The Devil-Tree of El Dorado: A Novel

“Thou art my lord Mellenda!”

Then a great shout went up. Again, and again, and yet again it was repeated. “Mellenda! Mellenda! Mellenda!” It rang out from far and near. It was taken up by a crowd of women and children without the gates, and thence it travelled back and echoed from one side of the rocky amphitheatre to the other.

When, once more, there was silence, Galaima dropped upon one knee and begged for clemency for himself and friends.

“Lay down your arms, each one of you, and go!” the answer came. “Let me not look upon your faces again yet awhile.”

Then Monella, turning to Coryon’s soldiers, commanded them also to lay down their arms and surrender themselves prisoners.

Here Coryon showed the first signs of resistance he had yet exhibited, and his officers, who had stood watching for a sign from him, withdrew in a body into the entrance to the covered-way, seeing in it the best opportunities for a last desperate fight.

“My lord forgetteth,” said Coryon, “that he hath given no assurance that the lives of my people and servants will be spared.”

“I can make no terms with thee or with thy minions. I came here to punish the evil-doers, as well as to save my friends,” returned Monella with grave meaning. “Thou hast been warned again and again since I came into the land; I sent thee word that, if I came to thee, I would bring retribution in my hand.”

“But surely,” urged Coryon, in the smooth, oily manner he could put on at will, “if we submit, my lord will require no more? Thy friends are safe; no harm hath been done to them. May it not be that I remain here with mine own people, within mine own domain – the domain that hath been mine for centuries – in friendly alliance – ”

“What!” exclaimed Monella, turning wrathfully upon the crafty hypocrite with a blaze of anger in his eyes, as might a lion turn upon a snapping cur. “Thou darest to speak to me of alliance! Alliance with thee! With a thing so foul, so loathsome, so detestable as thou! Shall the eagle ally himself with the carrion crow? Enough!” He broke off, in indignation at the insult, and, turning to the officers of his own party who stood near, cried,

“Seize them and bind them! Every one! Let not one escape! But take them alive, if possible.”

A large number of the red-coated soldiers, led by their officers, now advanced upon the crowd of Coryon’s people gathered at the entrance to the covered-way. Many of the latter came forward at once and threw down their arms; while others stood irresolute. Coryon, himself, made no effort to escape, and was seized by a couple of men, who quickly bound his hands behind him. But Dakla and all Coryon’s priests and some half-dozen of his lieutenants and a few soldiers – perhaps those who felt themselves most guilty – stood defiantly some little distance within the gallery, determined to resist capture to the last.

CHAPTER XXX

A TERRIBLE VENGEANCE!

Of all the spectators of what had occurred in the amphitheatre, no one, probably, was so utterly astonished and helplessly bewildered as was Templemore. At Monella’s assumption of the royal office he felt no great surprise. It seemed almost a natural thing, taking all the circumstances into account, that the king, finding his daughter stolen away and himself too ill to pursue and punish her captors, should delegate his authority to the man in whom he had of late reposed such confidence. But at Colenna’s announcement that in Monella he recognised the long-expected, legendary Mellenda, Templemore was, as may be supposed, considerably startled; and his perplexity was increased when Sanaima, in his turn, subscribed to Colenna’s declaration; but when Coryon himself affirmed his belief in the marvellous assertion, Templemore’s ideas became so hopelessly confused, that he knew not what to think or what to make of it. In other circumstances he would, no doubt, have quietly settled matters in his own mind by deciding that all present had become victims to a passing fit of madness or transient delusion; but the grim realities of the strange drama that was being played before him made it impossible to explain things by any such hypothesis.

It was in the midst of the conflict thus proceeding in his mind, that Dakla and his fellows took up their attitude of defiance; so Templemore promptly decided to postpone further thought upon the matter. It was sufficient, for the moment, that there was the prospect of a fight in which his friends would need his help; and he began handling his rifle significantly, glancing while he did so at Monella.

The latter had laid his hand upon his shoulder as though to stay him until he should have had more time to study the situation, when a rumbling noise was heard, and an iron door shot out from the inside wall a little distance from the end of the covered-way, completely closing it and shutting out from view the men within. So suddenly had this been done that Dakla was almost caught by it, and would have been jammed against the iron pillar into which it fitted, but that he had managed to withdraw himself inside just in time to escape it.

The impression upon the minds of those outside was that this unlooked-for obstacle that intervened between those within the protected gallery and their enemies, had been purposely made use of to gain time to force open the interior gates and thus assist their escape into the labyrinth of passages beyond. The first effect was to dishearten those of Coryon’s adherents who were still outside in a state of indecision. Seeing themselves thus, as they thought, incontinently abandoned by their leaders, they threw down their arms without further ado, submitted to their captors, and, in few minutes, were pinioned and marched out of the way.

It now became a question what steps were to be taken to follow up those who had so cleverly escaped, temporarily, at all events, from their pursuers. These were, after Coryon himself, the most guilty of the whole atrocious confederacy; and Templemore turned to Monella with a look of inquiry.

“What say you,” said he, “shall we try whether that door is bullet-proof?”

But Monella again laid his hand upon the other’s arm, and gazed, as though in expectation, first at Coryon – who was standing out in the centre of the terrace, guarded by two soldiers – and then, from him, to that part of the covered-way nearest to the rocks that ended it. His quick eye had noticed that Coryon seemed as much taken by surprise as all the rest, and that there was, in his face, no trace of that triumphant satisfaction that might have been expected if this manœuvre of his chief friends had been looked for. Instead, there was a fixed look that was momentarily changing from surprise to terror.

Templemore, following Monella’s gaze, noted all this – and so did others. A hush fell upon all present; every one looked at Coryon, and, from him, to the length of grated iron screens, over the face of which the branches of the fatal tree were playing with busy sweep, evidently aware, by some unfailing instinct, that there was plenty of prey for them within. And it was now noticed that the larger number of the longer branches had gathered themselves upon that side.

Gradually, the look on Coryon’s face changed into one of absolute horror, the while he stood staring at the outside of the covered-gallery.

To make what follows clear, it is necessary to describe this covered-way a little more in detail. It has already been explained that it formed the approach to an opening in the rock – closed by gates – which was the principal entrance to Coryon’s retreat. When unprotected by the sliding gratings at the side, it was so near to the great devil-tree that the longer branches could sweep its whole width for some distance in front of the gates. At the side was some masonry, above which the rock rose steep and almost over-hanging. At the end, above the entrance, the rock rose also abruptly, and then followed the line of the arena, shutting in the latter at this part by a rocky wall that rose perpendicularly some fifty or sixty feet. But the part within reach of the tree was roofed over by iron gratings, forming a sort of verandah, which, in turn, could be rendered safe from the terrible branches by sliding grated doors or shutters that could, by machinery within, be moved forward in telescopic fashion along the whole length accessible to the tree, and a short distance beyond. Thus, when the side ‘shutters’ were withdrawn, the entrance-gates were very effectually guarded by the tree itself. When they were extended, they, in conjunction with the roof, constituted an efficient protection to the covered-way. But herein lay also a cunningly-devised and deadly trap; for, just within the entrance of this covered-gallery, was another iron door that could be moved across the passage so as to imprison any one caught between it and the gates at the other end. This door came out of a scarcely noticeable slot in the masonry at the side; and it was situated far enough along to place those thus caught within reach of the tree, if the side shutters were withdrawn.

Doubtless, many had fallen into this frightful trap. Thinking the gallery well protected they would walk unsuspiciously along it towards the closed gates, when those watching from within could close the gallery behind them and open the sides; and their fate would then be sealed.

This was the only part of the main terrace within reach of the tree. Round the remainder of the amphitheatre it was far removed from it, and was of ample width. Only at this part, and upon the stone pier that jutted out towards the tree from the centre, or down in the arena itself, was there danger to any one moving about within the vast enclosure.

At a point in the cliff, high above the covered-way, was a small grated door in the rock. This was another entrance to Coryon’s fastness; but it was sufficiently protected by the nature of the steep and narrow path by which alone it could be reached.

While those gathered around the enclosure, following Coryon’s fixed gaze, were watching the outside faces of the sliding doors or shutters, these doors began to move; and, amidst a hush of awe-struck expectation, they disclosed a gap which gradually widened, and through which the fatal branches quickly darted. Then, from within, arose a fearful and appalling cry, as the miserable prisoners caught in this trap of their own contriving began to realise their situation. The gap grew wider, and, anon, another opened farther on, and into this the searching branches likewise entered, hungry for the prey within. And, as the gaps grew wider, they disclosed to view an awful scene. Some dozens of terror-stricken wretches could be seen fighting and struggling with the writhing branches and with each other, amidst a deafening din of screams, and shrieks, and yells; the officers and soldiers using their swords, and the priests and others their daggers, in a hopeless contest with the twisting branches that kept coiling around them. In their mad struggles and desperate efforts the combatants fought with one another, the stronger striving to push the weaker in front of them; the latter, in turn, stabbing backwards at those who thus tried to make use of them. Three or four, in headlong terror, leaped from the terrace on to the ground beneath, where they fell with dull thuds, and probably broken limbs; but, ere they could rise, their legs were entangled in the ubiquitous branches and escape became impossible. Dakla was seen, with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, at one moment slashing furiously at the branches that assailed him, at another striving to hold in front of him Skelda, the next in rank to Coryon. Two of the priests were seen engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle, apparently unmindful of the coils that gradually encircled them and presently dragged both out, locked together, and still frantically fighting with each other. They were carried up to the top of the tree, and disappeared, still fighting, within the cavity. But, though the rapacious tree had now as much as it could, for the time, dispose of in this way, it had no intention of giving up its hold upon the others. These it grappled in its toils, dragging them about hither and thither, dangling them now this way and now that, but never giving one a chance of escape – evidently bent on saving all up for future meals – perhaps days hence. It was a gruesome scene that shocked and sickened the spectators, for all they were so incensed, and justly so, against the victims.

Meanwhile, the iron door in the rock above had opened, and a woman was seen hurrying down the dangerous path. Her hair was streaming loosely about her shoulders, her eyes were wild and fierce, and she laughed and gesticulated in a fashion that made those who watched her think her crazy. She made her way to where Coryon still stood, a silent witness of what was going on before him; and she then paused and surveyed the awful scene with a smile that was almost devilish.

Just then Skelda leaped out of the covered-way on to the ground beneath; then, rising to his feet, looked round despairingly, and, glancing up, he met the fierce gaze and cruel smile of the woman he had so shamefully betrayed. She pointed her finger at him.

“Ha! ha!” she cried triumphantly, “this is my work, Skelda! I closed the gates and shut you all in with the outer door. My love to you, my —husband!” This last word was hissed out at him between clenched teeth. “My love to you, dear friend.” And she mockingly threw him a kiss on the tips of her fingers. Then, when the wretched Skelda’s feet were dragged from under him by a branch that had coiled round his legs, she addressed herself to Coryon, who had now fixed his eyes upon her, his evil face twitching convulsively with the fury he could not suppress.

“See, great Coryon! Mighty Coryon! All-powerful Coryon! See my handiwork! Yes, mine! See what a woman’s wit hath done for thy precious friends. What a day to live to see! I saw thee in the clutch of thy prisoner; heard thee called ‘coward’ to thy face. It was sweet that; and sweet to see thy prey escape thee! And this is sweet too! Look at thy great friend Skelda; see how he kicks and shrieks! Think of it – all my doing! See how Dakla glares! Now he and Palana are fighting one another! Oh, but it is a brave sight to look upon! Fit even for the gods ye have served so well! I think I am almost avenged; but the sweetest of all is yet to come – when I see thee given to the tree, as I shall!”

Coryon struggled, but vainly, to get at her. She shrugged her shoulders and turned her back upon him, then slowly approached Monella; the look of triumph died away, and an expression that was partly of sorrow, and partly of hard determination, took its place. Arrived in front of him, she threw herself humbly on her knees.

“My lord,” she cried, with clasped hands, “I crave justice at thy hands, I demand it! In the names of the countless women and fair children whom yonder monster hath given over to the same awful death that hath now overtaken his own creatures; in the name of my own bitter wrongs and sufferings, I demand that this loathsome being shall not escape his just reward. I ask that he be given up to that tree to which he has consigned so many; and that first he be confined in the same cell from which I have escaped. I will lead thy officers to it. Let him be kept there till the wicked tree, with recovered appetite, shall be ready to devour him! Let him there endure the tortures he hath inflicted upon me and countless others!”

“Who art thou, daughter?” asked Monella gently.

She shook her head mournfully and replied, much as she had to Leonard,

“I am called Fernina, lord. Once, I was a joyous-hearted wife and mother; but Coryon stole me away from my home to give me to his friend Skelda. What I am now I scarcely know; misery and suffering, and shame and infamies unutterable have made me – alas, I know not what!”

“From my heart I pity thee, my daughter. Thy wrongs cry out for punishment, and thy prayer is just. Show my officers the place. Coryon shall be the last meal of the accursed fetish he has fed with the blood of so many victims.”

“I will go back by the way by which I came,” Fernina answered, “and will make safe again the covered-way; then will I open the gates, that thine officers may take him in that way.”

By this time the covered-way was empty; every occupant had been dragged or had leaped out and was held in the toils below. There was, therefore, nothing to prevent its being used again. Fernina went up the path and disappeared from view; then soon the sliding shutters were seen to move back in their places; and, shortly after, she appeared at one end of the covered-way and beckoned to those in charge of Coryon to follow her. He was led down and placed in the same cell she had occupied, and there shut in and left to himself, and to look out, if he chose, at his friends in the tree’s tenacious arms outside. Some of them were so close he could have spoken with them.

After Coryon had been removed, Sanaima turned to Monella; then raised his hands and eyes towards heaven.

“Let us thank the Great Spirit,” said he solemnly, “that hath, at last, delivered our enemies into our hands, and that without the loss of a life, or so much as a wound upon our side!”

And Monella added a heartfelt “Amen.”

“Of a truth,” he added reverently, “the wicked have been caught to-day in their own snare. At last, we may truly rejoice that the curse hath been removed, for ever, from the fair land of Manoa. But this is a fearful sight; let us hasten from it. But ere we do, Sanaima, send kindly and trustworthy people to care for the poor woman Fernina and the other women and children who are somewhere within. I cannot now stay longer; I must look after the princess and return to the palace.”

“I will remain and look to them myself,” answered Sanaima. “Now that the Great Spirit hath at last given them into my charge, it is a trust that belongeth to me, and to me alone.”

During the foregoing events, several messengers had passed to and fro delivering messages, in low tones, to Monella or some of his officers, and speeding away again with their replies, or upon other errands. In this way Monella had learned that the princess had recovered from her long swoon and expressed a strong desire to return to the palace to her father, and he had sent back word to Leonard to accompany her.

When, therefore, Templemore, with Monella and many more, reached the great gates on leaving the amphitheatre, they found Ulama and all those with her gone, and they now hastened to the palace after them.

CHAPTER XXXI

‘THE SON OF APALANO!’

On leaving the amphitheatre, Monella and his followers formed a long and imposing procession. Only a few had been left behind to guard the prisoners. These last were immured in cells pointed out by Fernina, who was well acquainted with the interior arrangements of Coryon’s retreat. For within the rocks was an almost endless series of passages and galleries opening, at the further end, on to an extensive hanging terrace on the very face of the great precipice that formed one end of Roraima’s perpendicular sides. Even those of Coryon’s followers who had gone over secretly to Monella, were only partially acquainted with the interior of this fastness; hence Fernina’s assistance was found of great use by Sanaima and those who remained with him.

It can scarcely be said that the procession, as it left the great gates of the amphitheatre, exhibited, at first, many signs of having just been engaged in a victorious and successful expedition. Those who formed it were, for the most part, silent and preoccupied; for the scenes they had witnessed – and that, as they knew, were still in progress – were of too horrible a character to be readily dismissed from the mind. But, as they proceeded on their way, they met and were joined by fresh bands of red-coated sympathisers; and these, not having the same reasons for repressing their elation at the result of the day’s proceedings, broke out into cheering as they passed the groups of people who were now coming out to meet them. For messengers had gone on in advance to tell the news, and the crowds who had been waiting so anxiously in the city, soon learned that Coryon’s downfall was an accomplished fact. They had already heard the good tidings of the rescue of the princess and her lover and friends, and were only waiting for this last crowning announcement; when it came, they became almost delirious with joy, and soon poured out to meet the victors and give them an enthusiastic welcome.

Thus the procession that started so quietly – almost in sadness, as it seemed – from the dismal amphitheatre, became at last, as it entered the city, a veritable triumphal pageant, meeting on all sides, and returning, cheers and shouts of joy and exultation. And when Monella, with Templemore, Colenna, and others came into view in the centre of the long array, every head was uncovered and every knee bent. Then, when he had passed, the excited crowds rose and shouted again louder than ever. And well might they do so; for they – and only they – knew the full meaning of the horrors from which they had that day been delivered.

By the time they had neared the king’s palace, the crowd had grown so dense that it was with some difficulty that space was cleared for the passage of the principal persons into the building. At the entrance, under the great archway, Leonard, looking pale and anxious, awaited them. Running forward to meet Monella, he said,

“I have heard the news and congratulate you all. But I am in sore distress about the princess. We had much ado to bring her here, and I fear she is very ill. Let me entreat you to go and see her at once, and then let me know what you think about her.”

“Certainly will I, my son,” replied Monella kindly, and hurried away; while Leonard turned and greeted Templemore and the others with him. Then they all entered the palace and went up one of the great staircases and on to a terrace overlooking the open space where the crowd was assembled, and there awaited Monella’s return.

Presently he came to them.

“The princess is weak and much depressed,” he said, “and will require care for awhile; but I see no cause for anxiety. Naturally, the poor child is terribly upset. She grieves, too, about the condition of the king her father, and wishes to help nurse him, but this she has not strength for at present. Patience, my son. Be patient and of good heart.” He looked with pity and concern at Leonard’s haggard face with its hollow, dark-ringed eyes and its worn-out look. “You have suffered – cruelly – I can see,” he added, placing his hand gently on the young man’s shoulder. “You have been sorely tried.”

“Ah!” returned Leonard with a heavy sigh. “You cannot imagine what I have been through! My thoughts still dwell upon the horror of it; my eyes still see the sights I gazed upon! I feel as though I shall never be my old self again. And Ulama! Though I do not yet know how much she saw or knew, I sadly believe she shares my feelings.”

“You are both worn out – exhausted, my son. Wait but a space – while I speak to the crowd and dismiss them – and then I will give you a cordial and refreshment; after that you must lie down and have a long sleep.”

“I fear even to sleep,” said Leonard, shaking his head sadly. “I dread the thought of sleep, for I know but too well what my dreams will be.”

“Nay, my son, have no fear. I will promise you dreamless, restful sleep,” Monella answered, and moved away to the front of the terrace.

At the sight of his commanding form and upraised hand the shouts and noise and all the subdued roar that till now had been continuous were hushed. Then, as with one accord, all uncovered and fell upon their knees. He spoke a few brief words and then dismissed them, pointing out that his friends were in need of rest and quiet.

The crowd, in respectful obedience, quietly dispersed, and Monella, motioning Elwood and Templemore to follow him, led them into his private apartments and there mixed and administered to both certain drinks that had an immediate and wonderfully revivifying effect. These potions had also the advantage of stimulating their appetites, so that they were the better enabled to take the nourishment he pressed upon them. Then he accompanied them to their sleeping chambers and bade them lie down and take the repose they so sorely needed. None of the three had had any sleep or rest – for Leonard’s swoon in his cell and subsequent state of torpor could scarcely be so called – for the past two nights. The two young men were not only worn out, but in that excited state in which the brain seems to insist upon going over and over and over again the events of the previous troubled time, in that ceaseless, monotonous whirl that makes all efforts at sleep so useless. But Monella – who alone showed no sign of the strain all had undergone – sat down by the side of each in succession for a short time, and talked to him in his low, musical tones. What he talked of, or what he did, neither could afterwards remember; but the effect was magical. As Leonard afterwards expressed it, a soothing, delicious sense of drowsy rest crept over his senses; a rest that was not sleep, for he could still hear the usual sounds around, but gradually growing hushed and muffled. Then came a sensation as of being lifted and wafted away by a gentle wind; and in the sighing of the breeze there seemed a delightful strain of music, a dreamy lullaby that carried with it a restful peace sinking imperceptibly into untroubled repose.