are under siege. Perken, in a moment of lucidity and courage, manages to rescue the beleaguered ones. The price he pays is an injury to his knee, which progresses to ulcerating inflammation of the joint (in a time before the invention of antibiotics, at a place without any opportunity to do a sterile amputation), and he dies slowly in pain.