[XX]
LEGEND AND REALITY
As soon as she reëntered the palace, Sajipona dismissed her courtiers, the cavemen who acted as guards, and even the few female attendants she was accustomed to have near her. Of her own people, Narva alone remained.
Facing Raoul and Una in the deserted hall, flooded with light from the magic sun that a short while since had traced in moving characters of fire the approach of her enemies, Sajipona told of her purpose in bringing them there. She spoke as if she had long foreseen and even planned this interview, and amazed them by her intimate knowledge of various matters that seemed quite beyond the reach of her sources of information. It was as if she had been thoroughly familiar for some years past with Raoul’s schemes, and had even shared in the hopes and fears that brought Una to Colombia.
“I knew of your coming; I planned for it,” she said to Raoul. “For months I have known that you were using every art your cunning could suggest—aided by the treachery of one of my own people—to find your way here. Until now you have been unable to do anything. I was always able to keep you out of here—and I could still have kept you out, had it not served my purpose better to let you come. You are here now—you are looking for what you have always looked. You guessed, long since, of the existence of a great treasure house, built here centuries ago by the rulers of our mountain kingdom who disappeared before the white invaders of this country. Idle stories and legends of those far off times, repeated to you by the peons whom you questioned, vague hints and romances picked up from ancient books, led you to this cave and to the belief that I was, in some way, mixed up with its secret. I will not say that you were right or wrong in all of this. Here you look for a mountain of treasure; as yet you have found none. But you have seen marvels enough since you entered this unknown region to make you eager to solve a mystery that every moment has grown deeper. I will help you—but it must be in my own way, and just so far as it suits my own plans.
“Once, we who live here now shut out from all the rest of the world, were free. We overran all the plains and mountains of Bogota, our rule extended to the warmer countries on every side of us. We practiced arts, cultivated sciences, were familiar with secrets of nature that our conquerors were too rude, too ignorant to understand. But these conquerors excelled us in warfare; and so we were driven either into slavery or hiding. It is in memory of that former age of freedom and empire that my people have called this the Land of the Condor—that, and a strange old legend that you may have heard of. Here we are hidden far, as you know, from the light of the upper earth. A miracle of nature carved this land out of the rock; the science and art of a race older than yours have furnished it and made it what you see. It is guarded, as you know to your cost, by many a labyrinth, strongholds that have baffled you every time you have tried to pierce them. Its people live by means and methods that are forgotten—if they were ever known—to the outer world. Here we have been free to follow the customs and beliefs of our fathers. Here we could still continue a peaceful mode of life you know nothing of. But something has happened that has changed all this. Because of it I have at last permitted, even aided your coming to us. I know all you have sacrificed for this treasure you hope to win from the depths of the earth—treasure that belongs to us. I will not say that your search will be rewarded. Had you succeeded in your plan years ago you would have paid dearly for it. The knowledge of this hidden land would have been forever lost to you. Good fortune—or ill—has brought you here at last. Your fate lies now in the hands of the man you once tried to injure. But there is one thing you must do before his decision can be given. You must free him from a tyranny that, with all our knowledge of mankind’s perils and weaknesses, we are powerless to overcome.”
The demand, vague though it was, did not surprise Raoul. Upon learning of David’s disappearance on the road from Honda to Bogota, he guessed that the missing man had found his way, by some inexplicable method, to this subterranean world, thus repeating his almost fatal adventure of three years ago. This surmise, based on the past, and on indications of similar abnormal mental symptoms that he believed David had again experienced, was corroborated by the cavemen who accompanied him to the palace. From these cavemen he learned that David had been followed by Sajipona’s emissaries ever since his arrival in Honda. These people intended neither his capture, nor to interfere with whatever plans he might have. Instead, they had formed a sort of secret guard, instructed to watch him and report, so soon as they could ascertain it, his purpose in revisiting Bogota. When he was separated from Herran by the regiment of volunteers on the Honda road, he was found in a state of mental bewilderment, not conscious, apparently, that he had lost his traveling companions, but anxious to find his way to some place, which he vaguely described. While in this condition he seemed to recognize the cavemen with whom he was talking. Aided by their hints and suggestions, his recollection of the cave, and especially of Sajipona, grew in vividness. He appeared to remember nothing of Herran, nor of his immediate object in visiting Bogota. But he spoke with increasing clearness of the Land of the Condor. He recalled what had befallen him there three years ago as if it had happened quite recently, and declared he was looking for Sajipona, of whom he spoke with the greatest admiration and gratitude. As he was uncertain of his way, he asked the cavemen to guide him. This, of course, they were ready to do, although they were completely mystified by the sudden oblivion into which, apparently, all his present friends and purposes had fallen in his mind. Sajipona alone he remembered. Three years had passed since he last saw her—but the events crowded into those three years seemed to have left not the slightest trace on his memory. He described his first visit to the cave; but the time between that period and this remained a blank in his mind.
All this Raoul had gathered from the cavemen who, reverting to the Indian belief in such matters, declared that David was bewitched. In a sense, Raoul knew this to be true. He knew also that the spells wrought by modern witchcraft were easily broken by any scientist holding the clew to them. That the cavemen, who possessed secrets in physics unknown to the outer world, should be ignorant of the simplest phenomena of hypnotism was not extraordinary. Even Sajipona shared, to a certain extent, the superstitions of those around her regarding David. She expected Raoul to break the “enchantment” under which David suffered. Una, familiar with Leighton’s experiments and speculations in this field, was quite as confident as the queen that the case was within Raoul’s power. Raoul alone realized the possible consequences following David’s return to normal consciousness.
“Even if I could do as you say,” he asked, “why would you have David changed?”
“As he is now, he is not himself.”
“No, he is not himself,” repeated Una eagerly.