Indy and Marion fly to Egypt to see Indy's pal, Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), who is working on the Nazi site.

Indiana: I knew the Germans had hired you, Sallah. You're the best digger in Egypt.

Sallah: My services are entirely inconsequential to them. They hired or shanghaied every digger in Cairo. The excavation is enormous. They hire only strong backs and they pay pennies for them. It's as if the pharaohs have returned.

Sallah reveals that the Nazis are aided by a French archaeologist (Belloq).

Sallah: Indy, there is something that troubles me.

Indiana: What is it?

Sallah: The Ark. If it is there, at Tanis, then it is something that man was not meant to disturb. Death has always surrounded it. It is not of this earth.

Later, Indy and Marion are shopping at a Cairo bazaar.

Indiana: Do we need the monkey?

Marion: I'm surprised at you. Talking that way about our baby. He's got your looks, too.

Indiana: And your brains.

Marion: I noticed that. She's a smart little thing. Smart.

Marion talks about her late father.

Marion: He said you were a bum.

Indiana: Aw, he's being generous.

Marion: The most gifted bum he ever trained. You know, he loved you like a son... took a hell of a lot for you to alienate him.

Indiana: Not much... just you.

Indy and Marion are attacked by sword-wielding Arabs working for Nazi agents.

Indy fights them off but in the confusion Marion is trapped in a large basket and taken by two of the Arabs.

The effort to track her down is held up by a man brandishing a sword in intimidating fashion. The swordsman is shot down in short order by a thoroughly unimpressed Indy.

Soon Indy spots a basket carried to a truck filled with explosives and is fired on by a submachine-gun-wielding assailant. His Nazi commander orders the Arabs to take off, but Indy shoots them and the truck crashes, exploding and destroying the basket.

Disconsolate over losing Marion, Indy drowns his sorrows in drink but is met by more Nazi agents who escort him to a table where Belloq is seated.

Indiana: Belloq.

Belloq: Good afternoon, Doctor Jones.

Indiana: I oughta kill you right now.

Belloq: Not a very private place for a murder.

Belloq: Please, sit down before you fall down. . . How odd that it should end this way for us after so many stimulating encounters. I almost regret it. Where shall I find a new adversary so close to my own level?

Indiana: Try the local sewer.

Belloq: You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.

Indiana: Now you're getting nasty.

Belloq gleefully talks about finding the Ark.

Belloq: Look at this. It's worthless - ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless. Like the Ark. . . . It's a transmitter, a radio for speaking to God.

Indiana: You want to talk to God? Let's go see him together, I've got nothing better to do.

Indy, no longer caring whether he lives or dies, reaches for his sidearm as Arabs inside pull rifles -- only to see Sallah's large brood of children rush in.

Belloq: Next time, Indiana Jones, it will take more than children to save you.

Sallah takes Indy to see a shaman, Omar, who is reading the Ra headpiece after both men have learned that Belloq and his Wehrmacht aide, Colonel Dietrich (Wolf Kahler), have obtained a copy of the headpiece. Neither man is aware that it is a duplicate traced from Toht's burned hand.

Omar: This were the old way, this says "six Kadan height."

Indiana: About seventy-two inches.

Omar: Wait!

The shaman turns the medallion over and reveals writing on the back.

Omar: "And take back one Kadan, to honor the Hebrew God whose ark this is."

The old man has given the precise height of the Staff of Ra to locate the Well of Souls.

Indiana: Belloq's medallion only had writing on one side? You sure about that?

Sallah: Positive!

Indiana: Belloq's staff is too long.

Indiana, Sallah: They're digging in the wrong place!

Unaware that a spy had poisoned the dates earlier, Indy throws one up in the air to catch it with his mouth, Sallah catches the date and points to the dead monkey.

Sallah: Bad dates.

At the Nazi's dig site, Belloq is arguing with Dietrich . . .

Belloq: I told you not to be premature in your communique to Berlin. Archeology is not an exact science. It does not deal in time schedules!

Dietrich: The Fuhrer is not a patient man. He demands constant reports. He expects progress. You led me to believe...

Belloq: [interrupting him] Nothing! I made no promises! I only said it looked very favorable. Besides, with the information in our possession, my calculations were correct.

Meanwhile, infiltrating the mammoth site, Indy is lowered into an underground maproom containing a precisely detailed miniature of the city.

Using the Ra headpiece, he identifies the precise location of the Well of Souls. Sallah, who had been intercepted by two Nazi's earlier and forced to remove the rope, ties together Nazi flags as a makeshift rope and pulls up Indy.

Sneaking further around the gigantic camp, Indy is shocked to find Marion, alive but bound and gagged. Indy starts to free her, but when she reveals that the Nazis keep asking about him and what he knows, he realizes he can't cut her loose without revealing his presence to the Nazis.

Belloq and the Nazis continue . . .

Belloq: Who knows. Perhaps the Ark is still waiting in some antechamber for us to discover. Perhaps there's some vital bit of evidence which eludes us. Perhaps...

Gobler: [interrupting him] Perhaps the girl can help us.

Dietrich: My feeling exactly. She was in possession of the original piece for years. She may know much if... properly motivated.

Belloq: I tell you the girl knows nothing.

Dietrich: I am surprised to find you squeamish. That is not your reputation. But it needn't concern you. I have the perfect man for this kind of work.

Toht approaches.

Toht: Heil Hitler.

Late that afternoon Indy and Sallah sneak a digging party of their own to the actual location of the Well of Souls.

Late into the night they dig open the chamber. Upon opening the Well of the Souls and peering down . . .

Sallah: Indy, why does the floor move?

Indiana: Give me your torch.

Indy takes the torch and drops it in.

Indiana: Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?

Sallah: Asps... very dangerous. You go first.

Meanwhile, Belloq is wooing Marion with dinner, drink, and a fancy dress.

Indy clears an area of snakes with burning torches, then lowers himself into the chamber and burns many of the snakes alive with flaming gasoline, Sallah follows.

Marion is continuing a drinking contest with Belloq, but it's her ploy to escape.

Marion: [laughs] What is this stuff, Rene?

Belloq: [laughing as well] I grew up with this. It's my family label.

Marion falls to the ground laughing then calmly and quickly pulls out the knife she was concealing and points it at Belloq threateningly, who bursts out laughing in response.

Marion: [laughs] We-he-he-ell I have to be going now, Rene.

Belloq flicking his hand and laughing.

Marion: [walking off] I like you, Rene, very much. Perhaps we'll meet again under better circumstances.

However, as Marion heads for the tent exit, she is intercepted by Toht.

Toht: We meet again, Fraulein. You Americans, you're all the same. Always overdressing for the wrong occasions. . . . Now... what shall we talk about?

Indy and Sallah eventually find the gigantic chest that is the Ark.

They place the ark in a crate and have it hauled up. The helpers first pull up Sallah through the opening with Indy waiting next.

By now it is dawn, and only now does Belloq notice the commotion of Indy's secretive dig. The Nazis surround the site and Indy is left trapped inside. Belloq: So once again, Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine. What a fitting end to your life's pursuits. You're about to become a permanent addition to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a thousand years, even you may be worth something.

Indiana: [laughing] Son of a bitch.

But Dietrich leaves him with something else -- Marion, who is thrown into the chamber.

Belloq: The girl was mine!

Dietrich: She's of no use to us. Only your mission for the F�hrer matters.

They seal the opening shut.

Indiana: Here, take this . . .

He hands Marion a torch.

Indiana: Wave it at anything that slithers.

Marion: The whole place is slitherin'!

She turns and mistakes Indy's whip on his side for a snake.

Marion: Indy!

She tries to burn it with the torch.

Indiana: Ahh!

Indy notices a wall where snakes are entering. He climbs a mammoth statue and with all his might breaks it from its foundation and it crashes through the wall.

Belloq refuses Dietrich's request to celebrate until the Ark has been delivered to Hitler.