“Thus the tales that Sir Walter Raleigh heard of the splendours of the ancient city of Manoa – or El Dorado – and that for many hundreds of years since have been regarded as fables, appear to have been based, after all, upon actual fact.”
CHAPTER XVI
LEONARD AND ULAMA
“How I should like to see this wondrous outside world that you come from!” said Ulama dreamily. “The more you tell me of it, the more you whet my curiosity, and the more I long to see its marvels for myself.”
“And yet,” was Elwood’s answer, “nowhere will you find so marvellously beautiful a scene as that which now surrounds us. I have travelled a good deal myself; and my friend Jack much more; and Monella, where has he not been? He seems to have visited every corner of the world! Yet he said to me, but yesterday, that he thought this the fairest spot on earth; and in this Jack agrees, so far as his experience extends.
“Since I first came here I have looked upon it from many points of view; from the water, as the boat drifts from one side to the other; from different places round the shore; from various spots on the rocky terraces above; and these different views I have seen under all the shifting effects of sunlight, moonlight, and in the mountain mist. Yet do I find myself unable to decide which I like the best. Whatever I do, wherever I happen to be, I see constantly some fresh enchantment, some new charm, some effect at once unexpected and delightful; till I strive in vain to make up my mind which I admire the most.”
It was about a week after the arrival in the city of the three travellers; and Ulama and Leonard were seated in a favourite boat in which the princess was wont to spend a large portion of her time. It was, really, a small barge, of curious but graceful design and elaborate decoration. Over the after part was a white and light-blue awning; the bow ran up in the shape of a bird with out-stretched wings wrought in gold and silver, and the stern was fashioned like a fish with scales of blue and gold, its tail being movable, and running down below the water-line to form the rudder. Upon the sides provision was made for several oars; but this morning Ulama and Elwood had put off alone, content that the boat should drift wherever the slight air or current might direct.
Truly Leonard had not over-rated the beauty of the scene around them; scarce indeed would it be possible to do so. The water was a dazzling blue, yet so clear and limpid that it seemed more like a film of tinted air than water, so that the eye could pierce to great depths where many strange creatures could be seen. The sun, high in the sky, poured down its rays upon the buildings and the trees, in some parts lighting up only the tops and throwing purple shadows over the rest; in other places, touches of vivid green contrasted with the pink-white tints of the faces of the buildings; the whole quivering in the shimmering haze that conveys an idea of unsubstantiality in what one sees – a suggestion that it may be only a mirage that a passing breeze may dissipate.
Ulama was leaning in contented listlessness over the boat’s side, her hand playing idly in the water. On the shapely arm, bare to the elbow, was a plain gold band in which was set a single diamond that even crowned heads might have envied. It flashed and sparkled in the sunlight with dazzling fire and power. A gold fillet, set with another matchless diamond, confined her hair, which fell loosely in wavy tresses round her shoulders. Her dress was of finest work, its texture thin as gossamer; pure white with here and there a silken knot of blue. It was gathered into her waist by a golden zone whose clasp was hidden by another and even larger diamond. No other style of dress could have so well set off the perfect symmetry and beauty of her figure. Thus, bending in unconscious ease over the boat’s side, the young girl formed one of the rarest models of maidenly grace and loveliness that could that morning have been found amongst Eve’s daughters.
Yet, probably, to most observers, the purity and sweetness that looked out from her soft, wistful eyes would have seemed the chief and most attractive charm of this radiant maiden of the ‘city of the clouds.’ And her gentle, lustrous eyes were the index of the pure and loving soul within.
No wonder, therefore, that she was, beyond compare, the best loved, the most honoured person in the land.
She was her father’s chief, almost his only, joy. Apart from her he found but little that gave him happiness. At the same time he loved his people and honestly desired to do his best for them; and gladly would he have made great sacrifices to bring about their emancipation from the priestly tyranny that oppressed them. But he shrank from the extreme step of precipitating a civil war; yet the alternative of allowing things to take their course and continue in the old groove grieved him deeply; so much so that his distress had begun to take the form of settled melancholy. His courtiers, who were devoted to him, noticing this, themselves became a prey to anxious misgivings, fearing in it the first symptoms of the sole incurable disease they knew – that which they termed the ‘falloa.’
Leonard’s last words had started a fresh train of thought in the young girl’s mind, and presently she spoke again.
“Do you then mean that you would fain pass your life with us; you to whom the great world beyond is known, with all its endless interest? It seems strange that! Methinks that, were I in your place, I should deem life here but colourless and childish. For me, certainly, it has sufficed. I have a father who loves me dearly – dotes on me; my mother I never knew. She died when I was very young. I have kind friends around me whom I love, and who love me, and who seem to think far more of me than I deserve. And, were it not for the sadness in the land, I think I should be very happy; certainly I should be contented. Yet, now that you have told me of a spacious world beyond, full of all sorts of mysteries and unheard-of marvels, I confess I should like to see something of it.”
“To do so would bring you no lasting pleasure,” Leonard answered. “If we – if I – who have looked upon these things, have been brought up amongst them, if I am weary of them, and never care to see them more, and would spend the remainder of my life here, for you they would have no attractions.”
Ulama glanced up shyly at him from under her long lashes.
“But are you – would you?” she asked with a slight blush. “Would you truly like to stay here all your life – never to go back to your own land?”
“Yes! I do mean that!” And there was a fervid glow in Leonard’s countenance. “All my life I have had a restlessness impelling me to seek – I knew not what – in distant lands. All my life I have had strange dreams and visions; not only in the stillness of the night, but also amidst the busy hum of day, and in all these one form was ever present; it hovered round me so that I could almost see and touch it. But – and now comes the strange part of it – that first day I set eyes on you, the moment you drew near, I saw in you the living image of her who had been the central figure of my waking visions, and held sweet converse with me while I slept. Then – when my eyes met yours – I understood it all! I knew then what had led me hither; what it was I had unconsciously been seeking, and wherefore I had been restless and unsatisfied at home. I knew that in you I had discovered all I craved for – the sweet fulfilment of my soul’s desire. And then – then – I saw you in the grasp of one who would have slain you! And my heart stood still, for I knew that, unless my hand were steady and my eye unerring, in striving to save your life I might destroy it. Oh, think, think what must have been my anguish! Think, how – Ah! never will you know a tenth of what I suffered in that brief space; or my relief and thankfulness when I saw him fall, and you stand scatheless!”
The young girl looked shyly at him; then, noting the love-light in his eyes, and the glowing flush upon his cheeks, the while he had poured out all that he had felt for her, an answering blush stole over her own fair cheek; while a coy, dainty little smile seemed to flit airily around her mouth, setting into little dimples first here then there; in like manner as a ray of light, reflected from a mirror, will dance coquettishly to and fro in obedience to the hand that moves the glass.
There was silence for a space, she gazing downwards at the water, but now and then stealing a shy glance at her companion.
Then another line of thought passed over her mind and shadowed her face for a moment.
“I wonder,” she said with touching innocence, “what people see in me to like so much? I fear it is not always well that this should be. It was that which led – Zelus” – she shivered at the name – “to thrust himself upon, and at last threaten me, and has placed you in danger for having slain him. It is very strange! To like, to love, should mean naught but happiness and loving-kindness and innocent delight; yet here it has led a man to attempt an awful crime, and has placed others in great peril.”
“It was not love on that man’s part,” said Leonard, savagely, between his teeth. “At least, not the sort of love that urged me on, that has guided me – even as the unwinding of a clue leads the traveller through the maze – to the side of her I loved and worshipped in my visions. Mine is not the love that could ever do its object hurt; that could ever – ”
He paused abruptly, seeing her glance up at him with a look of wonder on her face.
“You love me?” she exclaimed. “But that is past believing! ’Tis but a few days since you first saw me. You cannot know what I am really like! How then can you love me? I love my father because he has cared for me and loved me all my life; I love Zonella – and – and – other friends, because I have known them for so long, and they have been kind and good to me. How can you yet tell that you will love me? Perchance when you know me better you may even come to hate me.”
“Oh! Ulama! What is that you say?” he said impetuously. “You cannot mean it! You are playing with me! But it is cruel play! The love I mean is not such as the slow growth of a child’s affection for a parent or a girl-friend. It is a swift, resistless passion, that centres on one being above all others in the world, and says, ‘This one only do I love; this one possesses all my heart and soul! From this one I can never swerve – my love will end only when my heart no longer beats; I cannot live without it.’ Such a love bursts forth spontaneously from the heart, as does a tiny spring from the earth’s bosom and that, when once it has found vent, for ever bubbles up fresh and clear and pure, and, commencing in a little rill, increases to a torrent whose force no power can stem. That is the love I mean; and ’tis such a love I bear for you, Ulama. Can you not understand something of all this?”
“I know not,” replied the maiden in a low voice, and glancing timidly at him. “You frighten me a little – or you would, but that I like you too well to feel afraid of you – but – I have no knowledge of such love as you describe.”
“But, you have heard of a love that far exceeds mere friendship – far stronger than affection?”
“Y-es. I have heard of it; and – ridiculed it as fiction. Yet – if you affirm its truth, and in your own person have experienced it – I must fain believe you, for I know you would not say what is not true. But” – here she sagely shook her head – “though my ears receive your words, the time has not yet come when they have reached my heart.”
Leonard seized her hand.
“But, meanwhile, I have not offended you, Ulama?” he asked entreatingly. “You will let me love you? Indeed, I am powerless to help it. And you will try to – to – like me – ah, you have said you do like me already. Will you not try to love me a little?”
“Nay,” she frankly answered, “you would not surely have me try? What sort of love would that be that we had to try to bring into being – to force upon an unresponsive heart? You have said that it should burst forth spontaneously. I scarcely understand when you speak thus.”
Leonard sighed.
“You are right, Ulama, as you ever are; and I am wrong; but my love makes me impatient. I will not expect too much of you. I will wait with such content as is in me to command until your gentle heart shall beat in unison with mine; and something in me tells me that one day it will.”
Just then they heard the voice of some one calling to them, and, looking round, they saw Jack Templemore and Zonella, with several others, coming towards them in another boat.
When they were within speaking distance, Jack said that Monella had sent him to tell Leonard he wished to speak to him; Leonard accordingly took up the oars and rowed the barge slowly to shore. There he left Ulama with the party, and proceeded in search of Monella who, he had been told, was awaiting him upon a terrace that overlooked the lake.
Here Leonard found him seated with a field-glass in his hand. Monella turned and looked searchingly at the young man, who felt himself colouring under the other’s glance.
“I love not to seem to spy upon your acts, my son,” Monella began gravely, “but when I caught sight of you in yonder boat holding the hand of the princess, the daughter of the king, who is our kind and gracious host, I could not well do otherwise than seek a talk with you. I fear you have not well considered what you do.”
At this rebuke Leonard coloured up still more, albeit the words were spoken with evident kindness. For that very reason, probably, they sank the deeper. It was the first time anything savouring of reproof to him had fallen from Monella’s lips; and, up to that moment, its possibility had seemed remote; and now the young man deeply felt the fact that the other should have thought it necessary.
“I think I know what you would say,” he answered in a low voice. “I feel I have been wrong – guilty of thoughtlessness, presumption, and seemingly of breach of confidence. I understand what is in your mind. Yet let me say at once that so far little – practically nothing – has been said, and nothing more shall be – unless – you can tell me I dare hope. But oh, my good friend, you who have treated me always as a son, and shown such sympathy and kindness towards me – who have known of my half-formed aspirations, and the ideas that led me on and ended in my coming here, and encouraged me in those ideas – who have learned that in the king’s daughter I have found the living embodiment of the central figure of all my dreamings —you surely will not now turn upon me and tell me I must stifle all my feelings, and – give – up – the hopes – that had arisen – in my heart?” And Leonard sank wearily into a seat.
Then, for the first time realising his actual position, how next to impossible it was that the king would regard with favour his pretensions, he placed his hands before his face and groaned aloud.
Monella rose, and, going to him, laid his hand kindly upon his shoulder.
“I might bring all the arguments and platitudes of the ‘worldly-wise’ to bear on you,” he said, “but I forbear; and I know they will not weigh with you. Moreover, it is undeniable that the circumstances are unusual and unlooked-for. But they do not justify you in forgetting what you owe to a kingly host and – I may add – to others; to us, your friends, for instance. You know, also, that our position here is critical; there is trouble brewing in the land. If the king should have reason to believe that one of us has abused his confidence in one matter, he may lose his trust in all, as touching other, and far more weighty matters – matters that may affect even his own personal security; to say nothing of our own lives, and those of many of his subjects. Therefore – ”
Leonard sprang up and looked at him imploringly.
“For pity’s sake say no more,” he said, “or I shall begin to hate myself. I understand – only too well. Trust me – if you will; if you feel you can; if you have not lost confidence. You shall not have further reason for complaint.”
Monella took Leonard’s hand in his and pressed it affectionately.
“’Tis well, my son,” he said. “I have full confidence, and will trust you. And you, on your side, must trust me. I may have opportunity to sound the king, and, if it so happen, you may count on me to say and do all that my friendship for you may dictate – and that will not be a little.”
Leonard wrung the other’s hand and tried to thank him, but a burst of emotion overcame him, and he turned away. When he again looked round he was alone.
CHAPTER XVII
THE FIGHT ON THE HILLSIDE
It had become the custom of the two young men to go every morning, when the atmosphere was clear, to a height at one end of the valley, from which a view could be obtained over the whole country surrounding that end of Roraima. The spot was a level table of rock under a picturesque group of fir-trees – for on the upper cliffs fir-trees were numerous – and from it, looking in the direction farthest from the mountain, the view was grand in the extreme; while, on the other side of them was the great valley or basin in which lay the lake and the city of Manoa.
It would be but labour lost to attempt to give an adequate idea of the prospect over which the eye could travel on a clear day, when one stood upon this giddy height. It extended to an almost illimitable distance; for, when one looked beyond the surrounding mountains of the Roraima range, there were no more hills to break the view till it reached the far distant Andes, had these been visible. Indeed, it was said that they were visible on a few days in the year; but, if that were so, it would perhaps be rather as an effect in the nature of a mirage than what is usually understood by an actual view of the far-away mountains. But nearer at hand, in other directions were mountain ridges and summits in seemingly endless succession, piled up in extraordinary confusion. From Roraima, as the highest of all, one could look down, to some extent, upon the others. Myrlanda was upon the other side, but Marima, and others of the strange group, lay before the eye, and one could see the woods and lakes upon their summits; but enough could not be seen to enable the spectator to decide whether they might be inhabited or not.
The beauty of the expanse of tropical vegetation immediately below was indeed marvellous. Here the explorers gazed down upon the tops of the trees of the gloomy forest that girdled the mountain (though not that part through which they had made their way with so much wearying, but dogged perseverance), and lo! it was a veritable garden of flowers of brilliant hue! For the trees beneath which they had crept, like ants among the stems of a field of clover, were gorgeous above in their display of blossoms, while shutting out the light from those who walked below.
Here and there, amid the green, the great cascades and torrents from the mountain side dashed impetuously from rock to rock; the streams that were in fact some of the feeders of the greatest of all rivers, the mighty Amazon; that river of wondrous mysteries, that pursues its course of four thousand miles through the plains of Brazil, and finds its way round at last into the Atlantic, there to hurl the volume of its waters with such force into the sea, that even the ocean waters are pushed aside to make a path for them hundreds of miles from land!
Here, upon the table of rock, in full view of one of the grandest and most eloquent natural panoramas it is possible for the mind of man to conceive, Leonard and Templemore stood the morning following the former’s interview with Monella, looking out upon the scene. A high wind, of bracing and exhilarating freshness, blew in their faces, rushed with a roar through the branches above them, swaying the great trees to and fro, and then, seeming to tear off across the valley at one leap, continued its wild course amongst the trees on the heights that lined the further side. Leonard, on turning to look across the lake, saw Ergalon advancing up the slope and making signs to him. He drew Jack’s attention to the signals, and they both descended the terraces of rock below to meet him. Here all was quiet; they were sheltered from the gusts of wind; the roar of the gale no longer met their ears.
All the time they had been in the city they had had a guard. It consisted of a file of soldiers with an officer, and they followed the two young men in all their walks, movements, journeys, never thrusting themselves on their attention, yet always ready to assist and defend them, if occasion should arise. Monella, also, had an escort whenever he went out. He had particularly enjoined on the other two never to stir abroad without their rifles, and this injunction, though they did not always see its necessity, they implicitly observed.
They had not seen much of Ergalon of late; he had attached himself more particularly to Monella, and had, in fact, become his particular attendant. Monella had trusted him so far as to explain to him something of the secrets of the firearms, and had instructed him in the loading of them in case circumstances should arise in which his assistance might be needed. Accordingly, when Leonard saw him coming up the hillside and signifying that he wished to speak to them, he at once called Templemore and left the ledge where they had been standing.
Soon they saw their guard approaching with Ergalon in advance of them, and, following them, Monella, who came on leisurely from ledge to ledge, occasionally giving a glance behind him.
The hillside was marked out in terraces, or tables of rock, most of them covered with greensward and fringed at the sides with belts of trees. Ergalon, who had taken his stand below, made signs to the two to come down to him, and, when they had descended within hearing, he addressed them.
“The lord Monella has sent me to warn you to await him here and to be ready for a contest. There is trouble afoot.”
“But why wait here?” asked Jack. “We will go down to him at once.”
Ergalon shook his head.
“No,” he said. “He particularly desired that you would await him here.”
“So be it; if you are sure you rightly understood him. But tell us, friend Ergalon, what all this means.”
Ergalon explained that Coryon had unexpectedly dispatched a large force of his soldiers to capture the three strangers. They had hoped to surprise them without giving time for others of the king’s soldiers to lend their aid. But he (Ergalon) had, through a former comrade who was still one of Coryon’s people, attained intimation of the intended movement, and had been able thus to warn Monella.
“So the lord Monella,” he explained, “sent on your guard in advance, and then himself walked up the hill towards you that they might see him. Thus he hoped to draw Coryon’s people away from the palace and the houses to this place, where, he says, it will be better to make a stand and fight them, since thus no other persons will be injured in the encounter.”
It was strange, but all who spoke of Monella, or to him, gave him some title of honour or respect. Ergalon called him ‘lord.’ Even Dakla, at the meeting in the king’s council chamber – spite of his insolent swagger towards the king – had been awed by this man’s look into addressing him by the equivalent in their language of ‘sir.’
“How many are there of them?” asked Jack.
“Oh, a hundred – or perhaps more. But the lord Monella has said their number matters not; and he sent me to the king to beg that none of his soldiers should interfere. ‘They would only be in the way,’ he said. He sent these extra things for you. See.” And he showed a parcel of cartridges he had brought with him.
“Good,” said Jack. “He is quite right. That’s all we wanted; we can answer for the rest. More soldiers would only be in the way; and some of them would be pretty sure to get hurt, if not killed outright – and all for nothing. I think I see Monella’s idea. It is” – turning to Elwood – “to take up our position here and shoot them down as they come across this wide terrace just below us. Not a man of them will ever cross that stretch alive.”
“Here are your guards,” observed Ergalon. “The lord Monella desired that you should place them somewhere where they would be out of the way, but within call.”
“Let them get on to this next ledge, then, just behind us. There they will have a fine view of everything. Did these people think to surprise us, do you think, friend Ergalon?”
“No doubt. Your habit of coming here of a morning has been noted, I suspect, and they had intended, I imagine, to creep round and get up through the woods unseen. But the lord Monella, being warned by me, went up on a high rock, where he could see them in the distance; when they saw they were observed by him, they gave up that plan and came straight on.”
“I see. Well, we owe you something for having warned us, friend.”
“It is nothing,” Ergalon answered simply. “My life was forfeited that day, and you spared me; and through the lord Monella and the princess, I gained the king’s pardon. I owe you all my service.”
By this time the guards and their officer had arrived, and were placed by Ergalon on a terrace above and behind that on which the two were standing.
“We like it not, this mode of yours – putting us in the background, out of danger, while you stand up in front,” observed the officer; “we consent only because the lord Monella so desires it. They are many, but we should not shrink; and others from the king’s palace would soon come to our assistance.”
“Yes, yes, good Abla. We have no misgivings of your courage. But you could do no good with so few men – they are more than ten to one, I hear – and your men would but impede us. Besides, it will give them a lesson for the future, if we deal with them ourselves, unaided.”
Abla bowed and walked away unwillingly, as one who is bound to obey orders, but does so against his will.
Monella now came in view, and was soon standing by their side. After a few words of explanation, he said gravely,
“They thought to have surprised us all three up here; but, when they saw they had failed in that, they took a bold course and came straight on. Now that means, in effect, an open challenge to the king. It means,” he continued with increased earnestness, “civil war. Civil war, you understand, has therefore broken out in the land – unless we nip it in the bud, here, now, as we can, if we show no untimely hesitation. These men are scoundrels of the serpent’s brood; cruel, bloodthirsty tools of the human fiends behind them. They deserve no mercy, no consideration. Let none be shown to them! My plan is simply to shoot them down the instant they appear on that ledge below us. They must climb up in front; there is no way round it, nor any means of getting to the height above us. Therefore, they must cross that piece of open ground. One word more. The chief, Dakla, leads them. Do not fire at him. I wish to take him alive, if possible; he will make our best ambassador hereafter.”
Under such conditions the battle could not be a long one. Monella had chosen his ground skilfully, so as to make the utmost of the advantage firearms gave him. The black-coated myrmidons of Coryon scaled the fatal terrace only to be shot down the moment that they came in sight. There were only four or five places where they could climb up and, at these, not more than two men could pass together. Those who reached the top and escaped a bullet, turned back when they heard the explosions of the firearms, saw the flashes and the smoke, saw also their comrades fall. Others of those below who could see nothing of what was going on, swarmed up in their places, only to fall or turn back at once in like manner; till, in a short time, every man had been up and witnessed the ghastly sight of the dead and wounded lying around, and had satisfied himself that not one could cross that level piece of rock to come near their foes. Finally, the survivors were all seized with panic when one of the last to show his head above the ridge came back crying out that “the white demons were coming down after them.” At this, all those who were unhurt turned and fled. But many had fallen, dead or wounded, and lay at the foot of the rock they had climbed up only to be instantly shot down. Above, on the terrace itself, but at one side, stood Dakla and one of his subordinates. These had been amongst the first to appear above the ledge, and had moved aside to let the men form into line up on the rock; but now they were left alone, and, when Monella quietly descended from the rock above, they had the mortification of seeing all their men who were capable of running disappear in frantic terror down the hillside.
Then he who stood by Dakla made a rush at Monella with uplifted sword, thinking, since he seemed to be unarmed, that he would fall an easy prey; but the man fell with a pistol ball in his breast ere he had gone half way to meet Monella.
“Now yield, Dakla,” Monella called to the other. “It is useless either to fight or run.”
“We will see to that,” Dakla exclaimed savagely. “If thou be man, and not demon, this sword shall find thine heart.” And he too made a sudden rush. But, before he had gone three yards, the sword flew from his hand and his arm dropped useless by his side. Monella had shot him in the arm.
“Thou see’st,” he said coldly, as he now approached the crestfallen chief, “how ill-advised thou hast been not to give heed to all my warnings. I could have slain thee earlier in the fight; I could have killed thee now, as I did thy friend there; but I have spared thy life. It is not for thine own sake, but that thou mayest bear a message to thy master, and witness to him of that which thou hast seen and warn him once more of the futility of warring against us, the allies of the king. Dost thou understand?”
The other cast a murderous scowl upon Monella, but made no answer for a moment. Then, after reflection, he said in a dogged, surly tone,