Monella, meanwhile, contemplated him with compassion and concern, but said no word. Presently Templemore gasped out,
“What horrors! What frightful, cold-blooded atrocity! What a race of foul fiends! Great heavens! To think such things go on in this fair land—a land that seems so peaceful, so contented, so free from ordinary pain and suffering!”
“Ah, my son,” replied Monella, and there was an indescribablesadness in his tones, “nowyou can understand the great horror in the land; that which has oppressed it for many long ages; that casts a gloom upon people’s lives; that turns to gall and bitterness what, but for it, would be a life of innocent enjoyment.”
“OTHER BRANCHES SWOOPED DOWN, COILING ROUND HIM.”[Page 252.
“OTHER BRANCHES SWOOPED DOWN, COILING ROUND HIM.”[Page 252.
“OTHER BRANCHES SWOOPED DOWN, COILING ROUND HIM.”
[Page 252.
“But why——?” Templemore exclaimed almost fiercely; but the other checked him.
“I think I know what you would say,” Monella went on. “You would know two or three things, I think. To the first question (as I read it) I reply that the reason you have not heard of this thing from other people is that they have learned, from long habit, never to refer to it, even to one another. Almost incredible, you think? Not more so than are many things that happen in your own life, in your own country. I could name many known to all, yet alluded to by none—often wrongly, as I hold. Still, there is the fact. It is the same here. This horror in the land broods over, enthrals the people; yet, because they hold it in such dread, they make an affectation of pretending not to know of its existence; perhaps, in mercy to their children.
“Next, it surprises you thatIhave not told you sooner. The answer is simple. You are not like myself; I am one of this people; you are but a sojourner in the land—a visitor. I had the desire to make your sojourn here as pleasant as it could be; that your interest in the many curious things you see about you should not be lessened, nor your stay here rendered unhappy by the knowledge of that which you have seen to-night—the earlier knowledge of which could have done no good to any one.
“Lastly, you naturally desire to know why, in that case, I have now chosen to enlighten you. For this reason: the time is approaching when certain plans ofmine and of the king’s will be completed, and when I devoutly hope we may be able, with God’s help, to end this thing for ever. In that I shall ask you to help us—I hope you will aid us all you can.”
“I will,” said Templemore impetuously. “Against such a hellish crew as that I am with you heart and soul. I think I begin to understand——”
“Yes, I never doubted your readiness to take part with us. But it was necessary to give you absolute proof of what goes on, that you might understand those with whom we have to deal. You have now seen for yourself——”
“Ay, I have seen!” Jack shuddered.
“And will now understand that, when the time comes to extirpate this serpent brood, there must be no hesitation, no paltering, no half-and-half measures, no mercy. It will be of no use to kill the old snakes and leave the brood to grow up again, or eggs to hatch. Do you take in my meaning?”
“Yes, and think you will be right and well justified.”
“Good. If you wonder why, knowing all this, I have done nothing heretofore, it is that the king’s plans could not sooner be matured. Meantime we have stayed the horror for a while.”
Jack uttered an impatient exclamation.
“Oh, yes,” Monella declared, “wehave, and you have helped to do it. These wretched creatures you have seen sacrificed to this horrible ‘fetish-tree’ of theirs, are their own soldiers—those who escaped from us by running away. They deserve no pity. They themselves have given many an innocent victim—even women and children—to that tree——”
“I know that to be true,” Ergalon interposed.
“The truce we forced on Coryon,” resumed Monella“has had this effect at least—it has saved the lives of numbers of poor creatures who would have been seized and sacrificed during the time that we have been here. Instead of that, however, the arch-fiend Coryon has had to content himself with making victims of his own wretched myrmidons by way of punishment for their running away from us. They are as bad as he—very nearly. At any rate they are not worth your pity.”
“Well, I am glad to hear that, at least,” said Templemore. “It takes away a little of the load of horror that turned me sick. Truly, of all the diabolical atrocities that the mind of man in its depths of cruelty and wickedness ever conceived——”
Ergalon shuddered now in his turn.
“I can look on at the sacrifice of victims such as these,” he said gravely, “because I know that every one of them has deserved his fate by acts of cruelty; but when it is a case, as it has been in the past, of women, young girls, and poor little children——”
“For Heaven’s sake say no more,” Jack entreated; “I begin to feel sick again at such suggestions! I will fight to the death against such wretches. As it is, for the rest of my life I shall see before me in my dreams what I saw to-night. Surely no wilder phantasy, no more outrageous, blood-curdling nightmare ever entered the most disordered brain. And now it will haunt me to my life’s end!”
Oneday the king announced his intention to fix a day for Leonard’s formal betrothal to Ulama according to the usage of the country. Immediately the people began preparations to do honour to the event; and congratulations and marks of friendship and goodwill were showered upon the young couple by all those who were well affected towards the king.
In the opposite camp, however, as might be expected, the announcement was differently received; and, indeed, the crafty Coryon took advantage of it to sow dissension among some of the people, and to suggest opposition to the proposal. His adherents had certain supporters in the land; people who bought their own security by aiding Coryon secretly against their neighbours. This was why the king had shrunk from pushing matters to the extreme against the priest. He knew that these half-hearted or doubtful ones were quite as likely to side with Coryon, at the last moment, as with himself, and that thus a civil war would be inaugurated.
Monella, since he had come into the country and espoused the king’s side, had thrown more energy and method into the cause than had been previously bestowed upon it. Through the Fraternity of the White Priests,and their covert friends and sympathisers, and through Ergalon, who had secretly gained over some of Coryon’s people, an active work had been carried on amongst all classes, and with satisfactory results. But Coryon, on his side, had been busy too; though hitherto with less success. Now, however, he found a useful aid in the objection many felt to seeing the king’s only daughter wedded to one who—as it was cunningly suggested to them—was a stranger, an adventurer, come from no one knew where, and unable to show such evidence of descent and other qualifications as should entitle him to seek alliance with the daughter of their king.
But Coryon’s emissaries worked silently and unseen; and there was nothing outwardly to show that two undercurrents were gradually gaining strength and approaching that point whence the slightest accident might bring them into active opposition.
Indeed, in announcing the proposed betrothal, the king had, for once, acted directly against Monella’s advice. The latter had counselled that the matter should be kept secret until the contest with Coryon—now in abeyance—had been finally decided; for he foresaw the use to which Coryon would put it.
Leonard and Ulama were too much taken up with each other and with their own happiness to trouble themselves about the ‘pros and cons’ that had weighed in the minds of Monella and those who thought with him. That the effect of the proclamation would be to hasten his marriage was, of course, sufficient to commend it to Leonard; and he left all the rest to others.
Templemore knew not sufficient of what was going on around him to have any opinion upon the subject. Since the night when the real use to which the great devil-tree was put had been revealed to him, he had been veryunhappy. He felt as might one who had been slumbering peacefully in sight of a terrible peril, to whose existence he had suddenly been awakened. Not that he had any fear for his own safety; yet he was filled with a nameless dread, a vague sense of horror and distrust, of unreality, in the life about him. He could not but realise that there would be no real peace, no security for life or property, until an absolute end had been put to Coryon and his atrocious crew, and their abominable fetish-tree destroyed. But when would that be? he wondered. His sense of disquiet was increased by having to keep from Leonard the knowledge he had gained, and being thus debarred from discussing matters with him. Not, however (as he acknowledged to himself), that that would have been of much advantage; for Leonard was too much absorbed in ‘love’s young dream’ to be likely to discuss such things coolly and critically.
Three days before that fixed for the ceremony of betrothal, which was to be marked by a still grander entertainment, the king gave a preliminaryfête. There was much feasting for all and sundry; boats, gaily decorated with flowers and banners and coloured streamers, glided to and fro upon the lake; the young people skilled in diving from great heights into the water with their parachute aids, contended for prizes, and there were many other forms of gaiety and festivity.
Leonard and Ulama, seated upon a terrace, looked upon the scene, and waved their hands in frequent recognition of friendly faces and signals here and there amongst the crowd. Ulama’s lovely face was radiant, and the soft light in her gentle eyes, her pleased acknowledgment of the tokens of affection and the good wishes she received on every side, and her grateful smiles for all, were charming to behold. Her wondrous grace and beauty seemed, ifpossible, enhanced by her half-shy, half-proud glances, and the flush that mounted to her cheeks when she turned her eyes with love on Leonard. Never before, even in that country where the charms of the daughters of the land exceed the average, had such a vision of lovely maidenhood and such rare beauty been beheld. And yet all those who knew her, loved her as much for the innocence and sweetness that beamed ever in her face and guided all her thoughts and words and actions, as for the physical perfection that compelled their admiration.
She stole her little hand into her lover’s and sighed quietly.
“I am so happy, and yet my eyes are full of tears. And I feel half frightened too; frightened lest my happiness should be too great to last. Is it wrong, then, to be happy, think you? It almost seems so, when I know so many others are unhappy.”
Leonard fondly pressed her hand, and gazed deep down into her eyes.
“If you feel happy in your love, dear heart,” he answered, “it is because you love so much; and surely to love cannot be wrong, or to take pleasure in it. Besides, in that you think so much of others you but show your sweet unselfishness. Therefore, trouble not yourself about the regrets for others that accompany your love. For, if to-day they sorrow, they have had their times of happiness in the past, or may have them in the future.”
“It may be so,” replied Ulama. “I doubt whether in all the world there is another maiden who loves as I do, and therefore who could know the dread that weighs me down. But as for me—ah, I tremble at my own great joy, and fear it is too great to last. And every one is so kind to me and seems so rejoiced to see me happy—that—that I can hardly keep from crying.”
And for a brief minute the gentle-hearted girl placed her hands before her face to hide her tears—tears that were born of the great gladness of her love and her tender sympathy for others.
And so for these two the day passed, like many that had gone before it, in a blissful dream; but it was a dream from which they were soon to be roughly awakened to the dark knowledge of what wickedness can achieve.
For, amid the feasting and among the revellers, were evil beings who had plotted in their black hearts to kill the joy of the gentlest-hearted maiden that ever with her sweetness brightened this sorrow-laden earth; wretches that even then were spinning around her the treacherous web designed by the fell Coryon to end her dream of happiness for ever.
When Templemore woke up the next morning he gazed about him in surprise. He was not in his usual sleeping apartment; but, instead, in some room that was strange to him. It was small, dingy and ill-lighted, and the couch upon which he found himself was not that on which he had lately slept. He sprang up and, in vague alarm, looked round for his clothes and his arms; the clothes were there, but there was no revolver, and his rifle was nowhere to be seen. Even his sword and dagger, that formed part of his usual dress, had been removed. Dressing himself hastily, he rushed to the door, but it was fastened.
“Great heavens!” he exclaimed, “I am a prisoner; my rifle and pistol have been taken away in my sleep. Oh, what, what has happened to Leonard? What can it all mean?”
He hammered at the door, but no answer came. Then he tried to look out of the window, but it was too high forhim to be able to see anything through it but the sky. There was nothing to be done but wait; so he sat down upon the bed, a picture of misery and bewilderment, and forthwith began to formulate all sorts of theories and ideas to account for what had happened to him.
When, after a long interval, the door was opened, a man entered whose dress showed him to be one of Coryon’s black-tunicked soldiers. He brought in some food, and a pitcher and a mug, which he deposited upon a small table, and was turning to go, when Templemore sprang up and addressed him. He felt so incensed at the sight of this emissary of Coryon’s that he could indeed scarcely refrain from hurling himself upon him, despite the fact that the man was armed. But just outside the door, as he could see, were other soldiers; he could hear, too, the clank of their arms, so he knew that to attack the one before him would be worse than useless.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
The man, who was just on the point of going out, turned back for a step or two, and then said in a low tone,
“You are the prisoner of the High Priest Coryon.”
“But how, and why, and where?”
The man shook his head quietly. He was not an ill-favoured fellow, and regarded his prisoner in a half-friendly manner, Templemore thought.
“You are still in the king’s palace,” he continued, “but your friend and the princess have been taken away to Coryon’s abode.”
“Taken away to his place? Great God help them and help us all, then!” Jack moaned, as the picture of what he had seen there that well-remembered night rose up before his mind. “And how has all this come about? and where is Monella, and where is the king?”
“I may not talk to you,” the soldier answered. “I have disobeyed orders in telling you thus much. But Ergalon was a friend of mine and I know that he is a friend of yours.” And he went out, closing and fastening the door behind him.
Here was terrible news! Leonard and Ulama prisoners of Coryon; perhaps immured in one of those awful dungeons within reach of the terrible tree, where the very sight of what went on beyond those barred and grated doors was enough to drive the bravest mad; and where, at any moment, that whistle—a door run back—and then——!
“It’s too dreadful—too horrible to think of!” Templemore exclaimed. He sprang up and began pacing restlessly up and down. “I shall go mad myself, if I dwell upon such thoughts.”
The hours dragged slowly by till evening, when, just when it was growing dark, the door was once more opened and the same man came in and, looking at Templemore, made a sign to be silent. Then he returned to the door and led in a muffled figure, and, without a word, retired. The figure threw back a hood that covered the head, and Templemore, with glad surprise, saw that it was Zonella.
He ran forward and took her hand in his.
“Zonella!” he exclaimed. “This is surprising, and gladdening too. It does one good to see your face after all that I have been imagining. Tell me—what does it all mean?”
She laid her finger on her lips and said in a hushed voice,
“It means that the cunning, treacherous Coryon has played a trick upon us all, and made you prisoners. Your friend and our beloved princess have been carried off, theking himself is kept a prisoner in his room, and so are many of his ministers.”
“And Monella and Ergalon?”
“Monella was away in Myrlanda, as you know, and so has escaped; and Ergalon—who is free too, but in hiding—has sent a trusty messenger to warn him.”
“And you?”
“I am virtually a prisoner too. That is, I am forbidden to leave the palace. But I am free to go about within it. The whole place is full of Coryon’s soldiers.”
“Can you tell me how it was managed?”
“The ‘loving cup’ was drugged. All who partook of it fell into an unnaturally heavy sleep. You remember almost every one throughout the palace drank some, in honour of your friend and our poor princess. Alas! alas! My dear, my loved Ulama!”
She sobbed bitterly, while Jack marched excitedly up and down the place.
“Is there no hope—nothing to be done?” he exclaimed despairingly.
“There is only one thing,” was answered in a low, hesitating tone.
“What is that?” he asked eagerly.
“I have come to try to aid you. If you wrap up in this cloak and go out quietly now, while it is half dark, you may get clear out of the palace unobserved. One of my maids is waiting for me without, and will show you the way. I warned her of my plan, and she is to be trusted.”
“What! And leave you here in my place to suffer Coryon’s vengeance? Why, Zonella—dear, kind friend—what must you think of me?”
“I can think of nothing else,” she answered simply. “And for me—I care not. Whatever may befall me,youwill be able to get away; perhaps even to serve your friend.”
Jack took her hand in his, not noticing that she seemed to shiver under the touch.
“Such an offer is too kind, too much, my dear, good friend,” he said. “It cannot be; we must try——”
“Formysake, then,” she exclaimed impulsively. “I would rather die myself than see you carried off to yonder dens. Or”—she paused confusedly, and then went on—“for your friend’s sake. Think! Consider! Do you refuse merely from any thought about me? Think what you might be able to do for others—for your friend, for Ulama!”
Templemore passed his hand over his face; the tears were coming into his eyes. When he tried to speak again, he felt half choking.
“You are a noble girl, Zonella,” he answered with emotion; “and when you appeal to me ontheirbehalf you cannot know how hard it is to me to stay on here, knowing that I have the chance—just the chance—of saving them. But it cannot be, dear friend, it cannot be; but—I thank you. My whole heart thanks you.” He pressed her hand, and turned sorrowfully away.
Presently, she spoke again, this time in a different tone; indeed, her voice sounded hard and strained.
“Then Ergalon shall risk his life for you,” she said. “I know that which will induce him to attempt what to-day he said could not be done. I will seek him at once. For now, good-bye; do not go to bed, but be ready, if you hear some one at the window. You can reach it, if you stand up on the table.” And, without further explanation, she left him.
Templemore sat for long pondering upon this strange interview, and wondering too what she had planned; andthe time seemed to drag wearily while he waited for some signal at the window.
It was about midnight, as he judged, when there came a tap, tap from the outside. He sprang on to the table; then by the dim light that came through the window he could discern the upper part of a man’s body swinging on a rope.
“Is that Ergalon?” he whispered.
“Yes,” came back the answer. “If I send you in a short rope and you wait till I have gone down, you can then pull in the rope I am on, get on to it, and come down yourself. Do you dare try it?”
“Yes.”
“Then here it is. Now wait till you find you can pull this one in.”
Templemore felt about and caught hold of a small cord that was hanging inside the window—which was open to the air—and he pulled lightly at it till he felt the strain upon the rope to which it was attached, relaxed. Then he pulled harder, and a portion of a thicker rope came inside. By its means he was able to climb up on to the sill. With some trouble and manœuvring he got outside and was soon sliding down the rope, which Ergalon steadied from below. It was very dark, and he descended amidst some trees where it was darker still. When he touched the ground, at first, he could see nothing; but Ergalon turned on the light of a bull’s-eye lantern. It was one of those Monella had brought with him, and lent by him to Ergalon.
A voice, that he knew to be Zonella’s, whispered,
“That has been well done. Now what do you propose to do?”
“I must get down to the canyon by which we came into the mountain. There we have left spare weapons.But I can’t get down in the dark; not even, I fear, with the lantern.”
“There will be a moon later; perhaps that will help. Let us go in that direction.”
“What! you, too?” Jack asked in surprise.
“Yes, why not? I shall be as safe with you as in the midst of Coryon’s hateful minions, and I may be of service.”
“You couldn’t climb down that place and up again,” Jack reminded her.
“Then I can wait near the top, and Ergalon can go with you to help you carry what you want.”
“But we shall be a long time, all day to-morrow.”
“No matter, I will manage.”
Then the three made their way with much difficulty, owing to the darkness, to the top of the canyon. Here they sat and talked in guarded voices till the moon had risen high enough to light the hazardous descent.
Templemore learned how Coryon’s plans had been carried out; how Ergalon’s escape had been due to his absence from the palace, awaiting the return of a messenger from Monella. At a late hour, on his way back to the palace, he had been warned by a friend amongst Coryon’s people. On this he had sent on the messenger to Monella to inform him of all that had occurred. The man had been only just in time to get through the subterranean road before Coryon’s soldiers took possession of it and closed it.
Templemore’s escape had been planned by Zonella. She had smuggled Ergalon into the palace and up to the roof disguised as one of her own maids; and in this she had been aided by one of his friends amongst the soldiers of the priest. Ergalon had at first objected strongly, conceiving that the attempt was foolhardy and could not succeed; that he would only lose his own liberty and,perhaps, his life, and that Monella might be displeased. In short, he had considered himself bound to do nothing that was in any way risky until Monella had communicated with him. But Zonella had contrived, by some means, to persuade him; and had herself stolen out and steadied the rope for Ergalon in his perilous descent.
From his friend in the opposite camp Ergalon had learned one very important thing—that nothing was likely to be done to Leonard or Ulama till the day that had been named for their betrothal. That day Coryon had fixed upon, with cruel irony, for the holding of a sort of trial, the result of which would be a foregone conclusion.
“Therefore,” said Ergalon, “if you can get back by the morning of to-morrow” (it being then already morning) “you will be in time; though I fear you will find it difficult to effect much good alone, and I cannot yet tell when the lord Monella may be able to get through the subterranean passage to come to your assistance.”
“We will try, anyhow,” said Jack, setting his teeth with grim determination. “And, if I fail, we will die together. One can but die once. I think it is possible to get back with a couple of rifles and pistols and the necessary ammunition by the morning. If human effort can do it, it shall be done; and I can then put a pistol into your hands, too, my good friend.”
Leonardawoke from a deep sleep, on the morning after thefête, to find himself, like Templemore, in a place that was strange to him.
So profound had been the slumber induced by the drug that had been mixed with the drink, that he had been carried all the way to Coryon’s retreat in absolute unconsciousness. When he at last woke up, he was in one of the cells under the terrace within the reach of the great flesh-eating tree.
No words can describe the horror and anguish that filled his breast when, by degrees, he realised the dreadful truth. Not only did he shudder at the thought of his own too probable fate, but the fear that his sweet Ulama might share the same awful doom drove him almost to the verge of madness. He cursed the false sense of security that had led up to this terrible result. A few simple precautions would have frustrated this treachery! But it was too late!
Through the grated door he could see the great devil-tree, hear the swishing of its long, trailing branches, watch them come up to the grating and search about over its face for some opening large enough to penetrate, even trying to wriggle in through its small slits and perforations. In the centre of the cell was a block of wood fixedin the ground to serve as a table. A small stream of water ran down from a pipe above and fell into a channel in the floor, and a pitcher stood beside it. For chair there was a smaller log of wood; the ‘bed’ on which he had found himself was simply a bag of straw whereon were laid two or three rugs. An iron door shut off the back from an interior gallery, and the cell was partitioned off from others, on each side, by grated screens, like that in the front. The occupants of adjacent cells could, therefore, see each other.
As Leonard looked round in astonishment and alarm, and exclaimed, involuntarily, “Where am I?” a discordant peal of mocking laughter rang out from the cell upon his right.
“Where is he! He doesn’t even know where he is!” a harsh voice cried out. “He—one of the gods that wielded the lightning and thunder! After all, caught by Coryon, and brought here like the rest of us! Ha! ha! ha!”
Leonard, shocked and amazed, went to the side whence the sounds proceeded, and there saw, peering through the bars, a horrible face that grinned at him with hideous sneers and wild-looking eyes. The hair and beard were matted and dishevelled; the face and figure, so far as he could make them out, looked gaunt and thin. He was dressed in the black tunic with gold star that denoted one of Coryon’s soldiers.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the mocking voice. “You don’t know where you are, eh? I’ll tell you, my lord, son of the gods, that can kill us soldiers with a magic lightning wand, but can’t keep yourself out of Coryon’s clutches—you are in the ‘devil-tree’s larder’!”
“The devil-tree’s larder!”
“Yes, my lord; the devil-tree’s larder. That meansthat they have put you here to keep you cool and in good condition, before they hand you over to be food for their pet out there.” And he pointed to the tree.
Leonard shuddered, and the awful truth of the man’s statement forced itself upon his mind, in spite of his wish to believe it too atrocious to be possible. He went up to the door in the front and examined it. He saw that it ran in grooves at the top and bottom.
“Ah,” said the mocking voice behind him, “that’s right. You see how it’s done now. They run that back from inside, sudden-like, some time when you don’t expect it; and in come the twisting branches that lay hold of you, and out you go to make him a nice meal. Ha! ha! ha!”
Leonard turned and stared in helpless horror. Was it possible that there was such cold-blooded, fiendish cruelty in the world? Yet—he remembered the fate of the poor puma. He trembled, and turned sick and faint; while the one in the next cell continued to jeer and mock at him.
“Where is your lightning-wand, my lord? Why have you not brought it to try it on the tree? You managed to getmebrought here; and now you’ve managed to get here yourself!”
“I gotyoubrought here? How? What then are you doing here?” Leonard asked, his surprise overcoming his disgust.
“What am I doing here? Why, the same as you—waiting in ‘the devil-tree’s larder’ till I’m given to him for a meal—as you will be. And it’s all through you; because you killed some of us and we others ran away; this is what they do with us.”
Leonard shuddered again, while the man went to the stream of water that, as in Leonard’s cell, was pouringdown from a pipe above, and, filling the pitcher, took a long drink.
“Makes you thirsty, this sort of thing,” he said, with another jeering laugh. “You’ll find that water there mighty handy if they let you stay here long enough. Ha! ha! ha!”
The man was evidently in a state of high fever. The place was full of fœtid odours given off by the foul tree; and, apart from that, the want of sleep would superinduce fever, if, indeed, it did not drive mad the wretched occupants of the cells; for who could sleep for more than a minute or two at a time in one of those dens, where, at any moment, the door might be run back and the miserable prisoner delivered over to the fatal branches? It was this constant, ever-present dread that banished sleep, and must inevitably end in madness for the victims, provided they were kept there long enough.
Then the thought flashed upon him that Ulama also might be an occupant of one of these awful cells; and at that such a burst of grief and agony came over him that he hid his face within his hands and groaned aloud.
“Yah! don’t give way like that, my lord. Being here’s not so bad when once you’re used to it! Look at me! You don’t see me worry and cry like a great girl. I take it quietly; I’ve been too used to seeing others here. Many’s the time I’ve had the pulling back of these doors and have seen a man or a woman hauled out squealing and kicking like an animal going to be killed; and I’ve laughed at them. I thought it such fun! And now those who used to help me and laugh with me, they’re waiting to see how I like it; and they will laugh at me, too, just the same. But I don’t care. What does it matter? It’s nothing, I tell you, when you’re as used to it as I am.”
The wretched creature thus trying to delude himselfwith boastful talk and jeering at his fellow-captive, was himself, it was easy to see, worked up into the highest state of nervous dread and fear. The least sound made him start and look with straining eyeballs in the direction from which it came. He kept going to the pitcher for draughts of water, and never remained still for a single instant. If he sat down for a short space, the twitching of a foot, or leg, or hand, spoke of agitation within that would not be controlled.
Leonard turned from the sight with mingled feelings of disgust and loathing and, going to the other side, looked through the grating of the adjoining cell, to see whether it was occupied. And, looking, his heart seemed to come up into his throat when he saw a silent female form seated with its back to him. The exclamation that escaped him caused the form to turn, when he saw that the woman was a stranger. Her face was pleasing in its features, and good-looking, but had in its expression such a burden of unspeakable horror and despair that he shivered as he met her glance. At sight of it, for the moment, he almost forgot his own misery, and he asked gently,
“And who then are you?”
For a few seconds there was no reply; then, in a voice that had in it the suggestion of much sweetness, albeit now forced, and unnatural,
“I scarcely know. Once I was a happy young girl; then a well-beloved and loving wife and mother; now I am only something with which to feed yonder monster.”
“Yes,” continued the woman dreamily, “I was once good-looking, they said. Certainly, my husband thought so; and that was enough for me. But it was my curse, alas! for Skelda, the chief of the priests next to Coryon, thought so too. He stole me away from my home andmy children and forced me to become one of his so-called wives. And now, because my sorrowing and pining have seared and furrowed my good looks, even as they had eaten into my heart, he has tired of me, and has sent me to the fate that, sooner or later, we all come to here—all of my sex, at least, as well as many of the other among those who are not priests. Yet,” she added, “it is but five years since they brought me here. What I look like now you can see for yourself!”
Leonard looked at her with pity; and there came into his mind the remembrance of Ulama’s words of the day before—“It seems almost wrong to be happy when I know so many others are unhappy”—and his own light rejoinder. And he reproached himself in that he had been content to bask in love and self-enjoyment while, close at hand, there were such abuses, such direful sufferings. True, he had not actually known their whole nature and extent; but hehadknown of the so-called ‘blood-tax’; and had heard enough to make it certain, had he given the matter due consideration, that there were evils in the land that cried aloud for remedy.
Then his thoughts reverted to Ulama, and he asked,
“Do you know aught concerning the Princess Ulama?”
“I know that she was to be brought to this place, and that she was to be put into the cell I occupied before they brought me here yesterday. It is underground; a long way from this part.”
At least, then, the poor child, Leonard thankfully reflected, was not in one of the cells in sight of the dreaded tree.
Presently he asked the woman whether she had known Zelus, the son of Coryon.
“Ah yes! Who did not in this land?” was the reply. “The monster! A great spasm as of relief and joy came upon us all—all the women, I mean—when we heard of his death. He was the worst of them all, though one of the youngest. No one was safe from him. Even the princess he sought to bring here to treat as he had treated so many others!”
“I know. I killed him when he was in the very act of raising his cowardly hand against the king’s daughter,” said Leonard quietly.
The woman turned and looked at him with more of interest in her manner than she had yet shown. She scanned him closely.
“Then,” she said, “you must be one of the strangers of whom we heard. But you are young, and not, as I have been told, of our race. We heard of one older, one who, it was said, belonged to our people. And when we heard that, we all rejoiced; for surely, we said, he brings us tidings of what all have been expecting. Therefore, we who were held here in a bondage that is a daily, hourly torture, a never-ceasing degradation, we welcomed your coming as a sign that the Great Spirit had at last brought our long punishment to an end. I, even I, dared to hope I should escape the fate that has befallen all others, and should live to see again my husband and children before I die. But, alas! it was but a dream—a delusive, passing hope, a thing too good to come in my time. Four months have passed and nothing has occurred, though ye smote the hated Zelus quickly; and even Coryon was filled with fear and dread. Why have ye failed to do more, and, instead, fallen victim to Coryon?”
Ah! why? It was a question that now sank deep into Leonard’s soul and tortured him with vain regrets andself-reproach. For he had a heart that swelled with kindness towards his fellows, and a tender conscience; and the more he thought things over, the more difficult he found it to feel that he was without blame. He had been too selfishly wrapped up in his own personal feelings, he now acknowledged; too little interested in those very matters that, as the king’s future son-in-law, should have taken, if not the first, at least a prominent position in his mind. And then, to be ignobly trapped, at a time when there was nothing but feasting and amusement in their minds! Their arms taken from them—they who could have kept at bay all Coryon’s soldiers and dispersed them, had they but been vigilant and wakeful! It was a cruelly humiliating thought—it was worse; for the child-hearted, innocent Ulama, who had a right to rely on his protection, had been sacrificed also to his self-abandonment and want of watchfulness.
Thus did Leonard reason, now that his opportunities had vanished. He knew not what was the true explanation of the position in which he found himself; but a vague, half-formed idea crept into his mind that Coryon would hardly have ventured upon such a daring stroke unless he had felt he could rely upon the support, or, at least, the indifferent neutrality, of a certain proportion of the people. And if he, Leonard, had shown more interest in the affairs of the people over whom he was one day to be king, he might have gained so firm a hold on their confidence and affections as would have rendered Coryon’s schemes hopeless from the very start.
But such thoughts, whether well or ill-founded, came now all too late. Here he was, caged, and at Coryon’s mercy. His relentless enemy had but to give the signal and he would be consigned to an awful death.
He had some further talk with the woman, who toldhim terrible tales of indescribable barbarities and iniquities perpetrated by the priestly tyrants under the covering of their ‘religion’; tales that made the blood within him boil, and filled his soul with savage, though helpless, indignation. Then he asked the woman’s name, and was told it was Fernina.
At last, he asked the question that, though often upon his tongue, yet he had shrunk from giving voice to.
“And what do you suppose will happen—here?”
She sighed and shook her head, hopelessly, despairingly.
“Only what always happens,” she answered, in a dull, listless tone. “None that are once placed here ever escape the fatal tree; except that sometimes they are carried up above and laid on what they call ‘the devil-tree’s ladle.’”
“‘The devil-tree’s ladle?’”
“Yes; it is a contrivance on wheels; a kind of long plank shaped at one end like a great spoon. Those who are to be given to the tree are laid upon it, bound so that they cannot move, and then pushed out along the stone-work till they are within reach of the branches; those who push the plank at the other end being far enough away for their own safety. It is part of the system of terrorism and torture here,” Fernina added, “to place some of us, at times, in rooms that are in the rock above, and that overlook this place, and to keep us locked in there for days and nights, that we may be cowed and frightened at the scenes that are enacted here. Often, a hateful fascination compels you to become an unwilling witness; in any case, you cannot avoid hearing the shrieks and moans; imagination supplies the rest.”
Leonard turned away, not caring to hear more, and sat down to brood, eating his heart out with keen regrets, allnow unavailing. The jeering of the half-mad wretch in the other cell had ceased; he, too, had fallen into a sort of brooding lethargy, and so was quiet; but a constant tap, tap, tap, of one foot on the stone floor told he was not asleep. Thus the hours dragged by in silence, save for the intermittent, stealthy rustle of the branches outside, as they came prowling over the face of the gratings in their sleepless seeking after the prey they seemed to scent within.
Once, a small grating at the bottom of the door of each cell was opened, and a platter with coarse food upon it was pushed in; then the space closed up again. The sounds made them all, for the moment, start; then they relapsed again into the stupor of despair. None touched the food or even noticed it. But the man in the further cell had now seated himself near the little stream of water and, every now and then, he roused himself to take long draughts.
When it grew dark, a lighted lantern was pushed under the door into each cell, as the food had been. Leonard felt drowsy and longed for rest; yet was afraid to lie down or to close his eyes. Now and again they even closed against his will in a short doze; but it was never of long duration, and each time he woke it was with a renewed sense of the horror of his situation.
He had just roused from one of these brief snatches of sleep, and had had time to remember once more where he was, when a low rumble made him spring up and look around. Then the man in the next cell gave an awful cry—a cry that rang in Leonard’s ears for many a day—and at the same moment the grated door of his prison slowly began to move. In his demented terror he banged himself against the partition between the two cells, tried to get his fingers into the slits that he might cling to it;then climbed up on to the wooden block in the middle of the cell. But the rustling branches neared him, sought for him on every side, and soon mounted the log and caught him in their deadly embrace. Slowly, but irresistibly, while he never ceased his cries or his vain struggles and clutchings, the coils around him tightened and dragged him out into the darkness, where his cries gradually became weaker, and were finally heard no more; and when they ceased, and he heard the door rolling back, with dull rumbling, to its place, Leonard tottered to the pile of rugs in the corner of his cell, and fell upon them in a swoon.
When he returned to consciousness a bright light was shining through the grated door. He got up and, like one who is but a helpless on-looker in a fevered dream, he went to the bars and gazed out. It was bright moonlight outside, and there he saw the same ghastly scene repeated that Templemore had witnessed a short time before. He saw the dead body of the latest victim of the tree’s insatiable thirst for blood dangling amongst the branches; caught up, now by the neck, and now by the feet, and passed on from one branch to another in what seemed a new dance or sport of death; and finally carried off by the great crawling reptiles that had come up to claim their share in the repast.
While the scene lasted, Leonard seemed incapable of volition; his limbs refused to obey the will of his reeling brain and to bear him away from the sight. But, when the creatures had disappeared, he turned and made his way once more to the low bed, where he remained in a state of torpor till the day was far advanced.
After what seemed a long interval, he sat up and rubbed his eyes, after the manner of one just awakened from the horror of a nightmare. Then he saw the woman whooccupied the next cell standing with her eyes fixed on him; and, when she found he was once more awake and conscious, she addressed him.
“I am sorry for you,” she said. “Even in my own misery I am not so blinded but that I can see that your burden of sorrow is a heavy one—more than you can bear. Yet methinks, were I a man, I would not thus give way to it. I am but a woman, but my greatest wish—since nothing else is left me—is that I may see Coryon once more—stand face to face with him—and show him that all his calculated cruelty and subtle ingenuity of torture have not subdued my spirit, nor the scorn that a heart conscious of having done no wrong can feel for such as he. I would give him back look for look, hate for hate, as I have before to-day; and make his wicked eyes quail before mine with the consciousness that the spirit of one he has unjustly oppressed can show itself greater than his own. But withyou—he will but laugh at you—for I feel, somehow, you will be taken from here to meet him. I suspect he has sent you here first to crush your spirit with the sight of the horrors that are perpetrated here. He—have you ever seen him?”
“No,” Leonard answered, staring at her in amazement.
“Ah! then you know not what he is like. I tell you,” the strange woman went on, her eyes lighting up with unexpected fire, “he is a man whose mere glance strikes terror into the souls of ordinary men. There is that about him that makes you shrink as from some unearthly incarnation of all the powers of evil; and in that he delights, yea, more, even, than in torturing his victims.”
Here she broke off abruptly; then resumed, in a different manner.
“I have been wondering whether you are he who was to have wedded the princess?”
“Alas! yes. You have divined aright,” Leonard answered sadly.
“Then,” said the woman, with increasing warmth, that gained as she went on an energy that was almost fierceness, “then, the greater the reason you should throw off this weakness and gird up your strength to meet the haughty tyrant and show him that your spirit is equal to his own. In all his ill-spent time upon this earth—and they say it has been a very long one—it is his boast and his pride that scarce any can meet his glance without quailing under it. Think! Think how he will triumph over you—how he will point the finger of scorn—turn the look of cold contempt upon the one who aspired to be the future king of this country—andthatmeans to stand on an equality with himself—and yet, as he will declare, is but a weak, puling, or ordinary mortal. Ah! would I were in your place! You can but die. But I would make him feel that I had a heart, a spirit, more dauntless, more unconquerable than his own. Ay! I would die knowing that for many and many and many a year to come, the remembrance that he had metonespirit he could not intimidate or master would be to him an instrument of defeat and shame, eating into his proud heart, even as the suffering he has caused to me has gnawed into my own.”
The woman spoke at the last with a force that almost electrified her hearer. Leonard felt roused as, perhaps he had never been roused before.
“You are right, my friend!” he exclaimed, “and I thank you. As you truly say, he who aspires to high things should show himself worthy to achieve them, and not even the shadow of a dreadful death and cruel sufferings should have the strength to cow his spirit in the presence of this most cold-blooded and revoltingtyrant. If I have shown weakness, it was not from personal fear, but from thought of the suffering of one dearly loved, and my self-reproach for having been the unintentional cause of it. It is well that I met you; for you have taught me how I should meet this Coryon!”
“And,” said the woman, “if you want one unerring shaft to launch at him—one that I know will pierce the armour of his pride and drive him to the verge of madness—tell him you know one woman whose spirit more than matches his; tell him that she is called Fernina.”
Atsunrise on the morning of the day that was to have witnessed Leonard’s public betrothal he was sitting staring gloomily, through the grating of his cell, at the never-resting branches without, when the sounds of drums, on which a long tattoo was being beaten, broke on his ear. The sounds came from both near and far, some half-muffled in the galleries and caverns of the cliff, others echoing from one side to the other of the rocky enclosure till they died away in the far distance.
Since the previous morning nothing further had occurred; the woman was still in the cell on one side of him; no new victim had been brought to occupy the other.
The roll of the drums caused Leonard to start up and look about him. He was haggard and worn from want of sleep, but his step was firm, and his face was stamped with a look of quiet resolution that showed he had taken to heart his fellow-prisoner’s advice. When he rose up she spoke.
“It is as I thought,” she said; “they are to have one of their gatherings to-day, when the tree will be given its meal in sight of all who are summoned to be present. That is why one of us was not given to it last night, nodoubt.” And she gave a short, hard laugh, that was far from pleasant to hear.
“No doubt it is your turn,” she went on in a softer tone. “You must summon all your fortitude. Be brave! If one must die, one needs not show such craven fear as that half-mad wretch exhibited the other night.”
“You speak well, my good friend, and what you have said to me has braced me up. Would that, before we part, I could say or do something to serve or comfort you.”
“That cannot be; only remember what I told you—if you want a taunt to hurl at the tyrant’s head, a taunt that will stab him through his self-admiration, you know now what to say. Soon they will be here for you. Ah!” here she broke off, as though a new thought had come to her. “On these days they are all assembled outside—all the men. Only the women and children are left within their dens. Oh, if I could but get free for half an hour! I know some of their secrets, and could play a trick upon them that would go far to square accounts between us. But, of course,” she added mournfully, “it is foolishness to think of it.”
Overhead could now be heard the scuffling of many footsteps, and, anon, more drum-beating, with much blowing of horns and trumpets. Next, there were shouting and cheering, followed by what appeared to be a speech from some one; but the words were not intelligible to the two anxious listeners.
At one time the noise had brought a faint hope into Leonard’s mind that it might portend the approach of friends; but the words Fernina had just spoken quickly dissipated any such idea.
Presently, steps were heard in the gallery outside, a key was inserted in the lock, and two of Coryon’sblack-coated soldiers entered. They were both armed with drawn swords; and one of them, addressing Leonard in gruff accents, said,
“You are to come with us.” Then, turning to his comrade, he asked, “Have you the cord?”
“No,” was the reply, “I thought you had it.”
“And I thought you were bringing it. Go, get it.”
The man went out.
Then he who had remained, raising a warning hand to Leonard, addressed him in low, guarded tones.
“The lord Monella,” he said, “is hastening to thine aid with many armed followers; but he has been detained in the underground pass. Whether he will arrive in time, I know not; if not and thou be harmed, thou wilt be avenged.”
“Who art thou, then?” asked Leonard.
“A friend of the lord Monella’s.”
“And my other friend—what of him?”
“He was a prisoner, but escaped, and has gone—I know not whither.”
“Heaven be praised for that! Ah, I can guess where he has gone!” Just then a sudden thought came into Leonard’s head.
“See, friend,” he said earnestly, “canst thou not turn the key in the lock of the next cell and give the poor creature there one little chance for liberty?”
“I do not know, but I will see. If the key fits, I might.”
“Quick, then, ere thy fellow returns.”
The man hastily took out the key and tried it in the lock of the woman’s cell; it fitted, and he unlocked the door; then withdrawing the key, he replaced it in the door of Leonard’s cell.
“Roll that log to the door to keep it close till you thinkit safe to venture out,” Leonard advised the woman. She had but just done so when they heard the steps of the other soldier in the gallery.
“What is thy name, friend?” Leonard asked him in a whisper.
“Melta,” the man answered; and then, when the other made his appearance with some cord, he began to rate him for having been so long.
Leonard was bound in a loose fashion, just sufficient to prevent his free use of either arms or legs, and led away. On his way out he said a kindly word to Fernina.
“The Great Spirit help you,” was the reply. “I have no fear for you now; you will die with courage, if it be so fated. A heart that can feel and think for a stranger in the midst of such distress as is yours to-day is the heart of a brave man. But we may yet meet again.”
Leonard shook his head sadly.
“I have no false hopes,” he answered. “I do not expect that help can now come in time. I may be avenged; that is the most I can hope for.”
“Yes!” said the woman in a meaning tone; “you will be avenged; and so shall I.”
The man who had been sent for the cord laughed jeeringly at the woman when she said this, but took no further notice of her; and the three proceeded along the gallery till they came to some steps at the end. Ascending these they entered a broader gallery or corridor above; then, turning back, they passed out through the gateway and along the covered-way, finally emerging on the main terrace of the great amphitheatre.
Round the sides of the enclosure a large number of people were gathered. Among these were black-coated soldiers to the number of, perhaps, two hundred; theothers, of whom there were from four to five hundred, also carried arms of some sort, spears or swords. When Leonard cast his eyes around and noted them, the heart within him sank, for he saw how difficult would be a rescue, even with the armed followers that the man Melta had said accompanied Monella.
In the centre of the great terrace, upon a high chair carved and emblazoned, and with a great banner waving above his head, sat the dreaded Coryon. Round him were grouped, first his nine priests in black robes, and Dakla and others of his chief officers; then, ranks of soldiers and, among them, some of the king’s ministers and chief functionaries, all bound as Leonard was. But the king himself was not there; nor was Ulama; and Leonard, when he had assured himself of this, turned his gaze on Coryon.
It was well that he had been warned that he would need all his courage to enable him to look upon this man unflinchingly. Even thus prepared he found it barely possible to keep down the emotion the sight excited in his breast.
He saw before him a man of great height and powerful frame, clad in a black robe with a star on the breast worked in virgin gold and set with jewels. His grey hair and beard were unkempt and long, his skin of a dark swarthy hue, his forehead, albeit broad, was receding, and furrowed, and wrinkled into a sinister scowl, and his lips were parted or drawn up in a set snarl that disclosed teeth more like a wild beast’s fangs than a human being’s teeth. When Leonard first caught sight of him, he was standing with one arm extended as though he had just finished some harangue; but, when Leonard was brought up, Coryon sat down. Then he slowly turned his glance upon the prisoner.