Clifford Smyth

“ The opening to the tunnel was much as Andrew had described it, an inconspicuous, narrow rift at the base of a great wall of rock. In nine cases out of ten it would pass unnoticed; so small an aperture, concealed by bushes and trailing vines, was safe from the most inquisitive travelers. That so timid a person as the schoolmaster had discovered (no one took seriously his tale of the togaed and sandaled stranger) and forced his way through this opening caused no end of wonder. To accomplish the same feat drew forth many a groan from the corpulent Leighton and Miranda. ”

“ Why had he never told her of this Indian romance? Hypnotism indeed! What man could help kneeling in passionate adoration before this queenly woman, whose beauty was of that glorious warmth and fragrance belonging [309] to the purple and scarlet flowers of one’s dreams, whose love combined the unreasoning devotion of a child with the proud loyalty that inspires martyrdom? They had loved—David and Sajipona—there could be no doubt of that. Before he met Una on the shores of that far-off English lake, David had stood soul to soul in a heaven created by this radiant being. ”

“ Sajipona’s cheek paled; her lips tightened as if to prevent an angry rejoinder.
“Are you not content with him as he is?” persisted Raoul.
“What is that to you?” she asked coldly. Then, no longer disguising her emotion, she went on:
“You don’t understand what is between us. He comes from a world that I have never seen. In the legends of our kings there is one telling of a stranger who suddenly appears from a land of clouds—a land no man knows—who brings with him the power to make my people, as they once were, rulers of their own land. It is an old tale. ”

“ You are very beautiful, Sajipona; noble and great, like the daughter of real kings of the earth. You are my dream-queen, you know, the first love to touch my soul with a knowledge of beauty. Such a woman men die for! Sometimes, when you sing to me, or tease old Narva; or when I would hold you and you kind of ripple away laughing, like the little brook at the bottom of the garden—yes, that is the woman men die loving. ”

“ But the man you fear, that you see there, will bring freedom to us both.”
Whatever Sajipona meant by her enigmatical words, the fact was there, the living, moving likeness of Raoul Arthur, in the light-woven tapestry at Una’s feet. Eagerly she watched him. It was certainly Raoul, Raoul hurrying towards her, growing more distinct, more threatening with every moment. Behind him streamed a shadowy line of men—swiftly, confidently—following a trail amid the jagged rocks and precipices of the cave that might well have daunted the boldest spirits, but which seemed powerless to retard their progress. ”

“ He sought it with David three years ago, the poor treasure belonging to what is left of my people. Segurra told him where it was, how to get it.”
“Ah, yes!” exclaimed Una. “Now I know! The treasure of Guatavita, of El Dorado, it is here.”
“It is here—it is mine!” said Sajipona sternly. “It will never be his. Always your people have fought for it, have sinned and died to make it theirs. They have driven us off the face of the earth, to hide for centuries in this cave and in that other land that as yet you know nothing of. ”

“ They had reached, indeed, the very spot where she and Narva had first caught sight of that topmost pinnacle of the cave, behind and above which flamed the great ball of fire, the sun of this subterranean world. As Sajipona’s palace stood at the base of this pinnacle, she calculated, from her own experience of the journey, that Raoul and his followers were coming directly towards them.
“There is nothing to fear,” resumed Sajipona, as if in answer to her thoughts. “Be glad of their coming. But—for your own people I am afraid.” ”

“ But, queen or not, Una was ready to pin her faith to this strange being who had accosted them in so unexpected a manner. It was useless even to attempt an explanation of how an aged Indian woman, answering to the name of Narva, inhabiting a cave in the remote Andes, could talk English, and how it happened that she appeared to know them—a party of distressed foreigners—whom she had certainly never met before. So long as she refused to explain—and refuse she certainly did—all this would have to remain the puzzle that it was. ”

“ Surely, you don’t want to bring ruin upon us, Sajipona! Why not blot it out altogether?”
She shook her head sadly, looking wistfully into his face. They clasped each other’s hands, oblivious, for the moment, of Raoul’s presence.
“If you are king there must be no forgetting, no dread of a memory that has been lost. You must know! The Land of the Condor is a land of dreams compared with the rest of the world. You have been out there, David, but you have forgotten. ”

“ These rays flashed and sparkled in long, waving streamers of flame, disappearing and suddenly renewing their radiance with a ceaseless energy similar to that displayed by some gigantic dynamo whose emanations are produced by a concentration of power as yet unattempted by man. Fascinated by this [282] splendor, Una realized that she was standing beneath the great luminous body whose magical effects she had first witnessed while approaching the palace with Narva. Shielding her eyes from a spectacle that wearied by its vehemence, she turned to Sajipona. But Sajipona was not with her. ”

“ They live unknown, forgotten, in a cave in the mountains. Why do you think David is the stranger in the legend?”
She drew herself up scornfully. Her dark beauty, flashing eye, quivering nostril, needed not the emerald diadem of the ancient Chibchas encircling her brow to proclaim her royal lineage.
“We are not so poor, so abandoned, as you seem to think,” she said. “This is all that is left of a mighty kingdom, it is true—a cave unknown to the rest of the world. But here we are, at least, free. ”

“ In form and color he seemed a part of the dead branches and tangle of brushwood he had chosen for his resting place. Once recognized, however, and the malignant creature became a vivid symbol of the ruthless death with which he threatened whoever mistook his yawning mouth for a rift in a fallen tree-trunk.
“What a monster!” exclaimed David, roused from his daylong dreams.
“Estupido!” retorted Miranda. “He wait for his dinner—as you and I—that is all. The so cruel alligator, you know, is good mother for the young ones. She love them better than some womens.” ”

“ Quayle drew the line at the supernatural. So, she ended by being simply amazed beyond measure—and her companions shared her feelings in lessening degree. Miranda and Herran, dumbfounded by the apparition, forgot to handle their revolvers in the warlike fashion they had intended with the first approach of a foe; Andrew gaped in an open-mouthed sort of dream, during which his pocket-knife came imminently near doing fatal execution upon himself, while Una and Leighton, forgetting their anxiety, were lost in admiration of the delicious music and of the spectacle before them. ”

“ In the act of carrying out this pleasant suggestion, the attention of David and Herran was suddenly caught by a babel of voices—shouts of command, the tramp of many feet—coming from the Bogota end of the trail. Interruptions of this kind are more serious than they may seem to those unfamiliar with Colombian mountain travel. So rough and narrow is the road to Bogota, with sometimes a precipice on one hand and a sheer wall of rock on the other, that the problem of two parties passing each other is not always an easy one. ”

“ Immediately, it seemed to you that you were on your way with them to meet Sajipona in this cave where you had been three years before. All that had passed between then and now faded from your mind. But, of course you know that is preposterous! Nothing fades from the mind. The memory of that period that you think you have forgotten is really in your brain, waiting for you to call it to life. And now, you will call it to life.”
The emphasis, the force in what Raoul was saying was due more to his manner, the intensity with which he regarded David, than in the actual words themselves. ”

“ The girl’s companion, his back half turned to David, his face still expressive of amusement, and looking straight before him at the ripple of water kissing the pebbles at his feet, spoke in a loud, harsh voice:
“Una,” he said, “remember the schoolmaster! This man’s world is not ours. What does he know of Rysdale?”
She looked down confusedly, aware that her uncle—for it was Harold Leighton—without seeing this stranger who had so quickly aroused her interest, spoke as if he knew who he was and all about him. When she looked again, David was gone. ”

“ This mysterious queen, then, of whom Narva had vaguely spoken before, was really mixed up in their present expedition. She recalled Narva’s hint that, in some way, Una was to be of assistance to her, and she wondered whether this meant that they were bringing rescue of some sort to the queen, a possibility of high adventure she was far too young not to relish. A queen, moreover, who cultivated jewels—or something very like them—in her garden was worthy the best flowers of romance. At any rate, Una felt a new zest in the enterprise she was on and began to chafe at Narva’s leisurely dignity. ”

“ They had the most exaggerated trust in Anitoo’s wisdom and prowess; that he could be vanquished by any one impressed them mightily. The death of their leader was, indeed, a potent argument in favor of the man who had killed him. What did this victorious stranger intend to do now? they asked each other. Then the foremost of them put the question to the two rebels, who answered with contagious enthusiasm:
“He will free us! The wealth of the Condor will be ours! We will have the world—not a cave—to live in!” ”

“ Stepping back from the direct rays of the great ball of fire, the manifestations of whose mysterious power had until then absorbed her attention, Una found herself in the midst of a throng of people, all of them, apparently, watching her. By their dress, simple and flowing as that worn by the followers of Anitoo, she perceived these were cave men and women, some forty or fifty in number, each one standing motionless along the wall farthest from her. ”

“ The past was completely blotted out; the tender idyl of Derwentwater, of Rysdale, forgotten. Even the sight of Una herself stirred but the vaguest ripple of memory. There was mystery, certainly, in these strange moods of forgetfulness from which David was suffering. Her uncle could give them a learned name and account for them as belonging to something quite outside the man’s will, outside his control. But what did Leighton really know of all this? Such matters were beyond the reach of the mere scientist. With a flash of scorn she doubted Leighton’s knowledge ”

“ The reply was only half understood by the cavemen; but the attitude of Raoul, contrasted with the majestic bearing and composure of Sajipona, had already aroused their indignation.
“It may have been, as you say, in self-defense—I have only your word for it. But, for the treachery, the rebellion you have brought here,” the queen went on, “by all the laws of our kingdom you should die. But I have something I wish you to do. If you do it, your life will be spared and you will be taken in safety from this cave never to enter it again.” ”

“ The irregularities of the outer cave, with its rough bowlders and piles of fallen débris, its dark masses of shapeless sandstone, was exchanged here for forms of marvelous symmetry, fashioned, one could but imagine, for the enjoyment of a race of beings to whom the majesty of beauty must be an ever-living reality. Seen by the explorers, in the wavering half light that filled the cave, the bold outlines of cliff and battlement were softened and blended in a vague witchery of design suggesting meanings and distances varying with the fancy of the beholder. ”

“ ON INDIAN TRAILS Doctor Miranda was right about Andrew. By the time he had finished moving his party and their luggage from the stifling railroad shed to the cool courtyard of Honda’s principal inn, the schoolmaster had been beaten in his last feeble fight for liberty and had become the victim to an unlimited amount of quininizing. No need now to force his eyelids apart to reveal the telltale yellow within. Even a tyro in such matters could see from his jaundiced appearance, his quick breathing, his general inertia, that he was in the first stages of an attack of fever. ”

“ Sajipona smilingly watched the effect of this ceremony on her companion.
“Ah! it is not here as in Bogota,” she said, “or in the world where you come from, far from Bogota. You think all this that you see is unreal—a dream, perhaps. My people are so different from yours—and all these many [285] years they live forgotten, unknown. I have lived in Bogota. There they do not know of this great cave that belonged to the ancient rulers of the mountains. They don’t know that I am queen here, or of this palace that is mine—and the light that burns like the sun. ”

“ We have eyes that see everything that happens in our world of stone, eyes that pierce through the stones themselves. I knew when you came into our kingdom; I watched you when you passed through the great gate [286] where the others were fighting. But—you don’t believe me. Come, I will show you.”
Sajipona gave her hand to the astonished girl and the two stepped down from the platform where they were standing and made their way to the center of the court. Here the great circle of light cast by the ball of fire overhead gleamed at their feet like an unruffled pool of sun-kissed water. ”

“ Two mules followed closely, the bridle of the foremost held in his hand; behind these came a burro, loaded with mountainous baggage which swayed from side to side as the patient little animal picked his way along the treacherous path.
“Good evening, senor,” said the man suavely, as if Raoul were some old acquaintance whom he expected to meet. “It grows dark quickly. Moreover, it is far to the city and the beasts are tired. We stop for the night at La Granja. And you, Senor?”
“My horse is fresh, I will ride to Bogota.”
“A stranger?” queried the man.
“An American.” ”

“ But the time has come, so Omono and Saenzias declare, when our two worlds must venture the first step in the knowledge of each other. Through me this experiment will take place. You are instruments in it. To-day decides the success or failure of our plan. The wealth of our kingdom we have guarded all these centuries, not for ourselves only. To increase it we must share it with the outside world. But if the outside world is not ready, if it still exists merely to plunder the wealth others have gathered, we will wait, if need be, for another flight of centuries. ”

“ Honda, with its radiant sunshine, its tilted streets, its cool white buildings and low rambling hostelries hidden under a veil of flashing greenery, its sparkling little mountain stream tumbling beneath a venerable bridge that savors of the days of Spanish conquest and romance, is the link of emerald between the mighty river of the tropics and the vast highlands that stretch upward to the region of perpetual snow. As an emerald it lives ever after in the traveler’s memory. ”

“ NARVA To return to the explorers, left prostrate on the field of battle, it must be recorded that, for once in his career, Miranda, after his first taste of active fighting, and seeing how the fortunes of the day were going against them, repressed his natural impulsiveness and developed a prudence and caution that would have become a general seasoned in strategy.
“For me it is not good to be here,” he whispered sepulchrally to his companions as they lay face downward about him. “We cannot fight. We have no guns. We will be kill. ”