Sajipona smiled. “We will soon see,” she said. “This is the Land of the Condor, all that is left to an ancient race that once ruled over many nations. For centuries the poor remaining handful of my people have managed to live unknown in this little corner of the earth. You are the first—except one other—from the outside world to find your way into this forgotten kingdom. When you will be free to return to the outer world is not for me to say. But, you are here—my guest. Let us have it that way. This is my kingdom. Enter!”
They did not pass into the palace through the entrance used by David. Back of where they stood, at a word of command from Sajipona, a large door swung open, revealing a spacious court within flooded with a clear white light that left not a corner or angle in shadow. This light radiated from a central shaft overhead, at first indistinguishable in the dazzling intricacies of the ceiling that stretched away in tier upon tier of crystalline columns above them. Advancing to the middle of this court, under the queen’s guidance, Una beheld, at the apex of the vast dome curving upward to a seemingly immeasurable distance, a large opening beyond which blazed a great ball of fire suspended, apparently, from the topmost pinnacle of the outer cave. The rays from this underground sun—for it is only as a sun that it can be adequately described—shone with an intensity that was fairly blinding. These rays flashed and sparkled in long, waving streamers of flame, disappearing and suddenly renewing their radiance with a ceaseless energy similar to that displayed by some gigantic dynamo whose emanations are produced by a concentration of power as yet unattempted by man. Fascinated by this splendor, Una realized that she was standing beneath the great luminous body whose magical effects she had first witnessed while approaching the palace with Narva. Shielding her eyes from a spectacle that wearied by its vehemence, she turned to Sajipona. But Sajipona was not with her. Una stood alone in the center of the great court.
At another time this sudden isolation would have been alarming. But the many strange adventures experienced during the last few hours had accustomed Una to danger, so that the disappearance of Sajipona served merely to arouse her to a keener sense of her surroundings. Her faith in this beautiful Indian, moreover, was not easily shaken, in spite of the repellant attitude she had first assumed towards her. Treachery from such a source, it seemed to her, was inconceivable.
Stepping back from the direct rays of the great ball of fire, the manifestations of whose mysterious power had until then absorbed her attention, Una found herself in the midst of a throng of people, all of them, apparently, watching her. By their dress, simple and flowing as that worn by the followers of Anitoo, she perceived these were cave men and women, some forty or fifty in number, each one standing motionless along the wall farthest from her. With heads bent forward and arms outstretched towards the center of the court, where Una stood, they appeared to be engaged in some sort of devotional exercise, the visible object of which was a great round disk of gold set in the tessellated pavement that flashed beneath the light pouring upon it from above. Inlaid within this disk, at the outer rim of which she had been standing a moment before, Una could now discern cabalistic figures wrought in emeralds whose deep effulgence was in striking contrast with the haze of golden light surrounding them. The intricate design formed by these figures was difficult to trace, but that each figure, and the pattern into which it was woven, bore a mystical meaning was suggested by the reverence with which this whole glittering pool of light was regarded by the silent throng.
Eagerly Una scanned the white-robed worshipers before her, hoping that among them she might discover David. Not finding him, she sought Sajipona, with the same disappointing result at first. Then her gaze, wandering away from these strange faces, rested upon a slightly elevated platform at one end of the court. There, beneath a gold and gem-encrusted canopy, seated upon a massive throne of pure crystal, she beheld the Indian queen.
From the first Una had felt the spell of her beauty, but its force had been tempered by the flashes of anger, the suspicion, the disdain that had alternately marked their intercourse. Now, although arrayed and staged, as it were, in all the splendor belonging to her high station—with crown and scepter and glittering robe of state—this proud beauty had softened to an almost girlish loveliness, wistful, touched with a melancholy as hopeless as it was appealing. That she was a queen, aloof from those about her, seemed strangely pathetic. Nor did this expression of sheer womanliness change as her eyes met Una’s. Across the width of the great presence chamber a mysterious wave of sympathy seemed to bind these two together. Completing its wordless message, Sajipona arose and stood expectantly while Una approached, the throng before her silently falling back until she reached the foot of the throne. Then, with hands clasped in greeting, the two women faced each other, the enmity that first had sundered them apparently forgotten, or, at the least, held in check by some subtler, purer feeling. Again Una wondered if this could be genuine—if the suspicion with which she had been regarded at first might not still lurk behind this outward graciousness. Little versed in the arts of dissimulation, however, and apt to take for current coin whatever offered of friendliness, she accepted this unlooked-for warmth of welcome with undisguised gratitude. Sajipona drew her gently forward until the two stood side by side on the platform facing the great court, the silent groups of attendants below them. The dazzling light, the flashing splendor of columned walls and vaulted ceiling, the white-robed figures, the jeweled throne, furnished forth a faery spectacle not easily forgotten.
“These are my people,” said Sajipona proudly. “They will protect you as they protect me.”
As if in answer to her assurance the waiting courtiers, absorbed until now in the contemplation of the mystical figures within the circle of light at their feet, slowly turned and made grave obeisance before the two women standing in front of the throne. Following this sign of submission, they came forward as if expectant of some further command. Sajipona smilingly watched the effect of this ceremony on her companion.
“Ah! it is not here as in Bogota,” she said, “or in the world where you come from, far from Bogota. You think all this that you see is unreal—a dream, perhaps. My people are so different from yours—and all these many years they live forgotten, unknown. I have lived in Bogota. There they do not know of this great cave that belonged to the ancient rulers of the mountains. They don’t know that I am queen here, or of this palace that is mine—and the light that burns like the sun. Ah! I wonder what your wise uncle will say when he sees our sun!”
Sajipona laughed noiselessly, with the half-concealed delight that a child hugs to itself when it hides some simple secret from the eyes of its elders. Una, more bewildered than ever at this allusion to Leighton, sought vainly for a reasonable explanation of the marvels surrounding her.