Chapter XVIII

Convoyed by the spearmen, the party of Leoncia, the two Morgans, and Torres, was led through the pleasant fields, all under a high state of primitive cultivation, and on across running streams and through woodland stretches and knee deep pastures where grazed cows of so miniature a breed that, full-grown, they were no larger than young calves.

‘They’re milch cows without mistake,’ Henry commented. ‘And they’re perfect beauties. But did you ever see such dwarfs! A strong man could lift up the biggest specimen and walk off with it.’

‘Don’t fool yourself,’ Francis spoke up. ‘Take that one over there, the black one. I’ll wager it’s not an ounce under three hundredweight.’

‘How much will you wager?’ Henry challenged.

‘Name the bet,’ was the reply.

‘Then a hundred even,’ Henry stated, ‘that I can lift it up and walk away with it.’

‘Done.’

But the bet was never to be decided, for the instant Henry left the path he was poked back by the spearmen, who scowled and made signs that they were to proceed straight ahead.

Where the way came to lead past the foot of a very rugged cliff, they saw above them many goats.

‘Domesticated,’ said Francis. ‘Look at the herd boys.’

‘I was sure it was goat-meat in that stew,’ Henry nodded. ‘I always did like goats. If the Lady Who Dreams, whoever she may be, vetoes the priest and lets us live, and if we have to stay with the Lost Souls for the rest of our days, I’m going to petition to be made master goatherd of the realm, and I’ll build you a nice little cottage, Leoncia, and you can become the Exalted Cheese-maker to the Queen.’

But he did not whimsically wander farther, for, at that moment, they emerged upon a lake so beautiful as to bring a long whistle from Francis, a hand-clap from Leoncia, and a muttered ejaculation of appreciation from Torres. Fully a mile in length it stretched, with more than half the same in width, and was a perfect oval. With one exception, no habitation broke the fringe of trees, bamboo thickets, and rushes that circled its shore, even along the foot of the cliff where the bamboo was exceptionally luxuriant. On the placid surface was so vividly mirrored the surrounding mountains that the eye could scarcely discern where reality ended and reflection began.

In the midst of her rapture over the perfect reflection, Leoncia broke off to exclaim her disappointment in that the water was not crystal clear:

‘What a pity it is so muddy!’

‘That’s because of the wash of the rich soil of the valley floor,’ Henry elucidated. ‘It’s hundreds of feet deep, that soil.’

‘The whole valley must have been a lake at some time,’ Francis concurred. ‘Run your eye along the cliff and see the old water-lines. I wonder what made it shrink.’

‘Earthquake, most likely opened up some subterranean exit and drained it off to its present level and keeps on draining it, too. Its rich chocolate color shows the amount of water that flows in all the time, and that it doesn’t have much chance to settle. It’s the catch-basin for the entire circling watershed of the valley.’

‘Well, there’s one house at least,’ Leoncia was saying five minutes later, as they rounded an angle of the cliff and saw, tucked against the cliff and extending out over the water, a low-roofed bungalow-like dwelling.

The piles were massive tree-trunks, but the walls of the house were of bamboo, and the roof was thatched with grass straw. So isolated was it, that the only access, except by boat, was a twenty-foot bridge so narrow that two could not walk on it abreast. At either end of the bridge, evidently armed guards or sentries, stood two young men of the tribe. They moved aside, at a gesture of command from the Sun Priest, and let the party pass, although the two Morgans did not fail to notice that the spearmen who had accompanied them from the Long House remained beyond the bridge.

Across the bridge and entered into the bungalow-like dwelling on stilts, they found themselves in a large room better furnished, crude as the furnishings were, than they would have expected in the Valley of Lost Souls. The grass mats on the floor were of fine and careful weave, and the shades of split bamboo that covered the window-openings were of patient workmanship. At the far end, against the wall, was a huge golden emblem of the rising sun similar to the one before the altar by the Long House. But by far most striking, were two living creatures who strangely inhabited the place and who scarcely moved. Beneath the rising sun, raised above the floor on a sort of dais, was a many-pillowed divan that was half-throne. And on the divan, among the pillows, clad in a softly-shimmering robe of some material no one of them had seen before, reclined a sleeping woman. Only her breast softly rose and softly fell to her breathing. No Lost Soul was she, of the inbred and degenerate mixture of Carib and Spaniard. On her head was a tiara of beaten gold and sparkling gems so large that almost it seemed a crown.

Before her, on the floor, were two tripods of gold the one containing smoldering fire, the other, vastly larger, a golden bowl fully a fathom in diameter. Between the tripods, resting with outstretched paws like the Sphinx, with unblinking eyes and without a quiver, a great dog, snowwhite of coat and resembling a Russian wolf-hound, steadfastly regarded the intruders.

‘She looks like a lady, and seems like a queen, and certainly dreams to the queen’s taste,’ Henry whispered, and earned a scowl from the Sun Priest.

Leoncia was breathless, but Torres shuddered and crossed himself, and said:

‘This I have never heard of the Valley of Lost Souls. This woman who sleeps is a Spanish lady. She is of the pure Spanish blood. She is Castilian. I am as certain, as that I stand here, that her eyes are blue. And yet that pallor!’ Again he shuddered. ‘It is an unearthly sleep. It is as if she tampered with drugs, and had long tampered with druggy-’

‘The very thing!’ Francis broke in with excited whispers. ‘The Lady Who Dreams drug dreams. They must keep her here doped up as a sort of super-priestess or super-oracle. That’s all right, old priest,’ he broke off to say in Spanish. ‘If we wake her up, what of it? We have been brought here to meet her, and, I hope, awake.’

The Lady stirred, as if the whispering had penetrated her profound of sleep, and, for the first time, the dog moved. turning his head toward her so that her down-dropping hand rested on his neck caressingly. The priest was imperative, now, in his scowls and gestured commands for silence. And in absolute silence they stood and watched the awakening of the oracle.

Slowly she drew herself half upright, paused, and recaressed the happy wolf hound, whose cruel fangs were exposed in a formidable, long-jawed laugh of joy. Awesome the situation was to them, yet more awesome it became to them when she turned her eyes full upon them for the first time. Never had they seen such eyes, in which smouldered the world and all the worlds. Half way did Leoncia cross herself, while Torres, swept away by his own awe, completed his own crossing of himself and with moving lips of silence enunciated his favorite prayer to the Virgin. Even Francis and Henry looked, and could not take their gaze away from the twin wells of blue that seemed almost dark in the shade of the long black eyelashes.

‘A blue-eyed brunette,’ Francis managed to whisper.

But such eyes! Bound they were, rather than long. And yet thy were not round. Square they might have been, had they not been more round than square. Such shape had they that they were as if blocked off in the artist’s swift and sketchy way of establishing circles out of the sums of angles. The long, dark lashes veiled them and perpetuated the illusion of their darkness. Yet was there no surprise nor startlement in them at first sight of her visitors. Dreamily incurious were they, yet were they languidly certain of comprehension of what they beheld. Still further, to awe those who so beheld, her eyes betrayed a complicated totality of paradoxical alivenesses. Pain trembled its quivering anguish perpetually impending. Sensitiveness moistly hinted of itself like a spring rain-shower on the distant sea-horizon or a dew-fall of a mountain morning. Pain ever pain resided in the midst of languorous slumberousness. The fire of immeasurable courage threatened to glint into the electric spark of action and fortitude. Deep slumber, like a palpitant, tapestried background, seemed ever ready to obliterate all in sleep. And over all, through all, permeating all, brooded ageless wisdom’. This was accentuated by cheeks slightly hollowed, hinting of asceticism. Upon them was a flush, either hectic or of the paint-box.

When she stood up, she showed herself to be slender and fragile as a fairy. Tiny were her bones, not too generously flesh-covered; yet the lines of her were not thin. Had either Henry or Francis registered his impression aloud, he would have proclaimed her the roundest thin woman he had ever seen.

The Sun Priest prostrated his aged frame till he lay stretched flat out on the floor, his old forehead burrowing into the grass mat. The rest remained upright, although Torres evidenced by a crumpling at the knees that he would have followed the priest’s action had his companions shown signs of accompanying him. As it was, his knees did partly crumple, but straightened again and stiffened under the controlled example of Leoncia and the Morgans.

At first the Lady had no eyes for aught but Leoncia; and, after a careful looking over of her, with a curt upward lift of head she commanded her to approach. Too imperative by far was it, in Leoncia’s thought, to proceed from so ethereally beautiful a creature, and she sensed with immediacy an antagonism that must exist between them. So she did not move, until the Sun Priest muttered harshly that she must obey. She approached, regardless of the huge, long-haired hound, threading between the tripods and past the beast, nor would stop until commanded by a second nod as curt as the first. For a long minute the two women gazed steadily into each other’s eyes, at the end of which, with a flicker of triumph, Leoncia observed the other’s eyes droop. But the flicker was temporary, for Leoncia saw that the Lady was studying her dress with haughty curiosity. She even reached out her slender, pallid hand and felt the texture of the cloth and caressed it as only a woman can.

‘Priest!’ she summoned sharply. ‘This is the third day of the Sun in the House of Manco. Long ago I told you something concerning this day. Speak.’

Writhing in excess of servility, the Sun Priest quavered:

‘That on this day strange events were to occur. They have occurred, Queen.’

Already had the Queen forgotten. Still caressing the cloth of Leoncia’s dress, her eyes were bent upon it in curious examination.

‘You are very fortunate,’ the Queen said, at the same time motioning her back to rejoin the others. ‘You are well loved of men. All is not clear, yet does it seem that vou are too well loved of men.’ Her voice, mellow and low, tranquil as silver, modulated in exquisite rhythms of sound, was almost as a distant temple bell calling believers to worship or sad souls to quiet judgment. But to Leoncia it was not given to appreciate the wonderful voice. Instead, only was she aware of anger flaming up to her cheeks and burning in her pulse.

‘I have seen you before, and often,’ the Queen went on.

‘Never!’ Leoncia cried out.

‘Hush!’ the Sun Priest hissed at her.

‘There,’ the Queen said, pointing at the great golden bowl. ‘Before, and often, have I seen you there.’

‘You also, there,’ she addressed Henry.

‘And you,’ she confirmed to Francis, although her great blue eyes opened wider and she gazed at him long, too long to suit Leoncia, who knew the stab of jealousy that only a woman can thrust into a woman’s heart.

The Queen’s eyes glinted when they had moved on to rest on Torres.

‘And who are you, stranger, so strangely appareled, the helmet of a knight upon your head, upon your feet the sandals of a slave?’

‘I am Da Vasco,’ he answered stoutly.

‘The name has an ancient ring,’ she smiled.

‘I am the ancient Da Vasco,’ he pursued, advancing unsummoned. She smiled at his temerity but did not stay him. ‘This is the helmet I wore four hundred years ago when I led the ancestors of the Lost Souls into this valley.’ The Queen smiled quiet unbelief, as she quietly asked:

‘Then you were born four hundred years ago?’

‘Yes, and never. I was never born. I am Da Vasco. I have always been. My home is in the sun.’

Her delicately stenciled brows drew quizzically to interrogation, though she said nothing. From a gold-wrought box beside her on the divan she pinched what seemed a powder between a fragile and almost transparent thumb and forefinger, and her thin beautiful lips curved to gentle mockery as she casually tossed the powder into the great tripod. A sheen of smoke arose and in a moment was lost to sight.

‘Look!’ she commanded.

And Torres, approaching the great bowl, gazed into it. What he saw, the rest of his party never learned. But the Queen herself leaned forward and gazing down from above, saw with him, her face a beautiful advertisement of gentle and pitying mockery. And what Torres himself saw was a bedroom and a birth in the second story of the Bocas del Tore house he had inherited. Pitiful it was, with its last secrecy exposed, as was the gently smiling pity in the Queen’s face. And, in that flashing glimpse of magic vision, Torres saw confirmed about himself what he had always guessed and suspected.

‘Would you see more,’ the Queen softly mocked. ‘I have shown you the beginning of you. Look now, and behold your ending.’

But Torres, too deeply impressed by what he had already seen, shuddered away in recoil.

‘Forgive me, Beautiful Woman,’ he pleaded. ‘And let me pass. Forget, as I shall hope ever to forget.’

‘It is gone,’ she said, with a careless wave of her hand over the bowl. ‘But I cannot forget. The record will persist always in my mind. But you, O Man, so young of life, so ancient of helmet, have I beheld before this day, there in my Mirror of the World. You have vexed me much of late with your portending. Yet not with the helmet.’ She smiled with quiet wisdom. ‘Always, it seems to me, I saw a chamber of the dead, of the long dead, upright on their unmoving legs and guarding through eternity mysteries alien to their faith and race. And in that dolorous company did it seem. that I saw one who wore your ancient helmet… Shall I speak further?’

‘No, no,’ Torres implored.

She bowed and nodded him back. Next, her scrutiny centred on Francis, whom she nodded forward. She stood up upon the dais as if to greet him, and, as if troubled by the fact that she must gaze down on him, stepped from the dais to the floor so that she might gaze up into his face as she extended her hand. Hesitatingly he took her hand in his, then knew not what next to do. Almost did it appear that she read his thought, for she said:

‘Do it. I have never had it done to me before. I have never seen it done, save in my dreams and in the visions shown me in my Mirror of the World.’

And Francis bent and kissed her hand. And, because she did not signify to withdraw it, he continued to hold it, while, against his palm, he felt the faint but steady pulse of her pink finger-tips. And so they stood in pose, neither speaking, Francis embarrassed, the Queen sighing faintly, while the sex anger of woman tore at Leoncia’s heart, until Henry blurted out in gleeful English:

‘Do it again, Francis! She likes it!’

The Sun Priest hissed silencing command at him. But the Queen, half withdrawing her hand with a startle like a maiden’s, returned it as deeply as before into Francis’ clasp, and addressed herself to Henry.

‘I, too, know the language you speak,’ she admonished. ‘Yet am I unashamed, I, who have never known a man, do admit that I like it. It is the first kiss that I have ever had. Francis for such your friend calls you obey your friend. I like it. I do like it. Once again kiss my hand.’

Francis obeyed, waited while her hand still lingered in his, and while she, oblivious to all else, as if toying with some beautiful thought, gazed lingeringly up into his eyes. By a visible effort she pulled herself together, released his hand abruptly, gestured him back to the others, and addressed the Sun Priest.

‘Well, priest,’ she said, with a return of the sharpness in her voice, ‘You have brought these captives here for a reason which I already know. Yet would I hear you state it yourself.’

‘Lady Who Dreams, shall we not kill these intruders as has ever been our custom? The people are mystified and in doubt of my judgment, and demand decision from you.’

‘And you would kill?’

‘Such is my judgment. I seek now your judgment that yours and mine may be one.’

She glanced over the faces of the four captives. For Torres, her brooding expression portrayed only pity. To Leoncia she extended a frown; to Henry, doubt. And upon Francis she gazed a full minute, her face growing tender, at least to Leoncia’s angry observation.

‘Are any of you unmarried?’ the Queen asked suddenly. ‘Nay,’ she anticipated them. ‘It is given me to know that you are all unmarried.’ She turned quickly to Leoncia. ‘Is it well,’ she demanded, ‘that a woman should have two husbands?’

Both Henry and Francis could not refrain from smiling their amusement at so absurdly irrelevant a question. But to Leoncia it was neither absurd nor irrelevant, and in her cheeks arose the flush of anger again. This was a woman, she knew, with whom she had to deal, and who was dealing with her like a woman.

‘It is not well,’ Leoncia answered, with clear, ringing voice.

‘It is very strange,’ the Queen pondered aloud. ‘It is very strange. Yet is it not fair. Since there are equal numbers of men and women in the world, it cannot be fair for one woman to have two husbands, for, if so, it means that another woman shall have no husband.’

Another pinch of dust she tossed into the great bowl of gold. The sheen of smoke arose and vanished as before.

‘The Mirror of the World will tell me, priest, what disposition shall be made of our captives.’

Just ere she leaned over to gaze into the bowl, a fresh thought deflected her. With an embracing wave of arm she invited them all up to the bowl.

‘We may all look,’ she said. ‘I do not promise you we will see the same visions of our dreams. Nor shall I know what you will have seen. Each for himself will see and know. You, too, priest.’

They found the bowl, six feet in diameter that it was, half full of some unknown metal liquid.

‘It might be quicksilver, but it isn’t,’ Henry whispered to Francis. ‘I have never seen the like of any similar metal. It strikes me as hotly molten.’

‘It is very cold,’ the Queen corrected him in English. ‘Yet is it fire. You, Francis, feel the bowl outside.’

He obeyed, laying his full palm unhesitatingly to the yellow outer surface.

‘Colder than the atmosphere of the room,’ he adjudged. But look!’ the Queen, cried, tossing more powder upon the contents. ‘It is fire that remains cold.’

‘It is the powder that smokes with the heat of its own containment,’ Torres blurted out, at the same time feeling into the bottom of his coat pocket. He drew forth a pinch of crumbs of tobacco, match splinters, and cloth-fluff. ‘This will not burn,’ he challenged, inviting invitation by extending the pinch of rubbish over the bowl as if to drop it in.

The Queen nodded consent, and all saw the rubbish fall upon the liquid metal surface. The particles made no indentation on that surface. Only did they transform into smoke that sheened upward and was gone. No remnant of ash remained. ‘Still is it cold,’ said Torres, imitating Francis and feeling the outside of the bowl.

‘Thrust your finger into the contents,’ the Queen suggested to Torres.

‘No,’ he said.

‘You are right,’ she confirmed. ‘Had you done so, you would now be with one finger less than the number with which you were born.’ She tossed in more powder. ‘Now shall each behold what he alone will behold.’

And it was so.

To Leoncia was it given to see an ocean separate her and Francis. To Henry was it given to see the Queen and Francis married by so strange a ceremony, that scarcely did he realize, until at the close, that it was a wedding taking place. The Queen, from a flying gallery in a great house, looked down into a magnificent drawing-room that Francis would have recognized as built by his father had her vision been his. And, beside her, his arm about her, she saw Francis. Francis saw but one thing, vastly perturbing, the face of Leoncia, immobile as death, with thrust into it, squarely between the eyes, a slender-bladed dagger. Yet he did not see any blood flowing from the wound of the dagger. Torres glimpsed the beginning of what he knew must be his end, crossed himself, and alone of all of them shrank back, refusing to see further. While the Sun Priest saw the vision of his secret sin, the face and form of the woman for whom he had betrayed the Worship of the Sun, and the face and form of the maid of the village at the Long House.

As all drew back by common consent when the visions faded, Leoncia turned like a tigress, with flashing eyes, upon the Queen, crying:

‘Your mirror lies! Your Mirror of the World lies!’

Francis and Henry, still under the heavy spell of what they had themselves beheld, were startled and surprised by Leoncia’s outburst. But the Queen, speaking softly, replied: My Mirror of the World has never lied. I know not what you saw. But I do know, whatever it was, that it is truth.’

‘You are a monster!’ Leoncia cried on. ‘You are a vile witch that lies!’

‘You and I are women,’ the Queen chided with sweet gentleness, ‘and may not know of ourselves, being women. Men will decide whether or not I am a witch that lies or a woman with a woman’s heart of love. In the meanwhile, being women and therefore weak, let us be kind to each other.’

‘And now, Priest of the Sun, to judgment. You, as priest under the Sun God, know more of the ancient rule and procedure than do I. You know more than do I about myself and how I came to be here. You know that always, mother and daughter, and by mother and daughter, has the tribe maintained a Queen of Mystery, a Lady of Dreams. The time has come when we must consider the future generations. The strangers have come, and they are unmarried. This must be the wedding day decreed, if the generations to come after of the tribe are to possess a Queen to dream for them. It is well, and time and need and place are met. I have dreamed to judgment. And the judgment is that I shall marry, of these strangers, the stranger allotted to me before the foundations of the world were laid. The test is this: If no one of these will marry, then shall they die and their warm blood be offered up by you before the altar of the Sun. If one will marry me, then all shall live, and Time hereafter will register our futures.’

The Sun Priest, trembling with anger, strove to protest, but she commanded:

‘Silence, priest! By me only do you rule the people. At a word from me to the people well, you know. It is not any easy way to die.’

She turned to the three men, saying:

‘And who will marry me?’

They looked in embarrassment and consternation at one another, but none spoke.

‘I am a woman,’ the Queen went on teasingly. ‘And therefore am I not desirable to men? Is it that I am not young? Is it, as women go, that I am not beautiful? Is it that men’s tastes are so strange that no man cares to clasp the sweet of me in his arms and press his lips on mine as good Francis there did on my hand?’

She turned her eyes on Leoncia.

‘You be judge. You are a woman well loved of men.

‘Am I not such a woman as you, and shall I not be loved?’

‘You will ever be kinder to men than to women,’ Leoncia answered cryptically as regarded the three men who heard, but clearly to the woman’s brain of the Queen. ‘And as a woman,’ Leoncia continued, ‘you are strangely beautiful and luring; and there are men in this world, many men, who could be made mad to clasp you in their arms. But I warn you, Queen, that in this world are men, and men, and men.’

Having heard and debated this, the Queen turned abruptly to the priest.

‘You have heard, priest. This day a man shall marry me. If no man marries me, these three men shall be offered up on your altar. So shall be offered up this woman, who, it would seem, would put shame upon me by having me less than she.’

Still, she addressed the priest, although her message was for the others.

‘There are three men of them, one of whom, long cycles before he was born, was destined to marry me. So, priest, I say, take the captives away into some other apartment, and let them decide among themselves which is the man.’

‘Since it has been so long destined,’ Leoncia flamed forth, ‘then why put it to the chance of their decision? You know the man. Why put it to the risk? Name the man, Queen, and name him now.’

‘The man shall be selected in the way I have indicated,’ the Queen replied, as, at the same time, absently she tossed a pinch of powder into the great bowl and absently glanced therein. ‘So now depart, and let the inevitable choice be made.’

They were already moving away out of the room, when a cry from the Queen stopped them.

‘Wait!’ she ordered. ‘Come, Francis. I have seen something that concerns you. Come, gaze with me upon the Mirror of the World.’

And while the others paused, Francis gazed with her upon the strange liquid metal surface. He saw himself in the library of his New York house, and he saw beside him the Lady Who Dreams, his arm around her. Next, he saw her curiosity at sight of the stock-ticker. As he tried to explain it to her, he glanced at the tape and read such disturbing information thereon that he sprang to the nearest telephone and, as the vision faded, saw himself calling up his broker.

‘What was it you saw?’ Leoncia questioned, as they passed out.

And Francis lied. He did not mention seeing the Lady Who Dreams in his New York library. Instead, he replied:

‘It was a stock-ticker, and it showed a bear market on Wall Street somersaulting into a panic. Now how did she know I was interested in Wall Street and stock-tickers?’