The Devil-Tree of El Dorado: A Novel

“I know not,” replied the maiden in a low voice, and glancing timidly at him. “You frighten me a little – or you would, but that I like you too well to feel afraid of you – but – I have no knowledge of such love as you describe.”

“But, you have heard of a love that far exceeds mere friendship – far stronger than affection?”

“Y-es. I have heard of it; and – ridiculed it as fiction. Yet – if you affirm its truth, and in your own person have experienced it – I must fain believe you, for I know you would not say what is not true. But” – here she sagely shook her head – “though my ears receive your words, the time has not yet come when they have reached my heart.”

Leonard seized her hand.

“But, meanwhile, I have not offended you, Ulama?” he asked entreatingly. “You will let me love you? Indeed, I am powerless to help it. And you will try to – to – like me – ah, you have said you do like me already. Will you not try to love me a little?”

“Nay,” she frankly answered, “you would not surely have me try? What sort of love would that be that we had to try to bring into being – to force upon an unresponsive heart? You have said that it should burst forth spontaneously. I scarcely understand when you speak thus.”

Leonard sighed.

“You are right, Ulama, as you ever are; and I am wrong; but my love makes me impatient. I will not expect too much of you. I will wait with such content as is in me to command until your gentle heart shall beat in unison with mine; and something in me tells me that one day it will.”

Just then they heard the voice of some one calling to them, and, looking round, they saw Jack Templemore and Zonella, with several others, coming towards them in another boat.

When they were within speaking distance, Jack said that Monella had sent him to tell Leonard he wished to speak to him; Leonard accordingly took up the oars and rowed the barge slowly to shore. There he left Ulama with the party, and proceeded in search of Monella who, he had been told, was awaiting him upon a terrace that overlooked the lake.

Here Leonard found him seated with a field-glass in his hand. Monella turned and looked searchingly at the young man, who felt himself colouring under the other’s glance.

“I love not to seem to spy upon your acts, my son,” Monella began gravely, “but when I caught sight of you in yonder boat holding the hand of the princess, the daughter of the king, who is our kind and gracious host, I could not well do otherwise than seek a talk with you. I fear you have not well considered what you do.”

At this rebuke Leonard coloured up still more, albeit the words were spoken with evident kindness. For that very reason, probably, they sank the deeper. It was the first time anything savouring of reproof to him had fallen from Monella’s lips; and, up to that moment, its possibility had seemed remote; and now the young man deeply felt the fact that the other should have thought it necessary.

“I think I know what you would say,” he answered in a low voice. “I feel I have been wrong – guilty of thoughtlessness, presumption, and seemingly of breach of confidence. I understand what is in your mind. Yet let me say at once that so far little – practically nothing – has been said, and nothing more shall be – unless – you can tell me I dare hope. But oh, my good friend, you who have treated me always as a son, and shown such sympathy and kindness towards me – who have known of my half-formed aspirations, and the ideas that led me on and ended in my coming here, and encouraged me in those ideas – who have learned that in the king’s daughter I have found the living embodiment of the central figure of all my dreamings —you surely will not now turn upon me and tell me I must stifle all my feelings, and – give – up – the hopes – that had arisen – in my heart?” And Leonard sank wearily into a seat.

Then, for the first time realising his actual position, how next to impossible it was that the king would regard with favour his pretensions, he placed his hands before his face and groaned aloud.

Monella rose, and, going to him, laid his hand kindly upon his shoulder.

“I might bring all the arguments and platitudes of the ‘worldly-wise’ to bear on you,” he said, “but I forbear; and I know they will not weigh with you. Moreover, it is undeniable that the circumstances are unusual and unlooked-for. But they do not justify you in forgetting what you owe to a kingly host and – I may add – to others; to us, your friends, for instance. You know, also, that our position here is critical; there is trouble brewing in the land. If the king should have reason to believe that one of us has abused his confidence in one matter, he may lose his trust in all, as touching other, and far more weighty matters – matters that may affect even his own personal security; to say nothing of our own lives, and those of many of his subjects. Therefore – ”

Leonard sprang up and looked at him imploringly.

“For pity’s sake say no more,” he said, “or I shall begin to hate myself. I understand – only too well. Trust me – if you will; if you feel you can; if you have not lost confidence. You shall not have further reason for complaint.”

Monella took Leonard’s hand in his and pressed it affectionately.

“’Tis well, my son,” he said. “I have full confidence, and will trust you. And you, on your side, must trust me. I may have opportunity to sound the king, and, if it so happen, you may count on me to say and do all that my friendship for you may dictate – and that will not be a little.”

Leonard wrung the other’s hand and tried to thank him, but a burst of emotion overcame him, and he turned away. When he again looked round he was alone.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FIGHT ON THE HILLSIDE

It had become the custom of the two young men to go every morning, when the atmosphere was clear, to a height at one end of the valley, from which a view could be obtained over the whole country surrounding that end of Roraima. The spot was a level table of rock under a picturesque group of fir-trees – for on the upper cliffs fir-trees were numerous – and from it, looking in the direction farthest from the mountain, the view was grand in the extreme; while, on the other side of them was the great valley or basin in which lay the lake and the city of Manoa.

It would be but labour lost to attempt to give an adequate idea of the prospect over which the eye could travel on a clear day, when one stood upon this giddy height. It extended to an almost illimitable distance; for, when one looked beyond the surrounding mountains of the Roraima range, there were no more hills to break the view till it reached the far distant Andes, had these been visible. Indeed, it was said that they were visible on a few days in the year; but, if that were so, it would perhaps be rather as an effect in the nature of a mirage than what is usually understood by an actual view of the far-away mountains. But nearer at hand, in other directions were mountain ridges and summits in seemingly endless succession, piled up in extraordinary confusion. From Roraima, as the highest of all, one could look down, to some extent, upon the others. Myrlanda was upon the other side, but Marima, and others of the strange group, lay before the eye, and one could see the woods and lakes upon their summits; but enough could not be seen to enable the spectator to decide whether they might be inhabited or not.

The beauty of the expanse of tropical vegetation immediately below was indeed marvellous. Here the explorers gazed down upon the tops of the trees of the gloomy forest that girdled the mountain (though not that part through which they had made their way with so much wearying, but dogged perseverance), and lo! it was a veritable garden of flowers of brilliant hue! For the trees beneath which they had crept, like ants among the stems of a field of clover, were gorgeous above in their display of blossoms, while shutting out the light from those who walked below.

Here and there, amid the green, the great cascades and torrents from the mountain side dashed impetuously from rock to rock; the streams that were in fact some of the feeders of the greatest of all rivers, the mighty Amazon; that river of wondrous mysteries, that pursues its course of four thousand miles through the plains of Brazil, and finds its way round at last into the Atlantic, there to hurl the volume of its waters with such force into the sea, that even the ocean waters are pushed aside to make a path for them hundreds of miles from land!

Here, upon the table of rock, in full view of one of the grandest and most eloquent natural panoramas it is possible for the mind of man to conceive, Leonard and Templemore stood the morning following the former’s interview with Monella, looking out upon the scene. A high wind, of bracing and exhilarating freshness, blew in their faces, rushed with a roar through the branches above them, swaying the great trees to and fro, and then, seeming to tear off across the valley at one leap, continued its wild course amongst the trees on the heights that lined the further side. Leonard, on turning to look across the lake, saw Ergalon advancing up the slope and making signs to him. He drew Jack’s attention to the signals, and they both descended the terraces of rock below to meet him. Here all was quiet; they were sheltered from the gusts of wind; the roar of the gale no longer met their ears.

All the time they had been in the city they had had a guard. It consisted of a file of soldiers with an officer, and they followed the two young men in all their walks, movements, journeys, never thrusting themselves on their attention, yet always ready to assist and defend them, if occasion should arise. Monella, also, had an escort whenever he went out. He had particularly enjoined on the other two never to stir abroad without their rifles, and this injunction, though they did not always see its necessity, they implicitly observed.

They had not seen much of Ergalon of late; he had attached himself more particularly to Monella, and had, in fact, become his particular attendant. Monella had trusted him so far as to explain to him something of the secrets of the firearms, and had instructed him in the loading of them in case circumstances should arise in which his assistance might be needed. Accordingly, when Leonard saw him coming up the hillside and signifying that he wished to speak to them, he at once called Templemore and left the ledge where they had been standing.

Soon they saw their guard approaching with Ergalon in advance of them, and, following them, Monella, who came on leisurely from ledge to ledge, occasionally giving a glance behind him.

The hillside was marked out in terraces, or tables of rock, most of them covered with greensward and fringed at the sides with belts of trees. Ergalon, who had taken his stand below, made signs to the two to come down to him, and, when they had descended within hearing, he addressed them.

“The lord Monella has sent me to warn you to await him here and to be ready for a contest. There is trouble afoot.”

“But why wait here?” asked Jack. “We will go down to him at once.”

Ergalon shook his head.

“No,” he said. “He particularly desired that you would await him here.”

“So be it; if you are sure you rightly understood him. But tell us, friend Ergalon, what all this means.”

Ergalon explained that Coryon had unexpectedly dispatched a large force of his soldiers to capture the three strangers. They had hoped to surprise them without giving time for others of the king’s soldiers to lend their aid. But he (Ergalon) had, through a former comrade who was still one of Coryon’s people, attained intimation of the intended movement, and had been able thus to warn Monella.

“So the lord Monella,” he explained, “sent on your guard in advance, and then himself walked up the hill towards you that they might see him. Thus he hoped to draw Coryon’s people away from the palace and the houses to this place, where, he says, it will be better to make a stand and fight them, since thus no other persons will be injured in the encounter.”

It was strange, but all who spoke of Monella, or to him, gave him some title of honour or respect. Ergalon called him ‘lord.’ Even Dakla, at the meeting in the king’s council chamber – spite of his insolent swagger towards the king – had been awed by this man’s look into addressing him by the equivalent in their language of ‘sir.’

“How many are there of them?” asked Jack.

“Oh, a hundred – or perhaps more. But the lord Monella has said their number matters not; and he sent me to the king to beg that none of his soldiers should interfere. ‘They would only be in the way,’ he said. He sent these extra things for you. See.” And he showed a parcel of cartridges he had brought with him.

“Good,” said Jack. “He is quite right. That’s all we wanted; we can answer for the rest. More soldiers would only be in the way; and some of them would be pretty sure to get hurt, if not killed outright – and all for nothing. I think I see Monella’s idea. It is” – turning to Elwood – “to take up our position here and shoot them down as they come across this wide terrace just below us. Not a man of them will ever cross that stretch alive.”

“Here are your guards,” observed Ergalon. “The lord Monella desired that you should place them somewhere where they would be out of the way, but within call.”

“Let them get on to this next ledge, then, just behind us. There they will have a fine view of everything. Did these people think to surprise us, do you think, friend Ergalon?”

“No doubt. Your habit of coming here of a morning has been noted, I suspect, and they had intended, I imagine, to creep round and get up through the woods unseen. But the lord Monella, being warned by me, went up on a high rock, where he could see them in the distance; when they saw they were observed by him, they gave up that plan and came straight on.”

“I see. Well, we owe you something for having warned us, friend.”

“It is nothing,” Ergalon answered simply. “My life was forfeited that day, and you spared me; and through the lord Monella and the princess, I gained the king’s pardon. I owe you all my service.”

By this time the guards and their officer had arrived, and were placed by Ergalon on a terrace above and behind that on which the two were standing.

“We like it not, this mode of yours – putting us in the background, out of danger, while you stand up in front,” observed the officer; “we consent only because the lord Monella so desires it. They are many, but we should not shrink; and others from the king’s palace would soon come to our assistance.”

“Yes, yes, good Abla. We have no misgivings of your courage. But you could do no good with so few men – they are more than ten to one, I hear – and your men would but impede us. Besides, it will give them a lesson for the future, if we deal with them ourselves, unaided.”

Abla bowed and walked away unwillingly, as one who is bound to obey orders, but does so against his will.

Monella now came in view, and was soon standing by their side. After a few words of explanation, he said gravely,

“They thought to have surprised us all three up here; but, when they saw they had failed in that, they took a bold course and came straight on. Now that means, in effect, an open challenge to the king. It means,” he continued with increased earnestness, “civil war. Civil war, you understand, has therefore broken out in the land – unless we nip it in the bud, here, now, as we can, if we show no untimely hesitation. These men are scoundrels of the serpent’s brood; cruel, bloodthirsty tools of the human fiends behind them. They deserve no mercy, no consideration. Let none be shown to them! My plan is simply to shoot them down the instant they appear on that ledge below us. They must climb up in front; there is no way round it, nor any means of getting to the height above us. Therefore, they must cross that piece of open ground. One word more. The chief, Dakla, leads them. Do not fire at him. I wish to take him alive, if possible; he will make our best ambassador hereafter.”

Under such conditions the battle could not be a long one. Monella had chosen his ground skilfully, so as to make the utmost of the advantage firearms gave him. The black-coated myrmidons of Coryon scaled the fatal terrace only to be shot down the moment that they came in sight. There were only four or five places where they could climb up and, at these, not more than two men could pass together. Those who reached the top and escaped a bullet, turned back when they heard the explosions of the firearms, saw the flashes and the smoke, saw also their comrades fall. Others of those below who could see nothing of what was going on, swarmed up in their places, only to fall or turn back at once in like manner; till, in a short time, every man had been up and witnessed the ghastly sight of the dead and wounded lying around, and had satisfied himself that not one could cross that level piece of rock to come near their foes. Finally, the survivors were all seized with panic when one of the last to show his head above the ridge came back crying out that “the white demons were coming down after them.” At this, all those who were unhurt turned and fled. But many had fallen, dead or wounded, and lay at the foot of the rock they had climbed up only to be instantly shot down. Above, on the terrace itself, but at one side, stood Dakla and one of his subordinates. These had been amongst the first to appear above the ledge, and had moved aside to let the men form into line up on the rock; but now they were left alone, and, when Monella quietly descended from the rock above, they had the mortification of seeing all their men who were capable of running disappear in frantic terror down the hillside.

Then he who stood by Dakla made a rush at Monella with uplifted sword, thinking, since he seemed to be unarmed, that he would fall an easy prey; but the man fell with a pistol ball in his breast ere he had gone half way to meet Monella.

“Now yield, Dakla,” Monella called to the other. “It is useless either to fight or run.”

“We will see to that,” Dakla exclaimed savagely. “If thou be man, and not demon, this sword shall find thine heart.” And he too made a sudden rush. But, before he had gone three yards, the sword flew from his hand and his arm dropped useless by his side. Monella had shot him in the arm.

“Thou see’st,” he said coldly, as he now approached the crestfallen chief, “how ill-advised thou hast been not to give heed to all my warnings. I could have slain thee earlier in the fight; I could have killed thee now, as I did thy friend there; but I have spared thy life. It is not for thine own sake, but that thou mayest bear a message to thy master, and witness to him of that which thou hast seen and warn him once more of the futility of warring against us, the allies of the king. Dost thou understand?”

The other cast a murderous scowl upon Monella, but made no answer for a moment. Then, after reflection, he said in a dogged, surly tone,

“So be it. But thou must give thy message quickly and let me go; for thou hast hurt me sore and the blood flows fast – ”

“We will see to thy wound,” Monella replied composedly. “Let me bind it up till we get to the king’s palace; there it shall be seen to farther.”

And Dakla, reluctantly, and with an ill grace, submitted to have his wound bound up by his enemy, who, before commencing, took away the other’s dagger.

“I cannot trust thee with these playthings,” he observed. “Thou art of the wolf tribe, Dakla.”

Meanwhile, the officer and men of their guard had come down to the lower terrace, with Templemore and Elwood, and were looking in awe and horror upon the outcome of the fight – if so one-sided an encounter could be so called. On Monella and the two young men they gazed in wonder; and, gradually, they drew away from them in fear, from that moment treating them with even greater deference than before.

Monella despatched Abla to summon more soldiers from the king’s palace to bring down the dead and wounded; and himself set about attending to the latter, first handing Dakla over to Templemore.

“Look you!” said Jack to his prisoner, “if you attempt to escape, I shall not kill you, but hurt your other arm; and, if that does not stop you, I shall hurt your leg, and I know that that will. Do you follow me?”

Dakla nodded a sour assent; then stood looking with evident surprise at the trouble Monella was now taking with some of his late enemies. Such singular behaviour he did not understand, and he shrugged his shoulders in contempt.

When, after a time, more soldiers, with some officers, arrived upon the scene, these were at once set to work to bear the dead and wounded down the hill. Monella followed with his friends and Dakla. The noise of the firing had brought out great crowds of people, who were now massed about the palace waiting to receive them. They had watched the precipitate flight of the survivors of the soldiers of Coryon, and rejoiced greatly at their defeat. But, when they saw the dead and wounded, and that Dakla was himself a prisoner, and heard that not one had been hurt upon the other side, their astonishment was complete.

The king himself, with some of his ministers and officials, came out to meet the victors; and his gratitude and emotion, when he noted all these things and greeted Monella and his friends, were profuse and heartfelt.

“Ye have indeed rendered us a service,” he exclaimed, “and taught Coryon a lesson he will do well to take to heart. I feared me greatly that harm would come to ye, and that war would follow in the land.”

“Nay, we have laid the dogs of war, I trust, at any rate, for the present,” Monella returned, with a grave smile. “They will not attack us further, I opine, nor brave thee in the future in this rebellious fashion.”

Then they entered the palace, and Ulama came forward to welcome them, with Zonella and many more.

“We have been in such trouble about you,” she said, the tears standing in her tender eyes, “ever since they told us that over a hundred of Coryon’s people had gone up the rocks to take you. And we heard the noise of the thunder-wands, and were in great fear, till they told us that your enemies were fleeing. Then we looked out and saw them rushing madly down the hill, throwing away their spears, and their helmets, and even fighting one another in their haste to scramble down the rocks. Then Abla came and told us you were all safe, and then – ”

“Then,” said Zonella, “you sat down and wept.” And at that Ulama laughed.

“I fear it is true,” she said.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LEGEND OF MELLENDA

Monella’s anticipations of what would follow the severe lesson they had given Coryon’s followers turned out to be well founded. For when Dakla, with his arm in a sling, revisited his master, bearing a message from the king, the conditions offered were accepted.

Dakla had been straightly charged that these terms would have to be submitted to; if not that his master and all his followers would be starved into submission. They would be confined to their own colony, supplies of food refused, and any of their number leaving their retreat would be killed at sight.

The conditions imposed were that not merely the three strangers, but all the ‘lay’ inhabitants were to be free from molestation by Coryon’s people; and that no more ‘blood-tax’ was to be levied.

After many journeys to and fro, and much delay, Dakla at last announced that Coryon agreed to the conditions for a time – for four months. After that, their great festival would be coming on, and – well, time would show.

“It is only a truce,” said Monella, with a sigh, to his two young friends. “I would it had been permanent; but it will give us time, and the opportunity of shaping out our course. The people will have a respite from the terrible fear that now is ever with them; and, short of engaging in a protracted civil conflict, for which the people are not yet prepared, I see not what better could have been arranged.”

They were thus now able to move about more freely, and without a guard; their rifles, too, could be left behind when they went abroad; though Monella had counselled that they should always carry their revolvers; for he feared they were not altogether safe from treachery, or from some fanatical outbreak on the part of certain of the priests’ adherents.