“Do you remember the last time we were thus alone, Ulama?” presently he asked her.
“Indeed I do,” she answered, her cheek, that had of late been very pale, now glowing with a rosy flush. “But I began to think you had forgotten, and were never going to take me out again.”
“Ah! It was not my fault, Ulama.”
“Whose else could it be?” she asked.
“Well – I cannot tell you now. But, if you remember the occasion, do you remember also what we spoke of?”
The colour deepened in the maiden’s face. She bent her head and fixed her eyes dreamily upon the water; and one hand dropped over the boat’s side, as on that day of which he had reminded her.
“I then said,” he went on, “that I loved you dearly, and asked you whether you could love me in return. And you said you did not understand such love as I described to you. Do you remember?”
“Yes; I remember,” she said softly. “But then I said I could scarce credit such sudden love for me; and that you might change. And it seems you have, for, since then, you have never told me that you loved me.”
He seized her hand.
“No, Ulama,” he cried passionately, “it was not so. I have not altered. But I feared – that – well, that your father might be angered. ‘Twas for that reason that I spoke no more to you of love.”
“In that you did my father wrong,” she answered frankly. “My father loves me far too well to cause me pain and – ”
“Ah! Then – would it pain you were I to go away from here and never see you more?”
She started, and a look of mingled fear and grief came into her eyes.
“You are – not – going away?” she faltered anxiously.
“Not if you bid me stay, Ulama. If you but whisper in my ear that you may come to love me – if only a little – then I will stay – stay on always – forget my country, my own people, my friends; give up everything, and live for you – for you alone, my sweet, my gentle Ulama; my beloved Ulama!”
Gradually her head sank until it rested on her hand; her colour deepened, she made no reply, but still gazed pensively into the water.
“Tell me, Ulama – am I to stay or go? Oh, say that you will try to love me!”
He still retained her hand, and now he passed his own gently over it, she making no effort to withdraw it. Thus answered, he pressed his lips upon it, and at this, also, she showed no resentment.
“I would have you stay,” she presently murmured softly; “but indeed I fear it is too late for me to try to love you, for my heart tells me you have my love already.”
And the boat drifted aimlessly in the evening light. The sun had set, and the moon, the witness of so many lovers’ vows – both true and false – had shown her silvery light above the surrounding cliffs; and still the two sat on and scarcely spoke, yet, in speechless eloquence, recounting to each other the old, old tale.
And, when the sweet Ulama left the boat, her heart could scarce contain the joy that filled it; and in her eye there was a light that it had lacked before, so that the king, her father, drew her affectionately to him and asked her what had wrought this wondrous change.
She shyly bent her head and answered him,
“To-morrow thou shalt know, my father.” Then she hid her blushing face upon his shoulder. “I have a favour to ask of thee; but – I would fain not speak of it this evening.”
Then, as though fearing that he would wrest from her the secret of her joy, she stole swiftly to her room, and from her window looked across the lake, now shimmering in the silver moonbeams.
For long she sat there motionless, dreaming youth’s fond dreams; dwelling, in loving tenderness, on every word and look she could recall of Leonard while the boat had drifted here and there, and the lap, lap, lap, of the ripples against the sides had kept up a soft musical accompaniment to the rhythm of love’s heart-beats.
CHAPTER XXI
THE GREAT DEVIL-TREE
In pursuance of their design of making signals from the summit of Roraima, the two friends made further explorations of the northern side. And this led them into an adventure, one day, that had well-nigh proved fatal to them both.
On mentioning their intention to Monella, he had at first objected; but, upon Leonard’s reminding him of the anxiety and distress Templemore’s mother and fiancée might be, too probably were, in, he had given a reluctant consent.
“Your friends, Dr. Lorien and his son, talked of coming back again,” he remarked. “Do you think they are likely to make the journey with Matava, and to be coming to seek for you?”
“Certainly they are coming into this neighbourhood, after orchids,” Leonard replied; “and, now you speak of it – though I had not thought about it lately – the news Matava will probably take back may cause such anxiety that they may hurry to get here sooner than they would otherwise have been likely to, in order to make inquiry about us on the spot.”
“Matava might lead them to the cavern, if they came to Daranato,” said Monella thoughtfully.
“Yes; of course that is possible.”
“And a very little ingenuity or a small charge of powder would force an opening; and their way would then be easy to get up here?”
“Certainly.”
Monella’s face clouded.
“That must not be; you must clearly understand that you must tell me in time if there seems any such probability. I wish not to seem unfriendly towards your friends – and personally I liked them – but to allow them to come in here would be as the beginning of a flood, as the letting out of water. It cannot, must not be.”
“Well, after all, it is only a supposition,” observed Jack. “Time enough to deal with it, if the occasion actually arise. They were going on to Rio on some law business which was likely to occupy them some time; they might be detained there indefinitely, they said.”
“Quite so,” Monella answered decisively. “Only, remember, I rely upon you to inform me in time. And be very cautious and vigilant upon that side of the country, for, as you know, it is in that direction that Coryon and his people have their habitation.”
In their walks they were often accompanied by one or both of Ulama’s pumas, and on the day referred to the male one, ‘Tuo,’ as it was called, came after them when they had gone a little way, and trotted quietly beside them; and this, as it turned out, saved their lives.
They came upon a place they had not seen before. Two great iron gates of highly finished workmanship, and picked out with gold, shut in a narrow opening in a high rock. They were such as might form the entrance to a public garden. A broad road wound round from the inside of the gates; but outside, where Templemore and Elwood were, the rocks rose up fifty or sixty feet, or even more, on either side; and though they followed them a considerable distance on both sides of the gates, the rocks still towered up precipitously for as far as they could see.
“This can scarcely be the entrance to Coryon’s ‘domain,’” said Jack, “or there would be some people about on guard. It must be some kind of public place.”
“A cemetery, perhaps,” suggested Leonard.
“I believe you’ve hit it. Well, there’s a gate open, so I suppose there’s no harm in our having a peep inside.”
“Suppose some one were on the watch, and were to pop round and close and lock the gates when we were inside and out of sight,” said Leonard suspiciously. “Monella warned us to be wary and to suspect traps.”
“We have our revolvers; and, if the worse came to the worst, we could climb over these rocks.”
In the result they went inside; then made their way to a wide terrace that ran round an extensive area of horseshoe shape, half natural, half artificial, as they judged. This terrace extended several hundreds of yards in both directions from the point at which they stood; but it narrowed off considerably on one side of the horseshoe. Above and behind it, cut out of the rock, were other terraces, like steps or rows of seats, but broad below and narrowing as they got higher. These went all round, almost to the top of the rocks. It was, in fact, a vast amphitheatre where many thousands of people could stand or sit. At the farther end it was open; and in the centre was a large arena sunk some fifteen feet below the main terrace on which they stood.
This arena opened out into a deep defile beyond, from the rocky heights of which there issued a rushing stream of water that flowed into a large, dark-looking pool below.
But what at once riveted their attention, almost to the point of fascination, was an extraordinary-looking tree that stood in the arena. This tree had no leaves, but branches only. In colour it was of a sombre violet-blue, tinged in places with a ruddy hue. The trunk was about thirty feet in height, and eight or nine feet in diameter. The branches, which were many – a hundred or more probably – drooped over from where the trunk ended and trailed about the ground. But what was most astonishing, these branches were all in motion. Though there was no wind, they waved to and fro, ran restlessly along the ground like lithe snakes, and intertwined one with another, at the same time making a harsh, rustling sound.
Straight in front of where they stood was a long pier of masonry that ran out towards the tree, which was not in the centre of the arena but was nearer to that part of the terrace where it grew narrow. In order the better to observe the object that had so roused their curiosity, the two young men walked across the terrace and some distance along the pier; and, when they had proceeded a little more than half its length, one of the long trailing branches – some of them appeared to be two hundred or three hundred feet in length – came up over the end of the pier, and, with a rustle, made its way swiftly towards them. It was within two or three feet of where they stood looking at it, when the puma, with a loud growl, sprang forward and bit at it. Immediately the branch curled itself round the animal’s body and began dragging it along the pier towards the tree. Then two or three other branches advanced and went to the assistance of the first one, coiling round the poor puma and dragging it farther along, despite its teeth and claws and its desperate struggles. In succession, other branches crept up over the end of the stonework, and, just in time, Jack seized Leonard and dragged him back.
“For Heaven’s sake come away, man!” he exclaimed in horror. “That tree is alive, and will drag us off, if once one of those branches touch us!”
They had stepped back only barely in time, for a moment after a trailing branch swept over the very spot on which they had halted. When assured that they were really out of reach, they stood fascinated, but filled with horror, while they witnessed the unavailing fight made by the poor animal that had saved their lives. More branches came to the aid of the others; they coiled round its mouth and closed it; round its legs and bound them; and soon, helpless, a mere bundle in the coiling, curling branches, as it were, it was drawn off the pier to the ground below. Then it was rolled on and on till it had almost reached the tree-trunk, where were shorter but thicker and stronger branches waiting for it. These, in their turn, soon coiled round it; then, slowly, they bent upwards, carrying the poor animal in their relentless grasp, and lowered it into a hollow in the centre of the top of the trunk, where it almost disappeared from sight. Then all the thicker branches coiled round it and shut it completely out from view, forming a sort of huge knot round the top of the tree and remaining motionless; while the longer and more slender branches continued to play restlessly about, seeking for further prey. Then, without a word, the two turned away; nor did they speak till they found themselves safely outside the great gates. Then they looked, horror-struck, at each other.
Jack was the first to break the silence.
“Great heavens!” he exclaimed. “What an escape! What an awful monster! What a frightful death! And that poor animal – that saved us both! What shall we say to the princess? Talk of ‘traps’! If this gate was left open as a ‘trap’ – and it looks to me so – we have reason indeed to be thankful!”
“What is it?” Leonard asked at last.
“A ‘devil-tree.’ It is a carnivorous tree. I’ve seen a small one before; in a forest in Brazil that we were working through. One of the dogs got caught in it and was nearly killed before we cut it free with our axes. And then it was badly hurt, and so was I; a branch caught hold of my hand and tore some of the flesh off it. And where we cut this branch it bled! A dark crimson-blue liquid oozed out that stank! Oh, there, I can’t tell you what the stench was like! I’ve smelt some bad smells in my time, but that beat anything I ever came across! But that was only a small bush. I had no idea they could grow into great flesh-eating monsters like this! Why, that thing must have been there a thousand – ah – two thousand years, I should say. Fully that.”
“But,” said Leonard, “why is it kept here? who feeds it – and – what – is – it – fed – on?”
He asked this last question slowly, and looked at the other in blank, horrified amazement.
“It can’t live without food,” he continued. “And it must want a lot too. Whoever can take the trouble to get it food of the only kind – as I suppose – that it would care for? And why is it there in the middle of that strange place? One would almost think it was kept there as a kind of show or curiosity; and yet – we have never heard about it all the time we have been here! And it is there, with the gate open, no fence to guard people, or notice to warn them. Well! It’s a mystery to me!”
But if they had been astounded and horror-stricken at what they had seen, they were still more mystified and upset by Ulama’s behaviour when they told her of their adventure; for she fainted right off and, when she recovered, seemed so overcome with terror as to be unable to say a word. No explanation would she give; save that now and then she murmured, almost in a moan, to herself,
“Then it is true! And I never knew! It is horrible – too horrible!”
When Leonard expressed his sorrow about the puma, she hardly seemed to notice it.
“Ah yes!” she said once. “Poor Tuo! I shall miss him – and such a death, too! But oh, he saved you and your friend! And then, he was but an animal – but the others!”
At her express desire they promised not to speak to any one else about it.
“I will tell you why – or you will know why – later,” she added. “But you can speak privately to Monella about it; to no one else just now!”
When they found an opportunity of speaking to him about it, he looked very grave.
“You have had a narrow escape,” he said. “Heaven be thanked you did escape. I cannot explain more to you now, but may be able to do so shortly. Meantime, please do as the princess says, and keep this matter to yourselves.”
All this time Leonard’s relations with Ulama had remained unchanged; they had not been placed on any settled footing. Monella had asked him to take time to make up his mind, and had intimated that nothing would be said or done meanwhile. Leonard had, however, been too impatient to put his fate to the test to be able to wait after the encouragement Monella had given to him. But, whether Ulama had spoken on the subject with her father, he knew not; for it so happened that he had not seen her alone since their love-scene in the boat.
And now she was evidently much discomposed about their adventure with the ‘devil-tree’; though she did not refer to it again.
Naturally too, the recollection of it was very much in the minds of the two young men. Leonard asked Templemore, one day, what the branches of the one he had seen were like.
“They were covered with small excrescences,” he replied, “that are suckers and piercers in one. They pierce the flesh and then suck the blood. The whole affair is a sort of gigantic vegetable ‘octopus,’ or devil-fish, only that it has a hundred or more ‘arms’ or branches instead of eight, as the octopus has. I have heard of devil-fish having been caught as large as eighty feet in length, on the coast of Newfoundland. But I never knew that its vegetable prototype grew to anything like the size.”
“Of course I have seen devil-fish,” said Leonard thoughtfully; “but they have a mouth – a great beak – to which their arms carry the food. Do you think it is the same here? You saw that the branches carried the poor puma up into a hollow in the top of the trunk. Do you suppose the thing has a kind of mouth there?”
“Goodness only knows! It must be an awful sort of affair, if it is so. The whole thing is monstrous and uncanny. Don’t let us talk about it!”
But, as a result of this experience, they sought in another direction for a likely place from which to make their intended signals; and finally they found one convenient for their purpose. Then they made two or three trips to the canyon to bring up the requisite powder. They also brought back from the secret cave a number of things Monella wanted. From the first, at his suggestion, they had told no one except the king, Ulama, and Zonella, of the means by which they had gained access to the mountain; and these had promised to keep the knowledge to themselves.
“The place has evidently been so long unvisited,” Monella had remarked, “that probably most of those who once knew of it have forgotten all about it. No need to remind them just now. Many years ago, as I have been informed, a project was started for filling it up.”
“Filling it up!”
“Yes, and if you go to the other end of the canyon – that by which we entered – you will find, even now, in the thick wood that everywhere surrounds the top of the canyon, vast numbers of great boulders that were quarried from the surrounding cliffs and hauled to the edge in readiness to be thrown down. They lie, in fact, just over the cavern we came in by. There they have remained for a very long time, it seems. Had that intention been carried out, all our work in cutting through the forest and finding the entrance to the cavern, as you can see, would have been thrown away.”
“And what stopped it?”
“It is said that the people threatened a rebellion. The belief in the eventual return of Mellenda – of whom you have heard – is deep-seated; and, though the people here are anxious enough to keep to themselves, they would not assent to closing irrevocably the only means by which their hero could gain admittance, should he ever come.”
“Do they expect him to come with a host of followers – a conquering army – or do they expect the great lake to come back, and that he will arrive with a grand fleet of ships?” Templemore asked, with somewhat of a sarcastic smile.
Monella passed his hand across his brow in the half-dreamy manner that was his at times, as though striving to collect his thoughts, or to arrest and force into shape some half-formed conception that had flitted across his mind and escaped his grasp. For a minute he stared vacantly away into the distance and was silent. Then, with a look as though of pain at failing to catch the fleeting image, he turned away, saying simply,
“I cannot tell you.”
During the days that followed, Templemore passed much of his time in the museums; time that Elwood spent in a lover’s dream of happiness with Ulama. In the relics of the former history of this strange people, Templemore took a deep interest; and in the archives and ancient manuscripts he found many evidences of the former existence of scientific and engineering knowledge that astonished and perplexed him. On the true meaning and import of some of these he sought the help of Monella, who would frequently accompany him in these visits, and, from his better knowledge of the language, was able to assist him to unravel their curious contents.
“These people must once have been great engineers and architects!” he exclaimed in surprised admiration on one of these occasions.
Monella smiled and made reply,
“There is nothing so surprising in that, if you comprehend the true significance of the gigantic earthworks still extant in many places on this continent. Have you seen any of them?”
“No; but I have both heard and read of them.”
“I have seen them; and I tell you your mind can form no idea of their extent, of the scientific knowledge and the prodigious amount of time and labour that must have been expended on them, unless you actually see them. They are of various forms, mostly geometrical figures upon a vast scale – miles in extent. The wonderful thing is that a certain figure is repeated exactly in different places hundreds of miles apart. Yet you shall take your cleverest engineers of the present day, give them the advantages – or supposed advantages – of all your modern discoveries and machinery, and scientific instruments, and, say, unlimited workpeople to do their building, and then it would tax all their skill to construct a work exactly similar to one of those great figures. Yet now, upon some of them, trees are growing that must be over a thousand years old!”
“And what were they for – what was their object?” Templemore asked.
Then there came over the other’s face again that curious look as of one seeking for a lost recollection; but it seemed to evade him, and he answered somewhat as before,
“I think I ought to be able to tell you,” he replied, “but I cannot now seem to remember.”
It was while thus together one day that Templemore asked him for some further information concerning the ‘Plant of Life.’
“You have told me,” he said, “that your people, with whom you lived in that secluded valley high up in the Andes, had with them the ‘karina’ and cultivated it. Therefore I suppose you yourself have been in the habit of taking it?”
“Always. And in my travelling to and fro in the world I always had with me a good supply of the dried herb. I was accustomed to leave stores of it in certain towns, so that if I lost what I had with me by any accident, there was more within easy reach.”
“I see. But what I am puzzled about is this: why, if the virtues of the plant are so great, do people ever die at all? And why do some live longer than others?”
“As to the first question,” Monella answered, “man was never intended to live on this earth for ever. The human frame must wear out sooner or later. As to the second query, some constitutions are naturally stronger than others, and these endure longer, just as is the case in the world outside where the plant is not known. The effect of the plant is simply to keep the blood pure, if originally pure. If, however, there is an inherited taint, that taint will make itself felt sooner or later and undermine the vitality of the system. In this case the plant will only result in ensuring a somewhat longer life than would otherwise have been the case. Sooner or later the vitality will fall off and gradual decay set in, although (the blood being kept still pure) ordinary diseases are kept at bay. Lastly, there is the question of the will.”
“The will?”
“Yes; that has a most powerful influence. If a man who has inherited a constitution that is absolutely sound, from ancestors who have possessed the same through many generations, and if he has, in addition, a strong will, powerful beyond the average, he may live longer – if he is so minded.”
“I – do not understand you,” said Templemore, somewhat puzzled.
Monella gazed at him with a smile that was full of sadness.
“You would,” he answered, “if you were old yourself; if you had outlived all that made life worth having – your wife, and others you love, your ambitions, your hopes. Then does the soul grow weary, and restless as well; it is like unto a bird that is caged whose time for migration has come. It will either fret or pine itself to death, or beat itself to death against the bars of its cage. Only two things can then keep the soul from taking its flight; the will to live to complete some unfinished work, or a delight in a worldly, wicked life. A nature superlatively evil, like Coryon’s, may enable its possessor to live on and on for an indefinite time; where better men take the ‘falloa’ and die. Or a man, not himself enamoured of life upon this earth, may exert his will to carry out to its end some great work to benefit his fellow-creatures, and he too may keep the ‘falloa’ at arm’s length for an unusually long period. In other words, the ‘falloa’ is a form of melancholia, of weariness with the world, of an inward sense that life’s work is completed. It is the result of that feeling that we are told took possession at last even of him who has been called the Wise Man of the World – King Solomon – whose wisdom and riches and power only brought him to the same point I have indicated – that at which the soul declares that all earthly things are but vanity.”
On another occasion, Templemore was accompanied by Zonella and Colenna; and the latter took him into a gallery he had not before seen, the door being usually kept locked.
In it, to his surprise, were ranged hundreds of stands of arms and military uniforms, helmets, spears, shields, swords, daggers, and red tunics, all kept in splendid condition, as though for instant use. All the helmets had little silver wings at their sides, and the shields were engraved in the centre with a strange hieroglyphic, the same that he had noticed chiselled upon the fronts of many of the principal buildings.
“There,” said Colenna, “are the arms and uniforms of Mellenda’s soldiers. Over in Myrlanda, in the great temple of the White Priests, are hundreds more; all kept ready for use, as you see these here. You see the silver wings upon the helmets, similar to those on that of Mellenda’s suit that stands in the other gallery. And that figure upon the shields is the sacred sign that was engraved upon his signet-ring. It signifies his seal or sign-manual. Wherever you see that mark, it refers to him; on a building it implies that he designed or built it. His royal colour was red, as the king’s to-day is blue; and these red tunics are for his soldiers.”
“When they come,” said Jack, discreetly repressing the incredulous smile that almost forced itself upon his lips.
“When he comes,” said Colenna, lifting his hat reverently. “Yes, when he returns to us.”
“You don’t believe in that, I know,” interposed Zonella; “yet we all do; and it is a good thing we do, I think, for I fear many in the land would go mad under their dread of Coryon, if they did not believe in a happier future for the country. But there,” she added sadly, “it does not matter to you. You have no interest in what may go on here in the future. You intend to go back to your own country, and care little for the sorrows or the fate of those you leave behind.”
Colenna had walked away some little distance, to examine a shield that he thought was not quite so bright as it should be.
“Not care!” Jack exclaimed, impulsively. “Why, how can you say that? It is that thought that grieves me all the time I am here; that makes me doubt how I shall ever be able to make up my mind to leave. To leave behind one’s dearest – ”
Zonella turned to him quickly, with a heightened colour and a bright look. This was so unexpected that he stopped and hesitated.
“Well?” she said. “You said your dearest – ”
“My dearest friend, Leonard – of course,” he answered, looking at her in some surprise.
But Zonella’s face paled, and she turned away.
“Let us go,” she said with a shiver, as though a cold wind had blown upon her. “This old gallery is kept locked up so much it gets to smell musty, and makes one feel quite faint.”