The Devil-Tree of El Dorado: A Novel

The strangest thing, perhaps, is that even the unimpressionable Templemore was affected in the same way, as he afterwards admitted. Nor was that all; for, on awaking, he was conscious of having had the most delicious dreams, though he could not quite recall their subject. For some time he lay in a state of blissful ease, striving to recollect the dream that had left sensations so delicious, and afraid to rouse himself for fear the remembrance should vanish altogether. He could hear the usual sounds going on in the palace, the tramp of armed men, and clashing and jingling of arms; but he was only half-conscious of them. Then he heard his name called in tones that seemed to come from the far distance, and, opening his eyes, he saw Monella standing beside his couch and regarding him with a grave smile.

“Wake up, my friend,” he said. “It is time you roused yourself. I wish to have some talk with you and Leonard. You have slept for eight-and-forty hours!”

Templemore sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“I feel as if I had slept for months,” he answered in a half-dazed way. “And I’ve had such curious dreams, or visions; I feel quite sorry to be awake again. It’s a strange thing for me to talk like that, I know,” he added with hesitation.

“What did you dream of?” asked Leonard, who had entered in time to hear the other’s concluding words.

“That’s the strange part of it,” returned Templemore, looking perplexed and somewhat sheepish. “I’ve had a most extraordinary dream of some kind, or a vision or something —that I know, yet I cannot remember what it was. All I can now tell you is that it was something so extremely pleasant that it has left the most agreeable sensations behind it. My very blood seems in a warm, delicious glow from it. What can it be?” he added, looking in a bewildered way from one to the other.

But Monella made no comment, and went away.

“It’s been just the same with me,” said Leonard, in a low voice, that had an expression almost of awe in it. “Monella woke me about half an hour ago and I felt much like what you have described.”

“It’s very odd,” Templemore returned thoughtfully. “It must be the drink he gave us. Do you remember what Harry Lorien said of him? That he believed Monella was a magician? I begin to think him a wizard myself. But, dear boy, how much better you look!”

“So do you, Jack; and he tells me Ulama is the same – and it’s all his doing, you know. He is a wizard; and that’s all there is to be said about it.”

“The question is,” Jack went on, “what was it he gave us? Here it has made us sleep nearly forty-eight hours; and it seems, has done us, in that time, as much good as one would have thought would have taken a week or two to accomplish, and yet it has left no dull, drowsy, listless feeling, such as opiates generally do. I can’t make it out.” And, shaking his head gravely, Templemore went to take his morning plunge.

When they sought Monella, he bade Leonard give him the particulars of all that had occurred to him. Leonard recounted them.

“It seemed very terrible to me,” he said when he had finished, “at the time; and truly I thought I should never get over it. Yet – now – it seems such a long while ago – so far off.”

“That is well, my son,” returned Monella. “For it has been a sore trial. I have heard about you,” he continued, turning to Templemore, “from the lady Zonella and from Ergalon.”

“I owe a great debt to her – to him – to both,” Templemore replied. “Without their aid I fear things would have gone badly with Leonard, and myself too.”

“Yes, Coryon had ably laid his treacherous schemes, and we all have reason to be thankful for their failure,” said Monella solemnly. “Things came to a crisis just then. I had just matured certain plans that Sanaima and I had laid out; and only the day before my long-lost memory returned to me, and I remembered, all in a flash, as it were, the whole of my former life.”

“That you were – that is – are – ” Templemore began; but stopped and looked confused.

“Yes, that I am indeed Mellenda,” was the reply, given with an air of grave conviction. “I know the statement sounds incredible to you; you are of that nature, have been brought up in that kind of school, that makes such a thing sound impossible. But if I myself feel and know that it is true, and if my people around me know it and not only admit it but rejoice in it, then, for me, that is sufficient.”

“Certainly,” Templemore assented, feeling very uncomfortable under the other’s gaze.

“Still – to you – let me be, while you remain here, simply what I have been before – your friend Monella. I am the same being to-day that you have known and, I hope, liked – that you have joined with in facing danger and adventure – I am the same! The mere fact that I remember things now that I had forgotten before makes no difference to me or to our friendship.”

This was said with a look of such kind regard that Templemore felt his own heart swell with responsive feeling. It was true he had a strong inclination to regard the other as a sincere, but self-deceiving mystic; but, apart from that – apart from this strange delusion, as he deemed it, about Monella’s being the legendary Mellenda – Templemore looked upon him with feelings of the greatest admiration, affection, and respect. And he had never been so conscious of those feelings as at this moment. He took the hand that the other extended to him, and bent his head respectfully.

“Sir,” said he in a low tone, “no son could respect and reverence a beloved and honoured father more than I do you. No one could feel prouder of the love and esteem you have been kind enough to show me; no people, I feel satisfied, could have a worthier, a more disinterested, or exalted ruler. If I find it difficult to realise the marvel that you have related, if I have the idea that, perhaps, you are mistaking your own dreams for actual realities, it is not from any doubt of your sincerity or veracity – only that in that way alone can I bring myself to explain the wonder.”

“And I, on my side, respect the honesty that will not allow you to pretend what you cannot feel,” was the reply. “To you let me be simply Monella, and let us continue on our old terms of mutual friendship and esteem. And now I am going to rouse your wonder and surprise with yet one other unexpected statement. Your friend Leonard here is not the son of the parents he has all his life supposed himself to be.”

Leonard sprang up with an exclamation.

“I will explain how. You have already told us” – this to Leonard – “how that your supposed father and mother, with yourself, and your Indian nurse, once stayed some time with a strange people in a secluded valley among the peaks of the Andes. I was not there at the time, but they were my people.”

“Your people!” Leonard repeated with astonishment.

“Yes, my son, my people! Apalano, and two or three others of whom you have heard me speak – all, alas, now dead! I was informed of your visit when I next came back to them, for a while, from my wanderings. I heard of it and what had happened; how Apalano’s little child – his only one – had been killed by a venomous serpent.”

“The child of Apalano!” Leonard repeated in amaze.

“The two children,” Monella continued – “Mr. Elwood’s child and Apalano’s – were wonderfully alike, and your nurse, the Indian woman Carenna, was very fond of both, and was in the habit of taking them out together. She was out with them thus one day, and left them both sleeping in the shade of a clump of trees while she went a few yards away to gather some fruit. She returned (so she says) in a few minutes; then, thinking one of the children had a strange look she picked it up in alarm; at the same moment a serpent glided out from under its clothes and went away, hissing, into the wood. But the child was dead; and it was the child of the Englishman. Then Carenna, frantic with grief, and afraid to tell the truth to her master and mistress, exchanged the clothes and ornaments of the children. The trick succeeded; for the dead infant was swollen and discoloured; and Apalano mourned the death of his only child, when it went away, in reality, with the strangers and their Indian nurse.”

“Then,” said Leonard excitedly, “I am – ”

“Ranelda, son of my well-beloved friend! Ah,” said Monella, sadly, “it was a cruel thing to do. It preyed upon the mind of my friend, and, I truly believe, brought on the fatal sickness. But for that he might have lived, haply, to see at last the land of his fathers – might have been one of us here to-day.”

Leonard felt the tears come into his eyes at the picture called up by this suggestion; and he said in a low tone,

“Alas! My poor father! It was cruel – very cruel!”

“It seems so,” Monella returned with a sigh. “But God so willed it. And He has also willed that you should be led back to your own nation – that, after many days, you should join with me in the work that I had set myself.”

“It’s very wonderful. Yet it seems to me to explain those strange dreams and visions that were ever urging me on to attempt the exploration of the mysterious Roraima! I suppose, when Carenna found out who you were, she confessed?”

“Well,” answered Monella, with a half-smile, “I made her do so. People find it difficult to hide anything from me. I saw she had some secret, and compelled her to divulge it. But, since she was so afraid to confess to others, and especially averse to your knowing it, I made her this promise, that, if you desired to return from our adventure, you should do so in ignorance of the actual facts. I was only to tell you in case you freely elected to stay here permanently. That is why I have kept it back thus far. I had intended to announce it to you and to the people at the time of your public betrothal. Then they would have received you, with one accord, as one having a right to rule over them. And now you can understand why I have regarded you with such affection from the first; and how glad I was to find, in Apalano’s son, one so worthy of my love and confidence. Your father was allied with my line, and you are, therefore, akin to me. Worthy son of a worthy father! Let me join with you in thankfulness that you have, after all, come into the heritage that is yours by right! The young eagle was bound to find its way to the eyrie for which it was best fitted.” And Monella stood up and laid his hand affectionately upon the young man’s shoulder. Leonard reverently bowed his head, and the other pressed his lips upon his forehead.

There was silence for some seconds. Then Templemore took Leonard’s hand.

“And let me too congratulate you, Leonard,” he said fervently. “It is good news for you – this; for, since you have elected to pass here the remainder of your life, it will be a great comfort and advantage to you that you have such good claims and qualifications for the position.”

“I am thinking about my poor father who died of heartache and disappointment,” rejoined Leonard; and in his tone there was a note of genuine sorrow. “And I can scarcely forgive Carenna – fond of me as I know her to have always been – for her cruelty to him.”

Presently Templemore turned again to Monella, saying,

“Did Carenna then believe this mountain was inhabited, that you would find here the people you came to seek? Did you yourself think that?”

“As to myself, I can scarcely tell you,” was the answer. “‘Reason’ said that the hope of finding here the people of whom Apalano had so often talked to me – for that was all I then knew – was chimerical; yet Apalano’s dying wishes, and some strange sentiment or instinct within me, urged me on. Then, when I met with Carenna, I found she quite thought it might turn out true.”

“Carenna thought it?”

“Why, yes; but that is not very surprising, for, according to the Indian ideas, it would not be the only instance in this country. There is a belief amongst the Indians in several parts that some of the unexplored mountains are inhabited by strange and unknown races. This applies to those – and there are many; Roraima is not the only one – that are surrounded by the curious belts of almost impenetrable forest. The Indians believe that, if these forests could be passed, strange peoples would be met with living on the mountains thus encircled; and they say that on clear nights the lights from their fires may often be seen.10 Therefore Carenna was quite prepared to believe we might find Roraima inhabited.”

“I see. Then she, at least, will not have been so very much surprised at our not returning, and may not have given us up for dead?”

“Yes; that is probable enough.”

“And if she has heard of the signal flares we made when some Indians – as I suppose they were – were camping in sight of the mountain, she would look upon that as a sign of our being up here alive?”

“I think that is very likely.”

“There is the suggestion of a little comfort in that,” said Templemore; “for, otherwise, those I left behind, and who are dear to me, must have given up all hope and be now mourning me as dead. With Leonard it is different. He stood alone in the world and has no one to grieve for him more than as an ordinary friend.”

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TREE’S LAST MEAL

“And now,” said Monella, “I have some other news to give you; for you have slept for nearly two days, and in that time much has been done. While you slept we have been busy.”

“Do you never sleep – yourself?” Templemore asked.

“Yes; but not for long at a time. However, the long rest you have taken is no reproach to you, for it was my doing. I saw that it was needful to restore your strength and good spirits. You are the better for it; the princess, the lady Zonella, and others have also had long rests and are the better for it, as I have already told Leonard. The king Dranoa, too, is better – in a sense; for he has now no mental trouble, and with his sickness there is no physical pain nor suffering nor distress of any kind. But he is very wishful now that the marriage of his daughter should take place as soon as possible; for only then, he feels, will he be able to die happily. In deference to his earnest wish I have settled for it to be solemnised at the end of a fortnight; and, in view of the fact that the state of his health cannot but be a source of sadness to his people, I have deemed it better to order that it shall be a quiet ceremonial, and not a great fête, as had been planned. This will not offend your feelings, my son?”

Leonard looked up with a bright smile.

“After what you have told me,” he said, “I feel, with gladness and gratitude that it is not without reason that you have so often thus addressed me – as your son. Now, I may indeed claim you as a father.”

“You may indeed,” Monella assented; “I take the place of my lost friend.”

“Then you have no need to ask whether what you think best pleases me. If you will be my father, choose for me and instruct me; for I feel I have need of your help to enable me to take up, and bear worthily, the position I owe to you. I felt this,” continued Leonard, with great earnestness – “I felt this very strongly when I lay in that foul den that the poor demented wretch called ‘the devil-tree’s larder.’ I made then a vow that, if it should please God to deliver me from the peril that threatened me, I would thenceforth devote my life to the good of the people I had come amongst. I repented sorely that I had given my thoughts too much to selfish – albeit innocent – enjoyment; and I vowed I would not be guilty of that selfishness in the future, if the chance and the choice were offered to me. And now that they are, help me – instruct me, my father, I pray you, in all that may enable me to fulfil that vow.”

Monella gazed long and fixedly at the young man; and in his eyes there was a glistening as of a tear. Then he rose and went to the window that looked out over the lake, and stood awhile, with a far-off vacant look that told his thoughts were wandering to distant scenes or persons. It was some time before he looked round.

And, when he again turned to speak to the young men, they were both conscious that some indefinable change had taken place in his manner. His face expressed unmistakably a great and exalted joy; and the eyes, that at all times had had so strange a charm in them, had taken on a new expression. For a little while Templemore strove in vain to ascertain in what the change consisted; but presently it seemed to him that they had lost that half-sad, half-wistful expression he had so constantly remarked; and that they now conveyed, instead, a sense of contentment and repose.

“That which you have now told to me,” said Monella, walking slowly up to Leonard, “is as sweet to me as water to the thirsty in the desert.” With grave deliberation he placed both hands upon the young man’s shoulders and looked into his eyes with fatherly affection.

“Know, my son Leonard – or rather Ranelda, as you rightly should be called – know that in these words you bring to my soul the message it has been awaiting – sometimes in hope, too often, alas! in doubt and in despair – through the long ages. Yours is the hand – the hand of the son of Apalano – that bears to me the key of my fetters; and yours are the lips that announce my coming freedom! My work, then, nears its end, and soon – ay, soon– I – shall – be —free!”

While uttering these last words Monella raised his hand, and with upturned face looked rapturously above him, as if his sight, piercing the marble ceiling overhead, perceived some far-off scene that, while invisible to his companions, filled him with the most intense delight. Presently, he turned away with a regretful sigh, as though the vision he had been gazing at had vanished, and added, with an absent manner,

“Now, when I leave you, I shall feel – ”

He stopped; in his eyes there was a far-off look; and Leonard, who had been looking on with wide-open, wondering eyes that comprehended little, if anything, of his discourse, exclaimed in anxious tones,

“Leave me – leave us! What mean you, my father? You surely do not think of leaving the people you so love, to become again a wanderer?”

Monella shook his head; and, appearing to rouse himself, he replied in quite a different voice,

“You misunderstand, my son; I speak of when I shall be called away – called from this earthly life.”

“But that will not be for a long, a very long time yet,” urged Leonard, looking with confidence at the stalwart frame, and remembering the many feats of strength the other had performed.

Monella turned his eyes on Templemore.

“Do you remember,” he asked, smiling, “a conversation we had one day in the museum; when I explained to you that no ‘Plant of Life’ or other specific – no power, indeed, of earth – can keep in its earthly cage the soul that feels its work is done, and that, therefore, frets itself against its prison bars?”

“I remember,” answered Templemore in a subdued tone, and avoiding Leonard’s questioning eyes.

“Ah! then you understand me. And now” – this with a gesture that enforced obedience – “now let us go back to that which we were speaking of. I was saying that King Dranoa desires that you and Ulama should be wedded without delay. To spare the feelings of the maiden, and give her time, so that the matter may not come upon her too suddenly, I have named a day two weeks hence. There will be no pageant, no public fête; only the necessary ceremony, quiet and solemn.”

“I should prefer it so,” murmured Leonard.

“Then that is arranged; and it will take place in the great Temple of the White Priests that has been closed for so many years. Workmen are engaged upon it, and it is now being cleansed and renovated. It will be ready in time.

“The next thing I have to tell you is that Coryon has suffered his punishment, and is dead.”

“Coryon dead?” the other two exclaimed in a breath.

“He is dead,” Monella repeated solemnly. “It seems that during the night after we left, there were dreadful scenes in the amphitheatre. Those large reptiles – they are called ‘myrgolams’ here – came out of their pool and attacked the half-dead wretches entangled in the tree. But the branches tried hard to retain their victims, and so – well, you can almost imagine what took place. The creatures carried off the miserable beings in scraps; tore them piece by piece from the clutches of the branches till nothing was left!”

He paused for a moment, and his listeners shuddered.

“Thus it came about that the greedy tree was, after all, baulked of most of its intended victims; all, indeed, save three or four; though the deaths the others met with were not less horrible. Yesterday, finding the monster had no victims in its grasp, I ordered the separating door to be withdrawn. In a moment, Coryon was seized and carried up into its awful gorge. With that, the tale of this terrible tree must end. I have no heart to devote more criminals to it; though there are some among the prisoners who are scarcely less guilty than was Coryon. But these Sanaima will deal with; he will punish them as seems best to him; and I have set men to work to dig a mine from one of the cells so as to get underneath the tree. Then it can be blown up with gunpowder. And I designed to ask you to superintend the work for me,” turning to Templemore.

“That I will gladly do. And – the – reptiles?” Templemore was doubtful of the name.

“Kill them off, if you can, with bullets. And now, to turn to your own affairs. Think not I have forgotten them; I know you are anxious and will be getting restless and unhappy. As I said to you before, when you go away, you will not go empty-handed. On the contrary, you will carry with you such riches as will place you beyond the need of toil for the remainder of your life. I need not say, ‘Do not therefore be an idle man,’ for I know that you will never be. Whenever it pleases you to go, some of my people shall escort you through the wood to ‘Monella Lodge,’ as we called it, and there await you while you go on to Daranato and bring back such Indians as you require. Then, do you, in turn, with your Indians, re-escort my people to the cavern; for, you must remember, they are not used to forest life; nor can they, if left alone, protect themselves against wild animals. Will that please you?”

“Yes, truly it is all I can ask or wish for,” Templemore responded.

“I shall wish to know – that is, all here will wish to know,” said Monella, “that you get back in safety to ‘Monella Lodge.’ With the heliograph mirror which you will find packed away at ‘Monella Lodge’ you can send us back a message to that effect; then, with the one we brought here with us, we can reply, and send you a ‘God speed you’ to start you on your way. Shall it be so arranged?”

“Gladly,” responded Templemore with emotion. “But must I then resign myself to the thought that I shall never see Leonard or any of you any more?”

“You must,” Monella answered quietly, but firmly. “Leonard – or Ranelda, as I prefer to call him – has asked me to guide him and instruct him; and my first and last advice to him is, and will be, to keep his people to themselves. Now let us consider this question from what you yourself would term a practical point of view. The term ‘El Dorado’ has come to be a synonym in the outside world for a sort of earthly paradise, has it not? Originally handed down from actual facts and history relating to this, the celebrated island capital of Manoa – the Queen City of my once powerful and extensive empire – with the tales of its wonderful wealth and the virtues of the Plant of Life; its memory lingered through the ages long after the waters had receded and left it isolated and unknown. And the Spaniards called it ‘El Dorado,’ which has ever since been but another expression – as I have said – for ‘Earthly Paradise,’ or ‘summit of every man’s ambition.’ Is it not so? And seeing that the great curse that so long lay upon the land has been removed, can you say that now it does not deserve the term? Have we not here a veritable ‘Earthly Paradise’ – an actual realisation of what you in the outside world understand when you use the expression ‘El Dorado?’”

“Truly I believe it.”

“Ah yes! It is so now – or will be henceforth, when those who have had such sorrows here shall have outlived them,” said Monella with impressive emphasis. “But what I would put to you, is this; you have, perhaps, seen something of frontier settlements, or miners’ camps, and gold diggings – at least, I have – and you have heard of them. Now, you know well enough that the only people who would care to brave the hardships of the journey hither would be those led on by the lust and greed of gold. Supposing things were reversed, and you were in Leonard’s place, and had here your wife – as he will have – your friends, your own people – all that was dearest in the world, with ample wealth, would you care to allow him, or any one else, to lead people hither, to turn this ‘El Dorado’ into a ‘Gold diggings,’ a ‘Miners’ camp,’ with all their hideous associations, their gambling and drunkenness; their rowdyism and their debauchery, their shootings and murders?”