He took her hand, stroking it caressingly, while his eyes sought hers in unrestrained admiration.
“This is hard,” he went on, in a low tone, half laughter, half reproach. “You are always so good, gracious as a queen should be. Now you tell me to do what an enemy of yours commands. As your enemy means mine, that is unreasonable. I fear,” he added playfully, touching her hands with his lips, “I will have to disobey you, just this once, even if you are a great queen. When I am king, and we rule our jolly cave together, as you said we would, it won’t be so bad, I suppose. Men like this, certainly, won’t be around to bother us. How did he get here? I thought one law of this kingdom—and a very good law it is, too—was to keep people out.”
“But you got in.”
“I suppose I did,” he assented dreamily. “But I’m not sure how it happened.”
“That’s just it. This man will tell you. His name is Raoul Arthur.”
David looked at him blankly, repeating the name. Raoul moved out of the shadow of the bed hangings, his eyes fixed on David’s. His lips parted as if to speak, but the words were checked by an imperative gesture from the man before him.
“I’m not sure that I want to listen,” said David. “I know this man, I’m certain that I do—but I can’t tell you when it was that I first met him. It’s all very vague, like the haze that sometimes covers the living pictures in the great pool of light in there. This memory comes like something evil, something that brings ruin. Surely, you don’t want to bring ruin upon us, Sajipona! Why not blot it out altogether?”
She shook her head sadly, looking wistfully into his face. They clasped each other’s hands, oblivious, for the moment, of Raoul’s presence.
“If you are king there must be no forgetting, no dread of a memory that has been lost. You must know! The Land of the Condor is a land of dreams compared with the rest of the world. You have been out there, David, but you have forgotten. Now you must remember.”