Part 21

"Once, we who live here now shut out from all the rest of the world, were free. We overran all the plains and mountains of Bogota, our rule extended to the warmer countries on every side of us. We practiced arts, cultivated sciences, were familiar with secrets of nature that our conquerors were too rude, too ignorant to understand. But these conquerors excelled us in warfare; and so we were driven either into slavery or hiding. It is in memory of that former age of freedom and empire that my people have called this the Land of the Condor--that, and a strange old legend that you may have heard of. Here we are hidden far, as you know, from the light of the upper earth. A miracle of nature carved this land out of the rock; the science and art of a race older than yours have furnished it and made it what you see. It is guarded, as you know to your cost, by many a labyrinth, strongholds that have baffled you every time you have tried to pierce them. Its people live by means and methods that are forgotten--if they were ever known--to the outer world. Here we have been free to follow the customs and beliefs of our fathers. Here we could still continue a peaceful mode of life you know nothing of. But something has happened that has changed all this. Because of it I have at last permitted, even aided your coming to us. I know all you have sacrificed for this treasure you hope to win from the depths of the earth--treasure that belongs to us. I will not say that your search will be rewarded. Had you succeeded in your plan years ago you would have paid dearly for it. The knowledge of this hidden land would have been forever lost to you. Good fortune--or ill--has brought you here at last. Your fate lies now in the hands of the man you once tried to injure. But there is one thing you must do before his decision can be given. You must free him from a tyranny that, with all our knowledge of mankind's perils and weaknesses, we are powerless to overcome."

The demand, vague though it was, did not surprise Raoul. Upon learning of David's disappearance on the road from Honda to Bogota, he guessed that the missing man had found his way, by some inexplicable method, to this subterranean world, thus repeating his almost fatal adventure of three years ago. This surmise, based on the past, and on indications of similar abnormal mental symptoms that he believed David had again experienced, was corroborated by the cavemen who accompanied him to the palace. From these cavemen he learned that David had been followed by Sajipona's emissaries ever since his arrival in Honda. These people intended neither his capture, nor to interfere with whatever plans he might have. Instead, they had formed a sort of secret guard, instructed to watch him and report, so soon as they could ascertain it, his purpose in revisiting Bogota. When he was separated from Herran by the regiment of volunteers on the Honda road, he was found in a state of mental bewilderment, not conscious, apparently, that he had lost his traveling companions, but anxious to find his way to some place, which he vaguely described. While in this condition he seemed to recognize the cavemen with whom he was talking. Aided by their hints and suggestions, his recollection of the cave, and especially of Sajipona, grew in vividness. He appeared to remember nothing of Herran, nor of his immediate object in visiting Bogota. But he spoke with increasing clearness of the Land of the Condor. He recalled what had befallen him there three years ago as if it had happened quite recently, and declared he was looking for Sajipona, of whom he spoke with the greatest admiration and gratitude. As he was uncertain of his way, he asked the cavemen to guide him. This, of course, they were ready to do, although they were completely mystified by the sudden oblivion into which, apparently, all his present friends and purposes had fallen in his mind. Sajipona alone he remembered. Three years had passed since he last saw her--but the events crowded into those three years seemed to have left not the slightest trace on his memory. He described his first visit to the cave; but the time between that period and this remained a blank in his mind.

All this Raoul had gathered from the cavemen who, reverting to the Indian belief in such matters, declared that David was bewitched. In a sense, Raoul knew this to be true. He knew also that the spells wrought by modern witchcraft were easily broken by any scientist holding the clew to them. That the cavemen, who possessed secrets in physics unknown to the outer world, should be ignorant of the simplest phenomena of hypnotism was not extraordinary. Even Sajipona shared, to a certain extent, the superstitions of those around her regarding David. She expected Raoul to break the "enchantment" under which David suffered. Una, familiar with Leighton's experiments and speculations in this field, was quite as confident as the queen that the case was within Raoul's power. Raoul alone realized the possible consequences following David's return to normal consciousness.

"Even if I could do as you say," he asked, "why would you have David changed?"

"As he is now, he is not himself."

"No, he is not himself," repeated Una eagerly.

Sajipona's cheek paled; her lips tightened as if to prevent an angry rejoinder.

"Are you not content with him as he is?" persisted Raoul.

"What is that to you?" she asked coldly. Then, no longer disguising her emotion, she went on:

"You don't understand what is between us. He comes from a world that I have never seen. In the legends of our kings there is one telling of a stranger who suddenly appears from a land of clouds--a land no man knows--who brings with him the power to make my people, as they once were, rulers of their own land. It is an old tale. Believe it or not--who can be sure of these things? Certainly, the stranger has never come--unless it is David."

"There have been many strangers since that time," said Raoul cynically. "Your people have disappeared before the Spaniard. They live unknown, forgotten, in a cave in the mountains. Why do you think David is the stranger in the legend?"

She drew herself up scornfully. Her dark beauty, flashing eye, quivering nostril, needed not the emerald diadem of the ancient Chibchas encircling her brow to proclaim her royal lineage.

"We are not so poor, so abandoned, as you seem to think," she said. "This is all that is left of a mighty kingdom, it is true--a cave unknown to the rest of the world. But here we are, at least, free. We live the life of our fathers. Our old men have taught us wisdom that is unknown to you. We have wealth--not only the wealth that you are seeking--but secrets of earth and air you have never dreamed of."

"This may be--I believe it is--all true. But--what is David to do here?" murmured Una.

"If he is the Stranger of the old legend, the Gilded Man we have awaited, this Land of the Condor is his."

"You are its queen."

"He will be its king."

"You have told him?" asked Raoul.

"Years ago. We were happy. I loved him. It was not as the women of your world love. Life was less than his least wish. And he loved me. Plans for the great rejoicing--the Feast of the Gilded Man--were made. Not since the Spaniards came--perhaps never before--has there been such preparation. Then, a change came over him. He talked of an outside world he had seen in his dreams. He was bewitched then, as he is now. He had forgotten you, his false friend, and all the life he had lived before. To cure him, I sent him out with some of our people. He scarcely understood, but he accepted anything I did as if it came from his own will. Then he disappeared. Without a word he left me. There came long years of uncertainty. The few months he passed with me here seemed like some bright dream that vanishes. I began to think it was a dream--when suddenly I heard of him again. Some of my people found him wandering aimlessly in the forest near the Bogota road. He was looking for me, he said--he had forgotten the rest of the world."

There was an artless simplicity in Sajipona's confession of her love and disappointment that was more than eloquence. Narva stood apart, her face shrouded in her mantle, motionless, as if the remembrance of these bygone matters carried with it something of a religious experience. Upon Una the effect was startlingly different. She listened in amazement, indignation, at this revelation of a passion in which her lover had shared--of which she had known nothing--and that seemed to place him utterly apart from her. If Sajipona's tale was true--the manner of its telling, her own engaging personality, carried irresistible conviction--David's love for Una had been shadowed all along by an earlier, deeper sentiment that gave it the color of something that was not altogether real. Why had he never told her of this Indian romance? Hypnotism indeed! What man could help kneeling in passionate adoration before this queenly woman, whose beauty was of that glorious warmth and fragrance belonging to the purple and scarlet flowers of one's dreams, whose love combined the unreasoning devotion of a child with the proud loyalty that inspires martyrdom? They had loved--David and Sajipona--there could be no doubt of that. Before he met Una on the shores of that far-off English lake, David had stood soul to soul in a heaven created by this radiant being. He was with her again. The past was completely blotted out; the tender idyl of Derwentwater, of Rysdale, forgotten. Even the sight of Una herself stirred but the vaguest ripple of memory. There was mystery, certainly, in these strange moods of forgetfulness from which David was suffering. Her uncle could give them a learned name and account for them as belonging to something quite outside the man's will, outside his control. But what did Leighton really know of all this? Such matters were beyond the reach of the mere scientist. With a flash of scorn she doubted Leighton's knowledge; his wisdom seemed curiously limited. David's malady--if it was to be called a malady--was nothing less than the delirium caused by love itself, and as such beyond the reach of clinic or laboratory. The spell, the witchcraft, that had transformed him was wrought by Sajipona.

At first Una had not believed this; now the sudden conviction that the man she loved was faithless to her, had always been faithless to her, brought an overwhelming sense of bitterness. Her former anxiety to save him--from peril as she thought--gave place to a feeling that was almost vindictive. She did not view him with the anger of the jealous woman merely; she wanted to have done with him, to forget him altogether. His name was linked by this beautiful Indian to one of the legends of her race; let it remain there!

"Why disturb him now?" she demanded passionately of Sajipona. "He loves you, he is content."

The revulsion of feeling in her voice was unmistakable. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes, eloquent hitherto of womanly tenderness, dilated in anger. Sajipona smiled enigmatically.

"If you had not come," she said, "there would have been no question. But you are here. He seems to have forgotten you. I am not sure, I want to be certain, now that he has forgotten you, that he is still himself."

"Why do you doubt? Yes, he has forgotten me. And he is in your power, he is yours! Why hazard anything further?"

Sajipona ignored the scornful meaning conveyed in the words, regarding Una with a detachment indicating her absorption in a new train of thought.

"A moment ago you were anxious for his safety," she murmured. "You came here to look for him, to rescue him. Perhaps I have been unjust--perhaps you have a claim----"

"I have no claim," retorted Una proudly. "Once you saved his life. He has come to you again. He loves you. What man could help loving you!" she added bitterly.

Still Sajipona smiled.

"I must be sure of all this--and so must you," she said. "If the witchcraft is mine, its power will soon be broken. If there is something else, you, Senor, will discover it."

She turned impatiently to Raoul, desiring him to go with her to David. Una refused to accompany them. The conviction that she had been mistaken, deluded, filled her with an unconquerable aversion to meeting the man for whom she had been willing to sacrifice so much. Aware of the unreasonableness of this feeling, she yet had no wish to conquer it. To escape from this land of mysteries and terrors, to return to the simple familiar environment of Rysdale--to forget, if that were possible--was now her one desire. She did not attempt to explain or justify herself to Sajipona. Nor was this necessary. To Sajipona, Una's anger and its cause were alike evident.

"Stay here, if you will, with Narva," said the queen, with real or feigned indifference. "But remember, you have refused to save the man whom you think is in danger."

Una did not reply. For the moment the old Indian sibyl, to whose protection she had been assigned, seemed a welcome refuge. Narva's reserve, her silence, brought a negative sort of relief to her own moods of anguish and indignation. Thus, without regret or misgiving, she watched Raoul and Sajipona disappear through the portal that had first admitted her to the great hall of the palace.

XXI

DREAMS

David welcomed Sajipona with genuine pleasure, with an eagerness suggesting that he had been awaiting her coming impatiently. Heedless of his greeting, however, and regarding him earnestly, she asked if he remembered the visitor who had been with him a short time before.

"Yes! Yes!" he exclaimed. Then he went on, betraying a certain degree of anxiety in tone and manner, explaining how this visitor's face had haunted him as if it belonged to one he had seen in his dreams, one upon whom he had unwittingly inflicted pain. Of course, that could not be, he said, since there was no reality in dreams. After all, a fancied wrong was nothing--and yet, this dim memory of the woman who had been with them a moment before was confusing. Where was she now? he asked. Was she offended because he failed to recognize her? He should have known better--but dreams are troublesome things! He would like to see her again--although it might be painful in a way--and then, perhaps, he would recall more distinctly what now was merely a dim sort of shadow in the back of his brain.

They talked together in the darkened chamber overlooking the portico. The couch from which he rose to greet Sajipona screened, with its regal hangings, Raoul from him. When the queen pointed out this new visitor to him, the result was similar to that following his encounter with Una.

"More dream-people," muttered David, passing his hand slowly across his eyes. "I know this man, but I can't exactly place him. It will come back to me in a minute."

Raoul watched him with the intent, impersonal interest a scientist gives an experiment that is nearing the climax for which everything has been prepared beforehand.

"I think I can help you," he assured him.

Then, turning to Sajipona; "I must warn you," he said in a low voice. "There will be a complete change. Why not leave things as they are?"

The queen held her head up proudly.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Raoul shrugged his shoulders, regarding her, and then David, with a gleam of malice in his restless eyes.

"I mean just this: David will remember vividly what is now only a vague dream, and he may forget everything else. Therefore, I say, if you are satisfied with him as he is, don't disturb his present mood."

"I am not satisfied."

"Ah! you are not satisfied. You want to try one more experiment. But, just think!" he went on, a hint of mockery in his voice; "all that legend of your people, about a stranger who would appear from a far-off land and restore the Chibcha Empire--why spoil so pretty a picture? And the chances are, you will spoil it. I warn you----"

A flash of anger checked his words.

"I have pledged myself for your safety," she reminded him; "keep out of danger! I don't care for your warnings. Help this man in the way that I have asked, and as you say you can. You've tried often enough to injure him. The consequences to me from what you do now--leave all that for me to choose. Oh, never fear! I will repay your service."

David understood little of what was said, although he strove to piece out a meaning. He perceived he was the subject of their talk. From Sajipona's angry tone, moreover, he knew that she was offended. The consequent resentment that he felt in her behalf was strengthened by an instinctive feeling of suspicion and dislike toward Raoul. Checking a movement of repulsion, he appealed to Sajipona.

"Let me throw him out of here," he demanded abruptly.

"Oh, on the contrary!" smiled the queen, not unpleased at his attitude. "He is here because I have asked him to come--and you will help me if you do what he tells you."

"Do what he tells me? No! Why, Sajipona, what new whim have you got in that beautiful head of yours? Something's wrong. It must be that I've offended you."

He took her hand, stroking it caressingly, while his eyes sought hers in unrestrained admiration.

"This is hard," he went on, in a low tone, half laughter, half reproach. "You are always so good, gracious as a queen should be. Now you tell me to do what an enemy of yours commands. As your enemy means mine, that is unreasonable. I fear," he added playfully, touching her hands with his lips, "I will have to disobey you, just this once, even if you are a great queen. When I am king, and we rule our jolly cave together, as you said we would, it won't be so bad, I suppose. Men like this, certainly, won't be around to bother us. How did he get here? I thought one law of this kingdom--and a very good law it is, too--was to keep people out."

"But you got in."

"I suppose I did," he assented dreamily. "But I'm not sure how it happened."

"That's just it. This man will tell you. His name is Raoul Arthur."

David looked at him blankly, repeating the name. Raoul moved out of the shadow of the bed hangings, his eyes fixed on David's. His lips parted as if to speak, but the words were checked by an imperative gesture from the man before him.

"I'm not sure that I want to listen," said David. "I know this man, I'm certain that I do--but I can't tell you when it was that I first met him. It's all very vague, like the haze that sometimes covers the living pictures in the great pool of light in there. This memory comes like something evil, something that brings ruin. Surely, you don't want to bring ruin upon us, Sajipona! Why not blot it out altogether?"

She shook her head sadly, looking wistfully into his face. They clasped each other's hands, oblivious, for the moment, of Raoul's presence.

"If you are king there must be no forgetting, no dread of a memory that has been lost. You must know! The Land of the Condor is a land of dreams compared with the rest of the world. You have been out there, David, but you have forgotten. Now you must remember."

"No, not exactly forgotten," he said uneasily. "It's all in my head, a lot of things jumbled together--like the haze in there. I have no wish to straighten it out, either. There is such a thing as knowing too much sometimes. We are happier this way--don't let's run any risks changing what we already have. Soon there will be that feast, you said--and then, if you are queen, perhaps you will want me to be king. How proud I shall be! You are very beautiful, Sajipona; noble and great, like the daughter of real kings of the earth. You are my dream-queen, you know, the first love to touch my soul with a knowledge of beauty. Such a woman men die for! Sometimes, when you sing to me, or tease old Narva; or when I would hold you and you kind of ripple away laughing, like the little brook at the bottom of the garden--yes, that is the woman men die loving."

"I wonder if you will always think that!"

"You mean, I may forget?"

"No, you will remember."

"'Remember!' You mean, those other things wrapped in the haze--the things that we wait to see come out in the pool of light. That's just it! No, I don't want them; they spoil the first picture. To worship beauty like yours, to live forever in the spell of your eyes, the fragrance of your whole perfect being--that is happiness. I want nothing else. Why lose our dream-loves; why snatch from us, even before it is ours, the first pure flower that touches the lips of youth? Don't rob me of mine, my queen!"

His appeal thrilled with a dreamy earnestness that would have moved a sterner woman than Sajipona. Nor could there be doubt that the joy he thus kindled in her revived a hope that Una's coming had almost destroyed. Nevertheless, in spite of this response of her own deep passion to his, her purpose remained unaltered. The very eagerness with which she drank in David's words--feeling the temptation to let things keep the happy course they had already taken--strengthened her resolve to lose no time, to risk everything now. That such a change as she had feared could be wrought in David after all this, seemed inconceivable. The witchcraft, if witchcraft it was, that drew him to her was something real, real as life, that exorcism could not dissolve. Sure of her triumph, she sought to put him to the test herself.

"David, before you came to me, was there no other woman that you knew?"

"Oh, yes, I think so, surely!" he laughed. "There might have been any number of them. But--why bother about them? Just who they were, or where I knew them, I have forgotten. I hope you don't think it necessary to remember every woman I have known! Anyway, I can't. Why, I don't even remember their names."

"I mean, one woman only. Perhaps there was one you loved, you know, among all those you have forgotten. Some one who was beautiful--is still beautiful--and who loves you. It might be the woman you saw here a short time ago. She is called Una. Surely, you remember."

He wrung her hands, kissed them, listened eagerly to what she was saying, at the same time that he longed to seal his ears from hearing. Under his breath he muttered Una's name, its iteration, apparently, increasing his agitation. Distressed by Sajipona's questions, he tried to parry them, without revealing too much of his own mental confusion. He did remember Una, he said, but the memory was vague. She might be one of those dream-women, for all he knew, who get mixed up with one's ideas of reality. He would like to have it straightened out, to know who she was and why the thought of her troubled him. But, after all, it was not particularly important--not important, that is, compared with his love for Sajipona, his certainty that in their union lay a future happiness, not for them only, but for all this wonderful kingdom she ruled over.

"Keep in this mind, if you will," said Sajipona, the hope that she secretly cherished greatly strengthened by the sincerity and fervor of his protestations; "but first be sure you know dreams from waking."

Again she expressed her desire to have Raoul brought into the matter, promising David that, through his knowledge and experience, the puzzles and contradictions of the past would be set right. Yielding reluctantly, he turned to Raoul.