“Yes, the terrible stone that pulled off my jewelry, and then dragged gold up from the lake outside—how was that done?” she asked, still smarting, apparently, from the indignities she had suffered.
“Oh, that was merely a powerful magnet that attracts gold instead of iron,” explained Sajipona, as if such trifling matters were scarcely worthy to be ranked with the other marvels of the cave. “This magnet played a great part, centuries ago, in gathering together all the wealth of my ancestors from the Sacred Lake where it had been cast during the Feast of the Gilded Man. To-day it is never used because all the gold has been taken out of the lake. But—was there nothing else mysterious?”
“Caramba!” ejaculated Miranda, “I know! When we come in from the outside, all is open; we can come in and we can come out. And then, this little old womanis frighten, and I take her out. That is, I think I take her out. But the wall is shut, and we cannot see where it is. We are in prison. Who did that? There is no one there.”
Sajipona laughed.
“Yes, that is it! No one was there—except Radium, the influence from the great globe hanging above us. Here, you see, it does many more things than it does in your outside world. It is really the eye of the cave—and sometimes the arm. Although its light does not, as you know, extend into the outer cave, it reflects here, within this circle, whatever is lighted up beyond there. When you came in with your torches I was able to follow you by this means—very obscurely, of course, because torches throw only a small circle of light. I could hardly make you out, but I felt sure who you were. I was expecting you. And then, because I needed you here and feared you might grow tired of so long a journey, I shut the entrance to the cave so you could not escape. That is where radium works like an arm. It can carry an electric force, an irresistible current, without using wire. For our own safety we have this force connected with the entrance to the cave. When that entrance is open and we want to close it, this force is released and moves a great rock that glides into place across the passageway, where it seems to be a part of the wall on either side.”
This dissertation from Sajipona on the uses to which radium had been put in her kingdom was amazing enough to Leighton’s trained, careful mind. In his own studies of radium activity he had failed to find any indication of the possibility even for the development ofthe sensational features that were now given to him as accomplished, familiar fact. For one thing, science was restricted in its experiments by the small quantity of radium within its reach. Here the amount, estimating the size of the fiery globe above him, was measured by the hundreds of tons—a fact, of course, that must greatly increase the field over which radium might be made to operate. Nevertheless, except for this vague theory that an unknown power could be developed from a great mass of this marvelous substance, suspended in a great chamber, or series of chambers, not subject to the ordinary outside influences of heat and light and air, it was difficult to find a reasonable explanation for the things that Sajipona told him and that he himself had seen. Most astounding it was, also, to a modern scientist, brought up in the methods and limited by the views of his age, to discover here a development in physics, beyond the dreams of the most daring investigator, that actually belonged to a primitive race, and was first practiced by them in a period and country without scientific culture. The whole affair, indeed, furnished an instance where science seemed to overstep the borderland of the miraculous. It was as marvelous, after all, as the familiar achievements of wireless or the cinema would have been if suddenly presented to the world of half a century ago.
Enjoying the savant’s bewilderment, Sajipona described more of the cave’s wonders. Her forefathers, she said, had discovered a way to imitate the changes from day to night by a simple process of veiling and unveiling the ball of radium. This was found necessary in order to create the right variations between growth and a stateof rest in vegetation. When circumstances made it desirable to use the cave as a permanent habitation, it was found that this variation from light to darkness was indispensable to human welfare. Without it there could be little of the happiness that comes from the storing up and the subsequent expenditure of human energy. Discovering this, certain wise Indians among the cavemen of the past made further experiments in the regulation of light and heat. Among other things, these pioneers in a new science found that the color rays emanating from radium had different properties—some being more life-giving than others—and that by controlling these rays it was possible to create and develop various kinds of subterranean plants. They firmly believed, also, that by working along these lines it would be possible to arrive at new animal forms. Some remarkable experiments were made in this direction, but the results were too indefinite for practical purposes. The whole problem was therefore abandoned years ago, its unpopularity having been increased by the religious prejudice excited against it. This intrusion of what he regarded as blind superstition upon the profitable labors of science incensed Leighton, who muttered imprecations on the idolatries of barbarians. But in this he was checked by Sajipona, who declared that the religious beliefs of her people were in no sense more idolatrous than many of the beliefs current in the outside world. They had their fantastic legends, it is true—like the story of the god who, through the ascendancy of an evil rival, had been imprisoned for ages at the bottom of the Sacred Lake, whence he had been released by the prayers and sacrifices of his followers. Such legends the more enlightened regardedpurely as fables, within which were conveyed certain truths that were of lasting value to mankind. The ignorant probably failed to recognize these truths underneath their coverings of legend. But it was not merely the ignorant, it was those who possessed a higher religious sense who were revolted by the effort to create animal life through artificial means. This feeling of antagonism arose simply because in the last of the experiments attempted by the Indian wise men, certain forms were developed, giving feeble signs of life, and indicating unmistakably that if they were ever endowed with a complete, independent existence, they would become a race of malevolent beings, a menace to all existing institutions and peoples. Hence, these wise men were counseled by the more practical and simple-minded of their contemporaries to abandon the rôle of creator, leaving the production of life to the rude and bungling methods to which Nature was accustomed. They were loath to yield in this, but public opinion became too strong for them; the religious element conquered—and these savants of old turned their attention to a new problem that had already been suggested by their partial experiments in the creation of life, and that promised something really worth while. This new problem involved the regulation of man’s moral and intellectual natures, not through the teaching of ideas, but by the employment of physical and chemical forces.
It had been discovered long before that the Radium Sun controlled the subterranean life coming within its influence. But as this sun was itself capable of regulation, many novel—and safe—departures in human development were made possible by an intelligent practice ofthe new solar science. Here again, as in the experiments with plants, it was the variation of colors, of light and darkness, that furnished the key to what the Indian savants were after. Thus, it was learned that certain radium colors had an affinity for certain moral attributes. These moral attributes could, for this reason, be greatly increased by placing the man or woman to be operated on in a properly regulated color bath. Unfortunately, these wise men had not continued their experiments with this Theory of Colors after reaching the first few crude results. They lost interest in the subject when its intensely practical nature became apparent. Hence, a complete classification of all the colors and combinations of colors, with their moral and intellectual affinities, was still lacking. But enough was discovered to be of real, positive benefit in the education of the cavemen and in keeping order among them. People who were harassed by domestic troubles, for instance, were put through a course of color treatment; wives who were tempted to leave their husbands, or husbands who got tired of their wives (as, it seems, they sometimes did in the Land of the Condor) were plunged into color-baths, varied according to the exact nature of the complaint from which they were suffering, and kept in these baths until they were brought back to a reasonable frame of mind. And then, in matters that affected the well-being of the whole community—matters that in the outside world would give rise to various political panaceas—it was a simple application of the Color Theory that would straighten things out. It was found, for instance, that yellow rays from the Radium Sun stimulated generosity. Thus, in the case of a man whose intenseacquisitiveness threatened to monopolize the wealth of the community, a steady application of yellow rays was sure to be beneficial, if not to him, at least to those about him.
A case of this kind, indeed, had been recently operated on in this way. The patient had accumulated such vast wealth that he had grown to be a public inconvenience. As his business dealings, however, did not come within reach of the criminal law, and as his wealth was thus due to his natural bent for finance, the courts could not touch him. He was, therefore, placed—not by way of punishment, but as a mark of public esteem—in a bath of yellow light. The effect was extraordinary and bore out all the claims of the originators of the Color Theory. He had not been in this yellow bath more than a few hours before he began to part with his wealth. On the second day he became more reckless in his benefactions, and this frenzy for giving away what he had before so jealously guarded from his neighbors, increased at so rapid a rate that by the end of a week his entire fortune had passed, through his own voluntary act, into the hands of the government and various benevolent institutions. When he had nothing more to give, it was decided that he had had enough of the yellow treatment. He was then released from the honors the State had showered upon him, and passed the rest of his life rejoicing in his penniless condition.
Then, there was the case of a man who had grown tired of his wife, and who had outraged the sense of the community by leaving her. He was captured and placed in a bath of green light. In a very short time he got over his roving propensities and became so persistent in hisattentions to his wife that, in order to give her some peace, he was put into another bath having a slightly neutralizing effect on the first, or green, bath. Thus, the marital troubles of this couple were completely and finally straightened out and they lived amicably together without the tiresome intervention of mutual friends, or of the law courts.
The interesting possibilities of this Color Theory in penology and in the regulation of domestic affairs, did not escape Leighton. He had himself believed that in the latest discoveries in physics there might be found a connecting link between the science of matter and the science of mind. His natural skepticism, however, did not allow him to accept too readily all of Sajipona’s amazing statements. He doubted her real knowledge of these abstruse subjects. She spoke of these matters, indeed, crudely, not with the familiarity as to detail of a trained scientist. What she said had all the simplicity, and much of the fantastic absurdity, of a fairy tale. But beneath its extravagance there was enough substance to her story, and the theory upon which it was based, to make it worthy a scientist’s consideration. For one thing, it changed completely the notion Leighton had already formed of this subterranean world. The story, for instance, of the chastened millionaire took into account a complex social system that was utterly unthinkable in a region so confined territorially, so limited, by reason of its peculiar situation, as regards human activity, as this so-called Land of the Condor. The inhabitants of the cave, from what he had seen of them—in the straggling village they had passed through with Narva, and among the followers of Raoul—gave no indicationof a culture superior to that shown by people just emerging from savagery. These cavemen, certainly, had not reached that stage of enlightenment from which is developed the millionaire capitalist of whose interesting ventures in monopoly Sajipona had told them. In the ill-fated Anitoo, however, and his men, and in the people surrounding Sajipona, there was evidence of social and mental superiority. The two men who served as the queen’s ambassadors in the garden, and who were distinguished from the rest by their red robes, belonged either to a priesthood, or to some order that placed them intellectually above the common rank. They were undoubtedly learned far beyond the Indian average. One of them, indeed, was with Sajipona in the court, and prompted her more than once during her explanation of the Radium Sun and its uses. He spoke in a low voice, and in a language unintelligible to the Americans. From his bearing and fluency of speech, Leighton concluded that he was one of the commonwealth’s so-called “wise men,” an investigator, possibly, in those physical and psychological phenomena that held out such tantalizing promise of new conquests in the domain of human knowledge.
Sajipona was quick to perceive the difficulties arising in Leighton’s mind in regard to her narrative, but she referred to another occasion a description of the science, religious beliefs, social institutions and customs of the subterranean people. In attempting such a task, she declared that the priest at her side, whom she addressed with befitting reverence as Omono, Teacher of Mankind, would be far more capable than she. For it was Omono, with his companion, Saenzias, who received and carriedout the laws and traditions of their race—always subject, of course, to her own authority—and it was by them that these laws were further perfected before being passed on to the two priests who would succeed them in administering the affairs of the kingdom.
“You are puzzled, naturally,” she said, “to hear of the existence of wealth and poverty, charitable institutions and governments, science and religion, in a kingdom whose boundaries are within the walls of a cave. But you have seen only a small part of this Land of the Condor. On every side it extends many miles further underground. And in the South from here, not a great distance, there is a vast region—unknown to the rest of the world—filled with mountains, fertile valleys, rivers, and bodies of water strewn like jewels over plains that yield an abundance sufficient for all mankind. This land is at the mouth of our subterranean world. It lies in the heart of that region marked ‘unexplored’ by your mapmakers. We have no fear that it will ever pass from our hands, that it will ever be more than a blank patch on your maps, for on every side it is defended by unscalable cliffs of snow and ice. It can be reached only through this ancient cave. Perhaps, in the ages to come, when the people of the outside world and of this race that has lived here in an unbroken line as far back as the memory of man can go, have been perfected, these barriers will be thrown down. Such has been the prophecy of some of our wise men; and to-day Omono and Saenzias tell us that this final period of perfection is rapidly approaching. It may be that before you go out again into your own world, you will see more of the wonders of this Land of the Condor, and of the unknown Land of theSun that lies at its door. There are cities out there, built with an art that is only rudely possible in our underground home. Here, you are amazed at the cunning of some of our work. You wonder that a race of moles could conjure wealth and beauty out of a cavern that is never opened to the airs of heaven. But in our Land of the Sun there are marvels far greater than these. In both regions you will see the work of the same people; but here where you stand is the center of our race, or—as you would call it—our seat of government. It is here, because of the Radium Sun above us, that we find our strength. But it is outside, in the Land of the Sun, that the millions who call me their queen, are working out the destinies of future generations. Before these last years your people and our people have kept apart. You were ignorant of our existence, and we held aloof from you, remembering the cruelty and injustice of which you were guilty centuries ago. But the time has come, so Omono and Saenzias declare, when our two worlds must venture the first step in the knowledge of each other. Through me this experiment will take place. You are instruments in it. To-day decides the success or failure of our plan. The wealth of our kingdom we have guarded all these centuries, not for ourselves only. To increase it we must share it with the outside world. But if the outside world is not ready, if it still exists merely to plunder the wealth others have gathered, we will wait, if need be, for another flight of centuries.”
Sajipona’s announcement aroused an immense curiosity among the explorers. What did she mean? they asked each other. How was this working out of their mutual destinies to be accomplished at this particular time andthrough them? From Narva they had heard vaguely of a festival that was to be celebrated—and now they learned that the hour for it was at hand. Sajipona told them this, and as the information followed immediately upon what she had let them know of her aspirations regarding the future of her people, they concluded that in some mysterious way, the festival and the fate of this subterranean kingdom were bound together. They waited to hear more but, apparently, Sajipona had finished all she had to say to them. Turning to Una, she led her apart from the others. The two talked earnestly together, the one protesting, the other entreating. Finally, Sajipona appeared to succeed in her request, whatever it was, and taking Una’s hand walked with her to a distant part of the hall. Here a door was thrown open. Una entered the apartment beyond, the door closing behind her. It was all so quickly done, the others barely realized that Una had left them before they were rejoined by Sajipona, who spoke to them as if nothing had happened.
“Let us go,” she said. “The festival is ready. There is no time to lose.”
Afterleaving Sajipona, Una found herself in an apartment small compared with the spacious courts and chambers she had seen elsewhere in the palace. This apartment differed, also, in its furnishings—a few uncompromising stone benches along the walls and nothing more—while the dim light gave to everything a gloomy, uninviting character. But Una was in no mood to linger; the queen’s words had filled her with an anxiety that must be appeased at once. Hurrying down the middle of the long room, she reached, at the further end, a sort of staircase, or ramp, leading upward in long, sweeping spirals to a height that was lost in intervening walls and clustered columns. Mounting this ramp, she noted with pleasure that as the ground floor receded everything lightened. Judging by the splendid upward curve of the walls, she concluded that she must be ascending a gallery winding around the great central dome of the court where, a moment before, she had listened with the others to Sajipona’s account of the mysteries of the cave. On the inner side of the gallery, the side overhanging the court, the wall was semi-transparent, and through it sparkled flashes of the radium light flooding the great chamber within. Light came, also, from the oppositeside, filtering downward, apparently through another medium, from the central luminary above. The air grew warmer; there were faint perfumes, as if of essences distilled from tropical flowers, that thrilled with a delightful drowsiness. Soft echoes from distant music increased this feeling of restfulness. Sound and fragrance were so subtly united, they seemed so completely an irradiation from the inner spirit brooding over the place, that one accepted them as being utterly natural, utterly free from the startling or the marvelous.
Una could not guess the source of the liquid, musical notes. They might have come from the quaint instruments she had seen so deftly played upon by the cavemen marching with Anitoo, or from the lyre that, at Sajipona’s touch, gave forth such plaintive melodies. But the music she listened to now was not continuous; its lack of formal melody, unity of theme, gave it a quality different from anything she had ever heard. In the outer world it might have been taken for the windsong sweeping through tossed branches of forest trees. But here there was neither wind nor forest. The air was motionless, and had ever been so; the vast spaces seemed filled with the unruffled sleep of centuries. Down below, in the great court, and even in the palace garden, saturated with light and beauty though both were, one felt something of the chill mystery that penetrates all underground places. Here there was mystery, but it was a kind that soothed rather than terrified. Tier by tier, as Una passed along the slender white columns enclosing the gallery up which she was ascending, the sense of gloom, foreboding, that had weighed upon her until now, was weakened. She felt the magic of a new worldof romance and adventure. She was at the very heart of its secret. Flashes of color in paneled niches along the walls piqued her curiosity. Robes of vivid scarlet, hiding limbs of sparkling whiteness, it might be, hung just beyond her reach. Further on these niches were filled with glittering masses of gold, heaped high in barbaric scorn of art or fitness. Rudely fashioned crowns, massive enough to have burdened their wearers with more than the traditional care that goes with royalty; armlets, breastplates, tiaras heavy with emeralds—in deep recesses, row on row, from story to story, these witnesses of the pomp and pride of fallen nations, were thrown together in a careless profusion possible only in an Aladdin’s palace of marvels.
As Una hurried past she realized with a thrill that she was in the ancient treasure-house of a once mighty empire. The fruit of the earth’s richest mines, brought here by the labor and cunning of centuries, lay at her hand. It seemed impossible that all this jeweled splendor could have escaped the fires of war and crime that had kindled within the breasts of millions who had sacrificed their lives merely to grasp some small portion of it. Fascinating baubles now were these relics of past greatness, dainty or rude, meaningless, or eloquent of forgotten faiths and legends. Innocent of harm they seemed, a passing feast for the eye, trophies to celebrate and adorn feminine loveliness, but no longer a madness in the bones of men.
Thus, vaguely, did this vision of ancient riches appear to Una. Gold and jewels, robes and ornaments wrought by an art that had been lost long since—the rich color, the glitter of all these things delighted her. Theyseemed a part—the visible part—of the music and fragrance with which the winding gallery of marvels was filled. It appeared to her that she was on the threshold of some great awakening experience. She knew that it was David whom she would see; and this knowledge started a strange conflict of emotions. The memory of his lack of faith, the incomprehensible manner in which he had turned from her, brought humiliation, anger. But the first bitterness that went with all this had lost its corrosive power. The spell of the ancient Indian race whose secrets she was exploring was upon her. Her senses were soothed by the mysterious beauty of these enchanted corridors. Here she would see David—and the thought was indefinitely satisfying. She did not know whether she could forgive him, whether she could become reconciled to a disloyalty that had so easily swerved him from the most sacred of vows. But after all it was witchcraft—only witchcraft could work such things as these—that had estranged him from her. This she knew because the inner heart of her own love remained as it had ever been. He was still David. He needed her, he was unhappy. Outwardly he might seem faithless as the most shameless Proteus of romance. Nevertheless, there was something else, something that even Sajipona could not know, but that she knew and that bound him to her. It was for this she had followed him through inconceivable adventures—for this, one danger after another had been faced and overcome. And now all this misery had reached a happy ending. He was here, awaiting her like some prince in a fairy palace. Sajipona had promised it, had brought them togetherat last. She felt his presence before she heard his voice. And then he spoke to her:
“Una, what new witchcraft has brought you here!”
He stood at a turn in the gallery up which she was ascending. As their eyes met, the distant, wind-blown music, the subtle fragrance of flowers, seemed to bring into this palace of mystery and enchantment the fields and meadows of Rysdale. There she and David were again together, vowing their first love. The harmonies of brooks, birds, the ripples that sped their canoe past woodland and down shaded valleys, the thousand intimate details of the springtide loved of lovers, were about them once more. For the David who stood beside her in the queen’s treasure-house was the David of that far-off, peaceful countryside, not the strange being she had met for that brief dark moment in front of Sajipona’s palace. At the first glance she could see he had passed through some vital change since then. He was no longer as a man walking in dreams. There was no troubled uncertainty in his face, no faltering in his step. He came to her now, all his soul in his eyes, but with perplexed look for all that, as if the destiny that had parted them had not yet consented to their reunion.
“I have been dreaming,” he said simply. “It was an old dream, I find. Now that I am awake, some lights and shadows from my dream-world remain to haunt me.”
His brief explanation of the strange mental experience he had just been through was scarcely needed. Una told him how they had searched for him, how they had finally heard of this cave and of his first adventure in it. And then, how, tracking him to this place, they had metSajipona and learned of the wonders of her underground kingdom.
“We are awaiting the festival now,” she said wistfully. “She told me of it, and sent me here to meet you. I think it must have begun already. The music—it must be the music for the Gilded Man—has grown louder and louder as I have climbed this wonderful gallery. Sajipona and the rest will meet us—it must be just there, beyond.”
They had clasped each other’s hands, their eyes looked their fill. But now they stood apart, their faces averted, words of passionate avowal unuttered on David’s lips.
“The festival! I know!” David exclaimed.
Then he turned again to Una, taking her hand and trying to disguise the grief that was all too plain in words and manner. He told her of Sajipona’s kindness, of his gratitude to her. He described something of her plans to redeem her people from the ill fortune that had shut them out from the rest of the world. All this, he said, could not be accomplished right away; but the first step would be taken now. David had a part to play in the working out of the queen’s plan. But just what he was to do, what this part was, he guessed only vaguely. The bringing together of the ancient people with the new, the Indian race with their white conquerors—something of the kind was in her mind. The vast store of wealth, also, that they saw about them was to be distributed among those who needed it. Sajipona and her people had long since ceased to care for this treasure that had brought such untold suffering and misfortune to their race. But they would not part with it until they were certain of their recompense. And perhaps they wouldn’tpart with it at all—there seemed to be a curse attached to these blood-stained emeralds and gold.
In all this, perhaps symbolically, the festival, the first strains of which they could hear, would have much to do—and Sajipona and he were to be the leading figures in that festival. He had consented to this—freely. The declaration was made with melancholy emphasis. It seemed to Una the death-knell to their happiness. It placed David suddenly in a world quite outside her own, as if all along his life had been, must be, apart from hers. There could be only one reason for this, of course—Sajipona! Una seized upon it bitterly.
“You have always loved her!” she cried.
David did not answer. The fates that had brought them to this pass were much too intricate to be lightly disentangled. Sajipona was to him a being exquisitely beautiful—beautiful in every way—the most perfect woman he had known. But there was a strength and glory in her loveliness that placed her above the reach of mere human affection. She was a being separate and distinct from all others—and yet necessary to the very existence of the thousands who seemed to be dependent on her. It might be love that he felt for her—but it was more like the adoration with which one regards something sacred, infinitely distant and beyond our own likings and frailties. This feeling of adoration might, indeed, have been transformed into the passion called love. This surely would have happened had it not been for one thing——
“Una, I love you!”
She started, looking wonderingly at him. How could he say that to her now, after all that had passed? Couldit be possible that he was still in that strange dream-state from which, he declared, he had been so happily awakened? Ah, but it was in that dream-state that he did not love her, did not even know her! And now—her own exclamation was eloquent of the doubt, the amazement with which she heard him—
“David!”
“But, it is perfectly true,” he protested. “Why don’t you believe me? You always have believed me! What is before us I cannot tell for certain. Sajipona has my word, and whatever she commands I will do. I owe her my life. More than that—the faith that a man gives to one whose beauty has opened to him the depths of his own soul. But this has nothing to do with us. This is not love. Come what will, I love you, Una. I love you—I love you!”
They looked at each other fearfully. There might be logic, of a sort—logic born of a kind of poetic exaltation—in the distinction that David tried to draw between the two women and his own feeling for them. Circumstances, however, were stronger than argument. They felt the approach of disaster. By David’s own confession, if Sajipona willed it, their love was lost. For the first time Una realized that it was not David, not anything really tangible, but a power outside of him that kept them apart. Against the apparent evidence of her senses, her faith in David was restored. She knew him now, she felt, as she had never known him before. And they loved—that was enough. It was all very difficult to unravel, the maze they were in. There might be endless tragedy at the next turn of the gallery. But at least there was love here, if only for the briefest of moments.Their reawakened passion tingled in their veins. Reason or unreason, they knew they belonged to each other—although they might be separated forever before this day of miracles was over. Una’s jealousy, doubt, bitterness were all forgotten. Her cheek flushed with joy, her eyes sparkled with the sweet madness that belongs only to youth, youth at the highest pinnacle of its desire. Neither spoke. Speech would have silenced the wordless eloquence with which their love revealed itself. They drew closer to each other. Again their hands met. Their lips touched. Love swept away all doubts and denials in one passionate embrace.
Ever since the world began lovers have solved their difficulties thus, and they will doubtless choose this dumb method long after an aging civilization has pointed out a better one. Whether they are wise or not, a college of philosophers would fail to convince us. In this particular instance Love put forth his plea at the very instant when these, his youthful votaries, were wanted of another, alien destiny. As they stood together, oblivious of all else save their own passion, the music grew louder, more joyous, throbbing now in statelier, more intelligible cadence than before. At the end of the gallery a new light began to break. The intervening wall disappeared, disclosing an inner chamber filled with a throng of gaily dressed people, some of whom played upon musical instruments, while others swung golden censers from which floated forth in amber clouds the fragrance of many gardens.
A living corridor of color, formed of courtiers, musicians, priests, extended from this inner chamber in a spreading half circle, the broad portion of which reachedthe gallery where David and Una were standing. At the center of all this light and motion and color was Sajipona, every inch of her a queen, although the pallor of her cheek, the unwonted tenseness of eye and lip, told of emotions that needed all a queen’s strength to restrain. Immediately about her were grouped the explorers; Miranda, silenced for once by the splendor of the scene in which he suddenly found himself in a leading part; Leighton, still absorbed in the problems of science revealed at every turn in this wonderland. Just above and behind them rose a human figure of heroic proportions, concealed from head to foot in flowing white draperies. Against the rounded pedestal of green stone sustaining this figure leaned Sajipona, one arm resting along the base of the statue, the other lost in the silken folds of her robe.
As David and Una, startled by the sudden clash of the music, raised their heads, her eye caught theirs. Like a queen of marble she looked at them, unrecognizing, motionless, save for the slightest tremor of her faultlessly chiseled mouth—the one sign that she saw and knew. With a gesture she checked the music. Silence followed, unbroken by the faintest murmur of voices or rustle of garments from the waiting throng of cavemen. Unabashed by this strange reception, moved only by the steady gaze of the majestic woman standing before him, David, still clasping Una’s hand, came swiftly forward and would have thrown himself impetuously at Sajipona’s feet. The faintest hint of a smile gleamed in her eyes as she prevented this show of homage. Her greeting came clear and low from quivering lips:
“This is our festival, David!”
Again the music sounded, not, as before, in a joyous burst of melody, but in a slow chant, barbaric in feeling, wailing, unearthly. The listening throng moved uneasily, filled with vague premonitions of what was to come. Sajipona lifted her hands to the statue, then smiled serenely at the two lovers before her. The spell was broken.
“This is the ancient festival of my people,” she said. “It should be a time for rejoicing. The Gilded Man awaits us.”
As she spoke the veils covering the statue dropped one by one to the ground. Before them stood, dazzling, glorious, the figure of a man carved in gold. His head was uplifted, as if intent on something beyond the ordinary ken of mortal. Only the face was clearly and sharply chiseled; the rest of the figure—limbs, body, and flowing drapery—blended together in one massive pillar of flaming gold.
The effect on the beholder of this exquisitely molded shaft of metal, upon which the radium light from above sparkled and flashed, was indescribable. The brilliance, the lavishness of it, savored of barbarism; but the delicacy of detail, the simple pathos and exaltation portrayed in the face, had in it an art that was Nature’s own. And the wonder of it, the miracle that caught all men’s eyes as they looked, was the likeness that lived in every feature. For this Gilded Man, newly wrought to preside over the last festival of this forgotten race; this one final splendid piece of work that summed up all that was best and noblest in an ancient art, was a deathless portrait in gold of the man who stood before Sajipona, of the man upon whom she had built her hopes, and for whom shewould sacrifice everything. It was David—a queen’s tribute of immortal love.
Touched at heart, the living David knelt at Sajipona’s feet, pressing her robe to his lips. A moment she stooped caressingly above him, whispering words that none—not even he—could hear. Then proudly she stood before them, regarding those about her with an eye that did not falter in its imperious glance.
“It is the last festival,” she said. “With this the Land of the Condor will pass away. The outside world of men has tracked us here before the dream that we had of a golden age could be fulfilled. Not with us can these be allied. They love not as we love; their faith, the beauty that they prize, is not as ours. In another time it might have been—perhaps it still will be. But, if it is to be, that dream will come true ages after this Feast, this Sacrifice, of the Golden Man is over.”
As she finished speaking, Sajipona looked again at David, unspoken grief in her eyes. He stretched his hands to her, murmuring her name, appealing to her, terror-stricken by the stern look that slowly overspread her features, telling of some great and tragic purpose she was bent on carrying out. But she was unmoved by his entreaties. Slowly she turned away. Then, beckoning to the priests, Saenzias and Omono, she disappeared with them behind the golden statue. Those who remained, breathlessly awaited her return—the explorers restless and anxious, the cavemen rapt in a sort of religious ecstasy. It was thus that their ancestors had awaited the plunge of the Indian monarch into the dark silent waters of the Sacred Lake.
And now high above them the thin wall of the palaceroof was opened. Without, the great sun of this underworld poured down its radiance. Almost blinded, they could still dimly see, standing just on a level with this sun, Sajipona arrayed as became the last descendant of the zipas. At her side were the two priests; but these retreated as the scorching heat pierced them. For an instant she stood where they left her, a vision of majestic beauty that fascinated and held them spellbound. Then, chanting an Indian song of triumph, the pæan with which the ancient kings heralded their descent to the god beneath the waters of the Sacred Lake, she cast herself into the globe of fire.
A wave of light flamed across the upturned face of the golden statue, a wail of mingled exultation and despair arose from the throng below.
The Festival of the Gilded Man was ended.
Back Cover
Transcriber’s noteThe following corrections have been made, on page6 , changed to . (had for her uncle.)80 “Sapniards” changed to “Spaniards” (owing to the presence of the Spaniards)95 “posssibility” changed to “possibility” (a possibility that filled him with dreams)108 “ligting” changed to “lighting” (a glint of sympathy lighting his eyes)122 “passsed” changed to “passed” (David had neither reached nor passed the inn)143 “Roaul” changed to “Raoul” (darting an accusing glance at Raoul)161 “betweeen” changed to “between” (the difference between his two impressions)191 “jewerly” changed to “jewelry” (handle these pieces of jewelry without mishap)296 “graden” changed to “garden” (advanced rapidly across the garden)313 ’ changed to ” (do you mean?” she asked).Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation and accentuation.
Transcriber’s note
The following corrections have been made, on page6 , changed to . (had for her uncle.)80 “Sapniards” changed to “Spaniards” (owing to the presence of the Spaniards)95 “posssibility” changed to “possibility” (a possibility that filled him with dreams)108 “ligting” changed to “lighting” (a glint of sympathy lighting his eyes)122 “passsed” changed to “passed” (David had neither reached nor passed the inn)143 “Roaul” changed to “Raoul” (darting an accusing glance at Raoul)161 “betweeen” changed to “between” (the difference between his two impressions)191 “jewerly” changed to “jewelry” (handle these pieces of jewelry without mishap)296 “graden” changed to “garden” (advanced rapidly across the garden)313 ’ changed to ” (do you mean?” she asked).
Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation and accentuation.