IV.
THE TRIUMPH.
Ahah lay languidly back in the boat and dabbled her white hand in the water. Seantum opposite, equally lazy, was doing nothing more strenuous than watch the sunlight on her hair of burnished copper. The servant Abish knelt in the bottom of the boat trying to bring order out of the chaos of flowers with which the craft was loaded. It was the festival of flowers and Ahah had insisted on buying some of every kind she saw. As she had selected them for their gaudiness the effect was picturesque. The boatman who stood in striped cotton garment with bare brown feet and broad brimmed hat drove the canoe along the sluggish canal by means of a pole.
They were enroute to the floating gardens of Miramar. Conversation languished while they looked at the panorama, for the canal was alive with graceful craft as this was a special feast day. There were boats loaded with poppies; others banked with pink rosebuds; more modest symphonies in purple and electric blues,—violets and forget-me-nots, like a demozel, left a fragrant trail behind them. They passed cargoes of green vegetables bound for the city, and houseboats which carried not only the family and their household furniture, but also the livestock, dogs, chickens and parrots.
Gayest of all were the flat bottomed boats filled with troubadours. These children of the sun lent the richness of their voices to the tinkle of their stringed instruments. Everyone seemed bent on merry-making, and as a lonely heart is never so desolate as when buried in a gay crowd, so Ahah felt more poignant misery by contrast.
Thirty days had elapsed since Hagoth's sudden departure. Since then she had had no word from him, and her veiled inquiries had elicited no news. "He is so bent on his man's enterprise, that he would not stop to consider a woman," she exclaimed petulantly, but her good sense told her it would not be wise for him to send her a message. Again, she was consumed with a wild fear that he was dead and during the long hours of the night saw him die twenty deaths in as many different ways. In the meantime she went calmly about her affairs and continued to endure Seantum as there was nothing else to do.
They had planned to spend the day in the rustic bowers of a planter at Miramar, but as they wound in and out among the floating gardens,—at first nothing but patches of variegated green, it was evident that some unusual occurrence was happening on shore. Market venders had deserted their stalls and women had left their meat sizzling on the brazeros,—open air stoves of clay containing glowing charcoal.
"What's the matter," called Seantum to a hoary boatman.
"They say the Gadiantons are destroyed," he answered.
Ahah was on her feet swaying in the boat, "Who did it," she cried as if her life hung on the answer.
"A Lamanite by the name of Hagoth. One of his men stopped off here. He's over in the square there now." Without waiting for the boat to stop, Ahah bounded quickly to the oozy mud of the shore and was up the bank in a moment. Running swiftly she reached the excited crowd and made her way through it. In the center she recognized one of Hagoth's lieutenants.
"You are going back to Antionum?" she queried breathlessly.
On his answer in the affirmative, she begged eagerly. "Then you will let us take you back in our boat?" She tossed him a golden seon. As if he were in his chief's secret he gladly accepted the invitation, and Seantum was doomed to hear his rival's praises lauded on the return trip which had begun so auspiciously for him.
While the warrior recited the story of the expedition in his crude way, Ahah hung on every word.
"When we started we had to hew our way through the underbrush; higher up it was easier climbing but the tropical downpour descended in bucketfuls and drenched us to the skin. Under foot it was so slimy we slipped back a step for every two we advanced. The guides lost the trail and we slunk under the trees while they found the path.
"Later we spent the night in a cave. The fire went out as it was as much a man's life was worth to descend into the barranca for wood. The roof leaked and we woke up with our heads in a pool of water.
"The next morning the ravines were raging torrents. Advancing under these difficulties we finally descried above the tree tops the misty expanse of Lake Ticaca. Like all high waters it is sullen, cold and deep. There on the shores we found the log hut of an old Nephite whose only daughter had been carried away by the Gadiantons. He had lived there as a hermit vowing vengeance ever since. He offered to act as guide and lent us his two boats. It took many trips across the lake to get all of our party over and when we reached the bluffs on the other side Hagoth's plans became apparent.
"The reason that the robber's rendezvous had never been discovered was because of the impassable ravines that hedge it in on all sides.
"Hagoth proposed to take the shortest route straight across the summit of Mt. Misti which towers eighteen thousand feet into the air. So up we climbed, up into the rarified atmosphere, among the pines and cedars. Occasionally the clouds below us parted like the veil of a Turkish beauty, affording us seductive glimpses of the tropics at reeling distances below. We passed the timber line and traveled across the lava beds, undulating hills of black ashes. Here grew a yellow daisy with frosted leaves; somewhere below the clouds lay the world; but our goal was the snow clad peak that cut the sky in two.
"The ascent through the snow was bitterly cruel; some of the men were bleeding at the nose, others found it difficult to breathe, while some, with palpitation of the heart were crawling on their hands and knees. We were all temporarily blinded by the sun on the snow.
"At the top we skirted the sulphurous crater for a mile and a half and on the other side, slid down the snow clad peak on mats. Then we had to make quick work of it, for provisions that are carried as a man pack are light.
"Six hundred feet below us in the barranca was the camp of the Gadiantons. A gruesome spectacle they made in the light of the camp fire. Despite the cold, their lean brown limbs were bare save where they had decorated them with blood. Their loins were swathed in sheepskin and their shaven heads cockaded with feathers. Altogether, we were glad that the depth of the canyon lay between us. All night we toiled loosening the great boulders of the cliff that had been eroded into great blocks. At dawn of the second day we started several of them over the cliff by way of good morning. They cut great oak trees off from their roots, and crumbled to pieces in the ravine below. They did not do much damage but they brought the robbers out from their lair. When a side of the mountain crashed down, Zorum, the leader of the band, came out and called a truce.
"Hagoth descended to parley with him; he left instructions with us to wipe out the band in case he did not return. He offered them their choice of death or surrender. The terms were that they return to civilization and become decent citizens. It is one thing to die gloriously on the field of battle, and another to have the life crushed out of you like a rat in a hole. There was no possible way of escape as before they could get out, the top of the mountain would bury them alive, leaving them all like one of their men who had already been hit by a rolling boulder and whose remains were but a mangled mass in the gulley. They surrendered. They didn't seem to be enjoying themselves much up there in the mountains, anyway. So Hagoth just brought them down with him."
Seantum, as he leaned back in the boat and heard of the success of his rival, watched Ahah's expressive face, now agonizing in fear, again exulting in Hagoth's triumph. He knew that he had lost.
By the time the victorious warriors entered the city Ahah was on her balcony waving her scarf. Amid strains of barbaric music and the hurrahs of the populace she beheld her chieftain borne through the streets in the gilded chariot of the Lamanite king. As he glanced in her direction Hagoth removed his sable plume and let the sun caress the glossy black head she loved so well. Behind him stalked the Gadianton robbers, frightful apparitions to the awe-struck people. The travel stained Lamanite soldiers brought up the rear.
During all the feasting that followed, when Hagoth sat on the right hand of the king, and the great of the nation assembled at the board to hear him lauded and glorified, the chief panted for the time when all this tinsel should be over and he should be alone with a girl and claim his reward.
ZORABEL.