Part 16

At first the two rebels were met with a flourish of pikes and angry cries that boded ill for their safety. When they succeeded in making themselves heard, however, explaining what had happened and pointing to the dead body of Anitoo in confirmation of Raoul's victory, the cavemen checked their hostile demonstrations, looking from one to the other of the men before them, and then to the little group surrounding Raoul, in astonishment. They had the most exaggerated trust in Anitoo's wisdom and prowess; that he could be vanquished by any one impressed them mightily. The death of their leader was, indeed, a potent argument in favor of the man who had killed him. What did this victorious stranger intend to do now? they asked each other. Then the foremost of them put the question to the two rebels, who answered with contagious enthusiasm:

"He will free us! The wealth of the Condor will be ours! We will have the world--not a cave--to live in!"

The instant effect of this assurance was all that could be desired. One by one took up the words they had just heard with a shout of triumph, waving their weapons in air and declaring that they would follow this new-found leader to the death. Then they all broke into a run, saluting Raoul, when they reached him, with the submissive gesture they were wont to accord their superiors.

Elated by the complete success of his strategy, Raoul looked exultantly at the men prostrate before him. Then he spoke to them sternly.

"Where are the Americans?" he demanded.

"Gone," some of them murmured. "We could not find them."

"Where have they gone? They must be near--somewhere."

"To the queen--they have gone to the queen!"

"Ah, yes! to the queen! Follow quickly! We go to the queen!"

Raoul's words were greeted with a cheer. The men rose to their feet and all, at a signal from their leader, swept forward to the great gateway, shouting as they ran--

"To the queen! To the queen!"

XVI

NARVA

To return to the explorers, left prostrate on the field of battle, it must be recorded that, for once in his career, Miranda, after his first taste of active fighting, and seeing how the fortunes of the day were going against them, repressed his natural impulsiveness and developed a prudence and caution that would have become a general seasoned in strategy.

"For me it is not good to be here," he whispered sepulchrally to his companions as they lay face downward about him. "We cannot fight. We have no guns. We will be kill. We must go!"

It was a good summary of the situation. Every one agreed to it, so far as their constrained positions would permit an exchange of opinions; but how to act on Miranda's obviously excellent plan was not clear. If they got on their feet again, they would probably be shot--and even if the enemy failed to bring them down right away, they could not make up their minds in which direction to make their escape. To retrace their steps into the depths of the outer cave would bring them between two fires and, aside from other tragic possibilities, would certainly arouse the suspicions of Anitoo and his cavemen. To seek safety in the other direction, to pass within the section of the cave guarded by the Condor Gate, was to court unknown dangers in a region that loomed dark and mysterious enough. It was this latter course, however, that Miranda chose.

"This Anitoo take us to his queen," he argued. "Perhaps she is good woman. It is better we go alone. Senor Anitoo, he come after."

So they made up their minds to set out at once in search of this unknown queen. She might, or might not, be friendly. But anyway, she would be better than lying on one's stomach between two opposing rows of fighting men. Luckily for the carrying out of their plan, they had extinguished their torches. They were thus in comparative darkness, hidden alike from friend and foe. Indeed, if any one had been able to see them in their present prostrate position they would have been taken for dead, and escaped further notice. This view of the situation becoming clear to Miranda, he cautiously raised his head and peered into the darkness before him. A few feet farther on he could dimly make out the body of the huge caveman who had fallen before his revolver a few moments ago--and at the side of the caveman lay his victim, General Herran. The sight stirred Miranda's grief for the loss of his friend to a fresh outburst, leading him to abandon, with one of those impulsive changes characteristic of him, his plans for escape.

"Ah, Caramba!" he wailed, with the nearest approach to tears he had ever been guilty of; "he was one great hero! He was a man! I not leave him! He die for me!"

And then he fell to stroking his friend's face--wet from the blood pouring from his wounds, as he supposed--caressing him somewhat roughly, indeed, in the vehemence of his grief, and absent-mindedly tugging at his great beard, as he had so often seen the General do himself. The more he pondered his loss, the more doleful it appeared to him; and this feeling grew until he reached such a pitch of pathos that he resolved never to leave Herran, dead or alive. Better to die right there with him, he said, than to abandon his mortal remains to the canaille who had killed him.

These lamentations and melancholy vows, however, aroused some feeble objections among Miranda's companions, who were growing restless in their uncomfortable positions, and saw no relief in the idea of staying indefinitely where they were. But Miranda paid no heed to what they said, except to growl out an expletive or two between his wails of grief, and to stroke his fallen hero's face with an increased vigor of affection. And then, in the midst of this lugubrious occupation, he suddenly jumped to his feet, regardless of whatever lurking enemy there might be near him, and started capering around Herran's body.

"This hero, he is not dead!" he cried in a sort of whispered ecstasy. "When I rub the nose of him--Caramba!--he try to breathe! And he cough and say some words in Spanish!"

It was fortunate that the darkness was deep enough to hide Miranda from observation, else his dancing figure and the gestures of delight with which he accompanied this announcement would have brought upon him more attention from the enemy than might have been to his liking. Another fact in his favor, besides the darkness, was that the fighting had drifted away from this corner of the cave, leaving the explorers quite alone, in an obscurity that shrouded them from danger, but that still revealed to them enough of the outlines of the cave in the distance to show them where they were and how they might best steer their way in safety through the Condor Gate, as Miranda had at first proposed. And now all were eager to corroborate the extraordinary news that Herran was still alive.

True to his professional instincts, Miranda plumped down on his knees at the General's side, and commenced a series of probings, pummelings and rubbings in his search for wounds, mortal or otherwise. He worked with his usual feverish haste, and it was not long before his activities drew from Herran protests that became more and more distinct and emphatic. Then Miranda remembered that he had seen the caveman's club descend upon the General's head, so that if there were any wounds to be attended to they would be in that part of his anatomy and nowhere else. And there, sure enough, under Herran's battered hat and his smashed miner's lamp, was a massive lump that testified to the magnitude of the blow that had crumpled him up. Indeed, had it not been for the hat and the lamp, serving in this case as a buffer, even Herran's iron skull must have yielded under the weight of the caveman's attack.

At first Miranda thought that the skull surely was fractured, and thereupon investigated the lump on top of it. This he did with so much earnestness and nicety of detail that he was soon rewarded by a series of such vigorous oaths and threats as to leave no doubt in his mind of his victim's ability to look out for himself.

"He's all right, this General of Panama!" he exclaimed gleefully. "His brains is not smashed. But perhaps he have a headache. Soon he fight again. And now we go to the queen."

The subject of these optimistic assurances sat up with a groan, blinking his eyes savagely at his companions, who were now crowded around him, and wiping disgustedly from his face some of the kerosene oil that had trickled down from the mangled miner's lamp, and that Miranda had first taken for Herran's blood.

"Now, we go--we fly!" urged Miranda, his mind completely absorbed again in the problem of extricating himself and his companions from the dangers of the battlefield. "They not see us. We save our life and go to this queen. You are all right, General--is it not so?" he added impatiently.

The other looked at him venomously and groaned. Then, shaking himself, like a dog who has been temporarily worsted in a rough-and-tumble fight, he got to his feet and staggered along for a few paces.

"Yes, Caramba! I am all right," he said in Spanish, with painful sarcasm. "It is a headache, as you say, that is all! Let us go!"

"That is good! Come!" grunted Miranda approvingly.

At first Herran was somewhat uncertain of his footing. But Miranda helped him until he got over his dazed feeling sufficiently to walk alone. Then they all followed along, single file, skirting the edge of the darkness, beyond which they could dimly see the cavemen fighting, but without being able to tell how the fortunes of the battle were going, and making for the Condor Gate as quickly as they could. Once beyond that point they would be relieved, they thought, at least temporarily, from the inconveniences of a battle in which most of them had been forced to play the part of target only. Having passed this danger zone, they would set about placing as generous a distance as possible between themselves and their warlike companions. Further retreat, it is true, meant the abandonment of the outer cave for a venture into realms whither Anitoo had been conducting them, practically as captives, to an unknown fate. But the situation left them no alternative. Everything depended on their finding the queen--and then, having found her, their fate depended on the kind of woman she might be.

"A great thing this," muttered Leighton to himself; "at my age to be in the power of the queen of a race of cavemen!"

"They are good peoples," remarked Miranda dubiously.

"I trust Anitoo," declared Una. "His queen will protect us."

"She will behead us!" exclaimed Mrs. Quayle, whose spirits were hopelessly flustered by the uproar of battle that resounded through the cave. "Queens always behead people. Why did we ever come into this frightful place? We can never escape."

"Do be quiet, woman!" commanded Leighton, who did not care to hear his own thoughts voiced in this manner.

"Hold the tongue!" growled Miranda savagely.

"We have escaped already," said Una soothingly. "I believe this path will take us out of the cave."

"Caramba! that is so," agreed Miranda delightedly. "It is change--and there is some light."

"Yes, there actually is some light," said Leighton. "But--where does it come from?"

Having passed through the great portal that separated them from Anitoo and his men, they were soon following a narrow path that ran between two high walls of rock. This path was at first scarcely discernible. As they turned a sharp corner, however, the darkness gradually lifted and they found it possible, for the first time, to distinguish certain objects a considerable distance ahead of them--and judging by the direction in which the shadows from these objects were thrown, it was evident that the light was not a reflection cast by torches carried by warring cavemen.

This discovery was hailed as a momentous one, open to two interpretations. Since, as every one knows, caves are never lighted from sources contained in themselves, they must now be nearing another party of cavemen, who were carrying lanterns, or else, through some twist in subterranean topography, they had stumbled upon an unexpected passageway to the outer world. No sooner was the latter possibility suggested, however, than its improbability was recognized. No rays from sun or moon were ever like these--blue, flickering, ghostly--illuminating the grotesque forms around them. This light had a tingling quality, as of sparks that snap and glitter when they are thrown off from an electric battery. It was certainly not sunlight, or moonlight either, as the explorers quickly realized. There remained the idea that it came from lights carried by an approaching band of cavemen.

"It is like the torches of Anitoo's musicians!" exclaimed Una; "it's not from the sun."

"It begins to be too bright, and at the same time too far off, for that," objected Leighton.

"It is one big fire----" said Miranda.

"A bonfire," interjected Andrew.

"----and when we come there we will see."

Pressing on along this path, the light steadily increased, although revealing to the explorers nothing of its origin. They could walk now at a fairly round pace, and as their range of vision extended their attention was completely taken up in a study of the strange objects to be seen in the unknown world about them.

Great walls of white basalt, veined with broad bands of glistening emerald, towered on either side, reaching up to a crystalline roof that spread forth, far as eye could reach, at an altitude scorning the limitations of human architecture. The irregularities of the outer cave, with its rough bowlders and piles of fallen débris, its dark masses of shapeless sandstone, was exchanged here for forms of marvelous symmetry, fashioned, one could but imagine, for the enjoyment of a race of beings to whom the majesty of beauty must be an ever-living reality. Seen by the explorers, in the wavering half light that filled the cave, the bold outlines of cliff and battlement were softened and blended in a vague witchery of design suggesting meanings and distances varying with the fancy of the beholder. It was a vale of enchantments, an Aladdin's cave, from which anything might be expected with the mere rubbing of a ring--or a lamp.

As the path broadened the walls became less precipitous; on their sides objects could be distinguished that, anywhere else, would have been taken for man's handiwork. Tiny dwellings appeared to be carved out of solid rock that jutted forth from dizzying heights, while feathery forms of dwarf trees and plants, whose leaves were of a spectral transparency, whose branches were twisted in thread-like traceries of lines and figures, found sustenance where not a foothold of earth was discernible. That such evidences of botanical life should appear in a cavern remote from the sun's heat and light was surprising enough to all the explorers; to Leighton it savored of the miraculous. Ever since the adventure with the Black Magnet the savant, indeed, had drifted into such a state of bewilderment that he was more helpless in grasping and overcoming the difficulties confronting them than those of the party who had little of his learning or experience. Ordinarily he was accustomed to treat with contempt phenomena that to others appeared inexplicable. But here he was as a mariner adrift in midocean, in a rudderless ship, without sails or compass. Everything seemed at odds with the settled beliefs and theories of science as he knew them. Nothing was as it should be. He was thus less capable as a leader than the volatile Miranda who, although fairly well trained in the modern way of looking at things, did not trouble himself to explain the marvels that met them at every turn in their wanderings.

"They live in the walls, these people!" exclaimed the doctor, "and they have trees and plants without the sun and rain."

That was all that need be said. The fact was a fact, delightful beyond most facts just because it was so outlandish, so opposed to all experience, and it gained nothing in interest or anything else by trying to explain it--although Miranda did, on occasion, take a hand at explaining these puzzling matters.

Entertaining as these discoveries and discussions might be, however, the feeling that they had stumbled into a region inhabited by a race of men who lived in a manner unknown to them--and who, moreover, had already given evidence of unfriendliness towards strangers--was not reassuring to Miranda or any of the rest of them. The end of their adventure grew every moment more puzzling. Since their escape from Anitoo they had not actually met any one. Perhaps this part of the cave was not inhabited after all. Perhaps Anitoo's talk of a queen was not to be taken too seriously. The curious objects projecting from the walls far above them might not be the human dwellings that at first sight they appeared. Even the signs of an unearthly vegetation might prove a sort of mirage, or they might turn out to be mere specimens of basaltic formation--fantastic enough, certainly--wrought by the subterranean convulsions that had given birth to this cave measureless ages ago. But the air had become so strangely invigorating, the mysterious light so pervasive and even brilliant, that anything seemed possible. This atmospheric vitality, a certain bracing quality in the air, had been noted, indeed, among their first experiences in the outer cave. But, compared with this that now tingled and coursed in their veins like some conquering elixir, the air of the outer cave was chill, dead. Here life might germinate and be sustained--although there lacked, as Miranda had pointed out, "the sun and rain" to aid in these daily miracles of nature.

But it was idle to theorize, useless to harbor doubts that led nowhere. So, they wandered on, marveling at the strangeness and the magnitude of this underground world, and yielding themselves, as familiarity disarmed their fears, to the charm of it all. For there was beauty of a rare and thrilling quality in these majestic cliffs whose perfectly proportioned sides gleamed in all the variegations of color belonging to certain kinds of basalt. Displaying in structure the columnar forms peculiar to this rock, the admirable symmetry produced easily suggested the work of a human architect gifted in all the cunning of his art. And now the widening space before them disclosed unmistakable signs of the human agency they had suspected.

They stood at the verge of a precipice. Below them stretched a wide and comparatively level plain, vaulted over by a crystalline canopy supported by innumerable clusters of slender columns, and sheltering low-storied houses, or huts, collected together in the close companionship of a thriving little village. The familiar accompaniments of such a scene, supposing that it formed a part of some straggling, hospitable highway in the outer world, were there. At the doorways of the houses men and women stopped to talk; children played in the vacant spaces that served for yards and streets; even diminutive animals, that appeared in the distance to be near of kin to the patient, ubiquitous burro, jogged along under their burdens of merchandise. The villagers were evidently of the same race as Anitoo and his companions, dressed like them in white flowing togas, but lacking their indefinable charm and lordliness of bearing. Anywhere else they would have been taken for peasants, attired somewhat fantastically, engaged in the most primitive occupations. Here, remote from everything that lives under the sun, their very simplicity was cause for wonder, if not for fear.

So far the explorers had not attracted the attention of the villagers. Where the former stood they could watch the scene below without being observed themselves. But they knew that this security could not last. Either they had to go on and make themselves known, or return to Anitoo, who by this time, possibly, was at the mercy of Raoul and his party. They hesitated. The problem was a knotty one--but it was not left for them to decide. From an unexpected quarter came an interruption, startling in some respects, that solved their difficulties--temporarily at least--and seemed a promising augury that whatever dangers confronted them they might rely on backing, of a sort. A heavily veiled figure, bent with age and toiling down a precipitous path from the rocky height beneath which they were sheltered, silently approached them. At sight of this singular being, Mrs. Quayle, not yet accustomed to this land of uncomfortable surprises, started to run away. Her frantic efforts at speed restored the confidence of the others and, after she had been unceremoniously brought to order by Leighton, the little party managed to face the newcomer with some show of composure.

Leaning on a long staff, the descending figure, ignoring the others, advanced towards Una, who stood by herself beneath a low shelf of rock. Pausing within a few feet of the wondering girl, the veil was slowly lifted, revealing the seamed and wrinkled face and long flowing white hair of a woman whose great age was visible in every feature. In bygone times she would have been proclaimed a witch, although in her aspect there was nothing of the malevolence tradition attributes to witches. But there was the solemnity, the dramatic gesture of the sibyl--a being who is supposed to rank several grades higher than the witch--when, with uplifted hand, she commanded the attention of those to whom she deigned to speak. Drawn by something of benignity in her glance, and undaunted by her otherwise fantastic appearance, Una came forward to meet her--a movement that at once elicited a sign of approval.

"She is one loca, one crazy woman," growled Miranda.

"Of course she is dangerous!" exclaimed Mrs. Quayle.

General Herran shrugged his shoulders and muttered vigorous profanities in Spanish.

"Nonsense! The woman is probably slightly demented," was Leighton's judgment in the matter. Una, apparently, was without opinion as to the character or the intentions of the singular being whose gaze was fastened upon her, and whose outstretched arm singled her out from the rest.

"Oh! if she would only speak in a language we could understand," she exclaimed. To the amazement of every one, the wish was gratified as soon as uttered. For the old woman--whether witch, sibyl, or lunatic--answered in plain English, an English somewhat defective in pronunciation, it is true, but correct enough in form to give evidence of an unusual amount of study on the part of the speaker.

"I expected you. Come with me," she commanded.

Astonishment silenced further comment. For the moment even Miranda had nothing to say. Then, recovering his usual assurance, he expressed himself with emphasis.

"Caramba! She is one witch," he declared.

The old woman shook her head impatiently. It was with Una alone she wanted to speak; she resented as interference any word from the others. Una, on her part, was strangely drawn to her. The odd dress, the air of mystery that repelled the others, increased her interest. She was impressed by her calm assumption of authority, convinced that she was there to help them. And then, a novel idea flashed through her mind.

"Are you the queen?" she asked abruptly.

The stern Indian features relaxed into the ghost of a smile, accompanied by a feeble chuckle from a lean and wrinkled throat.

"I am Narva," she announced quietly--but whether "Narva" was the queen she did not deign to say.

"Very well, my lady," argued Miranda, "but we want the queen."

"Silence!" commanded Narva, turning for the first time from Una to the others. "Come with me," she repeated.

"But why?" persisted the doctor; "what for we go with you, my senora, unless you are queen?"

"Perhaps she is the queen," suggested Andrew; "only she doesn't want to say so. She didn't deny it!" a view of the matter that met with no response.