CHAPTER XVI.—A Light in the Gloom.
Subtle Changes in Beela. A Startling Discovery in the Palace Vaults. The Secrets of the Council Chamber Overheard. Urgent Measures Planned.
YOU are late!” blithely greeted Beela when we arrived at the palace gate after leaving Mr. Vancouver. “That shows how much you think of the beautiful, the angel, the sweet, the good Lentala, for you are to sleep in her quarters tonight.”
We were just in time, for the heavens were opening, and the deluge was at hand.
With great caution Beela conducted us to a chamber in Lentala’s wing of the palace. Evidently it was a sanctuary, for it was quite different from the room in which Lentala had received us, and Beela carelessly remarked that in giving us the room, her sister was bestowing a special favor, since not even her servants were ever admitted.
“Because,” Beela chattered on as she lighted the beautiful lamps, “this is where she comes to lead alone the life that she dreams about, far, far away, where there are no Senatras,—the life that was born in our blood, Choseph, and that we can see very dimly, and in our dreams only. But this room helps Lentala to dream of it. Do you remember the story you told me one day? She has changed the room tonight merely by bringing in these couches for you and Christopher to sleep on.”
I felt something new in Beela’s manner,—a note of sentiment singing low in her voice, an augmented softness and grace in her bearing. She appeared to be struggling against it and striving to be the boy Beelo. Some success came, but the winning note still sang in her throat.
She opened an adjoining room, and disclosed a bath.
“Your Senatra tint is a little damaged,” she cheerily said. “Wash it off; you’ll not need it tonight. Here’s a fresh supply for tomorrow morning. Don’t forget to put it on! But there’s much to do before you sleep. I am going to take you to the Council Chamber. Dress as quickly as possible. I have to make some changes myself. When you are ready, give three light taps on that door.”
“Thank you, dear little brother, but where’s Lentala?”
“Lentala! Do you think she can sit up all night waiting for callers?”
“We are to see her in the morning, then?”
Beela had been bustling over finishing touches for our comfort, but my question—perhaps my tone—stopped her.
“Do you wish to see her?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Beelo! Can you ask that? Unless we see Lentala whenever we come to the palace, the jungle is more comfortable.”
She turned away, pretending to be hurt.
“And so you don’t care for Beelo. It is nothing to sleep under the same roof with him.”
“But Beelo is a part of my life, dear lad. However far away he may be, he is always with me. Whenever and wherever I go, my dear little brother’s hand is in mine; and no matter when or where I sleep, his sweet breath is on my cheek; and the touch of his light fingers on my lids and the ring of his cheery laugh in my heart wake me in the morning. In my dreams——” I paused, for Beela embarrassed me by the breathless interest with which she was listening.
“In your dreams, Choseph?”
“Then Beelo comes with another. He leads that one by the hand, and smiles at me, and says in his musical voice, ‘This one also you must like, big brother, for this is Beelo’s best friend.’”
She came close and looked up into my eyes.
“That other one, big brother?”
“Is Lentala.”
Her breath caught as she moved away, and she was silent for a little while as she gave the last touches and started to leave. At the door she threw me a mischievous glance, and said:
“You have funny dreams, Choseph, but I’ll tell Lentala you wish to see her,” and was gone.
I had already observed that no touch of native savagery rested on this room. Every article of use or adornment was of a highly civilized production. The barbaric splendor of the reception-room was absent here, and a dainty, girlish simplicity was the note. Exceedingly charming were products of her needlework and other handicraft copied from foreign articles. There were some English books that showed signs of hard use. I picked up one and found a dainty handkerchief within it, and felt a pity for Lentala thus reaching out for what she could not understand.
Beela appeared in different clothes when I rapped, and was much fresher and smarter than I had ever seen her. She looked conscious under my admiring glance, and expressed gratification at the improvement in my looks.
“Beelo, you are as pretty as a girl. Fie!”
She pretended not to hear, and was busy lighting a lantern.
“They are all asleep in this wing,” she said. “Now we’ll go. Listen to the storm! Mr. Vancouver is safe for another day, I hope. And still no earthquake.”
I felt a twinge, but no opportunity had offered for my telling her of the incident in the hut. The truth is, I dreaded lest she find fault with Christopher for disclosing our identity to Mr. Vancouver and my knowledge of his perfidy.
It would be difficult to say in what lay the finer air of Beela’s dress. In cut the garments had a masculine approach, but in China they might have passed for feminine. The trousers and blouse were of fine dark-blue cloth, and were ample. In place of the somewhat shabby straw hat was a becoming red turban, and the shoes were Turkish, red, and richly embroidered in gold. The blouse opened like a V at the neck, and a negligee tie matching in shade the turban and the shoes was secured with a splendid diamond at the bottom of the V.
More insinuating than these outward things were the girl’s gentler voice and manner. There was a hint of the young mother in her caressing look and touch, and the cello note in her voice had fallen still softer and smoother.
In lighting the lantern, she disarranged her turban by striking it against a piece of furniture. She straightened, and raised her arms to readjust it. Her sleeves were wide and open, and they slipped down, baring her arms.
I had been trying with all my might to keep from my mind the delicious thought of Beelo’s metamorphosis, but self-deception was no longer possible. I must revel in this new and pleasant experience. The one duty that I must observe was the keeping of my promise to Lentala that I would not let her little sister know that I knew.
“Are we ready?” cheerily asked Beela, picking up the lantern and darkening it with a cloth. “Come. No talking till I give you leave. We must be careful in this wing, for Lentala’s servants might wake. The noises of the storm will help us, but the veranda is drenched. We must take the other way.”
She opened the door through which she had entered last, and we were in darkness when she closed it; but I had dimly seen that it was a corridor.
“We can’t use the lantern yet,” she whispered, slipping her hand down my sleeve to my fingers. “Can you find your way, Christopher?”
“Yes.” There was always something tragic in Christopher’s whisper.
“Do you love me, Christopher?” she teasingly asked, squeezing my fingers.
“Yes, ma’am.”
It required great stoicism for me to hold my hand passive and not return the pressure, but I was amazed when she abruptly dropped my fingers. I could see nothing except a faint glow through the cloth about the lantern, but I peremptorily seized her sleeve, drew her arm up, took her hand, and squeezed it hard, for reproof. She made no resistance. Beela was very sweet in the dark,—I remembered the passage through the mountain.
We almost immediately turned into a much longer stretch, as I knew by the whispering echoes of our steps; and soon the shrouded light of Beela’s lantern made the walls visible. After leading us down a dark stair she halted before a door, unlocked it, ushered us within, relocked the door, and removed the cloth from the light.
This chamber was a disordered lumber-room, filled with odds and ends of broken things, native and foreign. I was less interested in the rubbish than in the new picture of Beela in the ascending light from the lantern. It made a witchery of her chin, emphasized the graceful curve of her lips, filled her delicate nostrils, and threw her eyes into mystical shadow. I tried to get her hand again, but failed. Beela in the light was not the same as Beela in the dark.
She paused, and breathed more freely.
“We are safe for a while now,” she said. It was hard to listen composedly to her words, so sweet was the tone of them.
She wound and twisted through the stores, we following, and brought up at a door which a stranger, likely, never would have found. This she unlocked, passed us through, and secured behind us. The air was dank and musty, and despite the lantern there were uncanny patches of phosphorescent light on walls otherwise invisible as yet. The space was roomy, the floor earthen. It proved to be a large cellar-like chamber with a low ceiling supported by stone pillars groined into arches, and was paved, furnished with grated windows, and sweet and dry. Here were immense stores: American-tinned provisions in astonishing abundance; bale upon bale of cloth of many kinds; modern farming implements, and machinery and tools for sawyers, carpenters, cabinet-makers, upholsterers, and many other useful trades; and at one side an array of firearms and ammunition.
Beela was watching me in my astonishment, for not the smallest item of this store had I seen in use by the natives.
“Don’t you know what it all is, Choseph?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“It is the cargo of your vessel.”
I was speechless. Two things were clear: one, that the water-tight bulkheads in the Hope had not given way (which accounted for her pursuit of us instead of sinking), and the other, that the natives had carefully repaired all the water-damage possible. The thorough care of the cargo very likely had extended to the vessel herself.
My emotion was profound. I wrung Beela’s hand, but something in my eyes made her dim and floating. Only vaguely could I see the sweet uplift and happiness in her face. Christopher was standing apart like a man of wood except that his eyes were living. If he needed any expression from me of the almost cruel joy that filled me, he gave no sign, but stood in the pathetic loneliness that forever invested him.
“We must go on,” said Beela. “It is time for the king’s privy council.”
A devious way through another storage vault filled with things no doubt of great value, the ascent of a stone stair, a turning into this passage and another into that, and a short flight of steps, brought us at last upon a curtained balcony overlooking a dimly lighted council hall of considerable size and rich in savage appointments. The king was on a throne facing us, and in a semi-circle before him, seated on rugs on the stone floor, were old and elderly native men splendidly appareled. The king was even more sumptuously robed than on the day of our reception by him. He had no personal attendants, for this, Beela explained in a whisper, was not a state council, but a secret one, called occasionally for extraordinary purposes, composed of selected wise men, and generally held late at night. The balcony where we sat was for the use of the queen and her feminine friends at state meetings. The diaphanous curtains, of an exquisite native texture and handsomely embroidered, could be seen through from our side, which was in shadow, but not from the other.
One thing had been puzzling me exceedingly. It was that no American and European articles looted from wrecks were in use in their original form by any of the natives except Lentala and Beela.
“Because,” Beela had told me in answer to my question, “the natives don’t need them, and are more content without them. The king is wise with his people, and they love him.”
The council was under way. An old man had been droning something that I did not hear, for his voice was weak and the storm noisy. The king nodded to another, a younger man, who came to his splendid full height. His gold-embroidered cloak of office slipped from his great right shoulder and arm after he had risen from his obeisance.
“What is the temper of the Senatras, Gato?” the king asked.
“Very impatient, Sire. There are murmurings and small secret gatherings. Rebellion is in the air.”
The king moved uneasily. “And your soldiers?” he inquired.
“I have them in hand as yet, but they are naturally affected by the restlessness among the people, and are sick of waiting and of guarding the passes. They have never been on duty so long. They love their homes and farms, and they can’t understand the delay. If a wreck should come with this storm, where will the people from it be held?”
“There is plenty of room in the valley,” snapped the king, making an impatient gesture. “And don’t our people know that the crowd we have there is different from any castaways we have had before? Of course we can’t let any of them leave the island, for they suspect its wealth, and would return with soldiers and guns, and destroy us. But we have to proceed cautiously. There are more than a hundred and fifty picked men in the party, and their leaders, Mason and Tudor, and the giant ape Christopher, are shrewd, bold men, and have no fear.”
We three were sitting close together, Beela in the middle. One of her hands stole out, took Christopher’s, squeezed it, and released it. The other found my hand; I closed on its warm softness and kept it prisoned.
“In some mysterious way,” Gato explained, “they have outwitted us. Our plan was to break them up by using the old traitor Vancouver, but they evidently discovered his treachery, and I have just learned that they sent him out as our first offering to the Black Face, while letting him think that he was going to betray them to us.”
“I suppose,” said the king, “that he is as good as another for the sacrifice. That will satisfy the people for a time, but he is the first and the last that we’ll get from that crowd without bloody work, and I don’t wish my subjects to be killed.”
He paused, and the others waited. Beela’s breathing had grown quick; there was a slight quiver in her hand.
The king went on:
“Mason evidently suspects that the people taken out of the valley will not be sent away, and so he is holding them together. No doubt they have armed themselves, and are ready to fight. Mason will be in no hurry to precipitate an issue with us, for they can subsist indefinitely where they are, we can’t strengthen our position against them, and time, he reasons, may bring me to liberate them in a body.”
It was impossible not to recognize the kindliness and benevolence in the king’s voice and words.
“May I speak, Sire?”
“Yes, Gato.”
“I fear that Vancouver is going mad.”
The king looked his dismay.
“He mumbles,” proceeded Gato; “his eyes are wild at times; he calls for his daughter, and weeps like a child; he cannot eat, and his sleep is broken with loud cries.”
“Is there much of that?” the king asked in alarm.
“No, Sire; only rarely. If he is taken to the sacrificial altar when he has a lucid period,———”
“The risk is great,” groaned the king. “The people would resent the offering up of a madman; and we can do nothing while the storm lasts. The people can’t assemble. We must wait. You men go among the Senatras tomorrow and pacify them. Tell them that all will be well. Do they say that the Face is threatening, Gato?”
“Yes, Sire. Some fools have seen it and spread tales about it. One is that green water streams out of its eyes, and another is that the mouth has opened and that purple flames come forth.”
Beela’s start thrilled me. The news brought the king to his feet.
“Is it true, Gato,—the open mouth and the purple flame?”
“I do not know, Sire. I have not seen it, and I do not believe it.”
“But it may be true! Find out tomorrow morning, and let me know.” He was leaving the throne, and although the light was poor, I could see a totter in his step and haggardness in his face.
The others were rising. The king turned to them, and said:
“If that is true,—” He did not finish, but stood in a daze. “The council is ended,” he weakly added, and slowly left the chamber, the others filing after him.