Sajipona was quick to perceive the difficulties arising in Leighton’s mind in regard to her narrative, but she referred to another occasion a description of the science, religious beliefs, social institutions and customs of the subterranean people. In attempting such a task, she declared that the priest at her side, whom she addressed with befitting reverence as Omono, Teacher of Mankind, would be far more capable than she. For it was Omono, with his companion, Saenzias, who received and carried out the laws and traditions of their race—always subject, of course, to her own authority—and it was by them that these laws were further perfected before being passed on to the two priests who would succeed them in administering the affairs of the kingdom.
“You are puzzled, naturally,” she said, “to hear of the existence of wealth and poverty, charitable institutions and governments, science and religion, in a kingdom whose boundaries are within the walls of a cave. But you have seen only a small part of this Land of the Condor. On every side it extends many miles further underground. And in the South from here, not a great distance, there is a vast region—unknown to the rest of the world—filled with mountains, fertile valleys, rivers, and bodies of water strewn like jewels over plains that yield an abundance sufficient for all mankind. This land is at the mouth of our subterranean world. It lies in the heart of that region marked ‘unexplored’ by your mapmakers. We have no fear that it will ever pass from our hands, that it will ever be more than a blank patch on your maps, for on every side it is defended by unscalable cliffs of snow and ice. It can be reached only through this ancient cave. Perhaps, in the ages to come, when the people of the outside world and of this race that has lived here in an unbroken line as far back as the memory of man can go, have been perfected, these barriers will be thrown down. Such has been the prophecy of some of our wise men; and to-day Omono and Saenzias tell us that this final period of perfection is rapidly approaching. It may be that before you go out again into your own world, you will see more of the wonders of this Land of the Condor, and of the unknown Land of the Sun that lies at its door. There are cities out there, built with an art that is only rudely possible in our underground home. Here, you are amazed at the cunning of some of our work. You wonder that a race of moles could conjure wealth and beauty out of a cavern that is never opened to the airs of heaven. But in our Land of the Sun there are marvels far greater than these. In both regions you will see the work of the same people; but here where you stand is the center of our race, or—as you would call it—our seat of government. It is here, because of the Radium Sun above us, that we find our strength. But it is outside, in the Land of the Sun, that the millions who call me their queen, are working out the destinies of future generations. Before these last years your people and our people have kept apart. You were ignorant of our existence, and we held aloof from you, remembering the cruelty and injustice of which you were guilty centuries ago. But the time has come, so Omono and Saenzias declare, when our two worlds must venture the first step in the knowledge of each other. Through me this experiment will take place. You are instruments in it. To-day decides the success or failure of our plan. The wealth of our kingdom we have guarded all these centuries, not for ourselves only. To increase it we must share it with the outside world. But if the outside world is not ready, if it still exists merely to plunder the wealth others have gathered, we will wait, if need be, for another flight of centuries.”
Sajipona’s announcement aroused an immense curiosity among the explorers. What did she mean? they asked each other. How was this working out of their mutual destinies to be accomplished at this particular time and through them? From Narva they had heard vaguely of a festival that was to be celebrated—and now they learned that the hour for it was at hand. Sajipona told them this, and as the information followed immediately upon what she had let them know of her aspirations regarding the future of her people, they concluded that in some mysterious way, the festival and the fate of this subterranean kingdom were bound together. They waited to hear more but, apparently, Sajipona had finished all she had to say to them. Turning to Una, she led her apart from the others. The two talked earnestly together, the one protesting, the other entreating. Finally, Sajipona appeared to succeed in her request, whatever it was, and taking Una’s hand walked with her to a distant part of the hall. Here a door was thrown open. Una entered the apartment beyond, the door closing behind her. It was all so quickly done, the others barely realized that Una had left them before they were rejoined by Sajipona, who spoke to them as if nothing had happened.
“Let us go,” she said. “The festival is ready. There is no time to lose.”
[XXIII]
THE GILDED MAN
After leaving Sajipona, Una found herself in an apartment small compared with the spacious courts and chambers she had seen elsewhere in the palace. This apartment differed, also, in its furnishings—a few uncompromising stone benches along the walls and nothing more—while the dim light gave to everything a gloomy, uninviting character. But Una was in no mood to linger; the queen’s words had filled her with an anxiety that must be appeased at once. Hurrying down the middle of the long room, she reached, at the further end, a sort of staircase, or ramp, leading upward in long, sweeping spirals to a height that was lost in intervening walls and clustered columns. Mounting this ramp, she noted with pleasure that as the ground floor receded everything lightened. Judging by the splendid upward curve of the walls, she concluded that she must be ascending a gallery winding around the great central dome of the court where, a moment before, she had listened with the others to Sajipona’s account of the mysteries of the cave. On the inner side of the gallery, the side overhanging the court, the wall was semi-transparent, and through it sparkled flashes of the radium light flooding the great chamber within. Light came, also, from the opposite side, filtering downward, apparently through another medium, from the central luminary above. The air grew warmer; there were faint perfumes, as if of essences distilled from tropical flowers, that thrilled with a delightful drowsiness. Soft echoes from distant music increased this feeling of restfulness. Sound and fragrance were so subtly united, they seemed so completely an irradiation from the inner spirit brooding over the place, that one accepted them as being utterly natural, utterly free from the startling or the marvelous.
Una could not guess the source of the liquid, musical notes. They might have come from the quaint instruments she had seen so deftly played upon by the cavemen marching with Anitoo, or from the lyre that, at Sajipona’s touch, gave forth such plaintive melodies. But the music she listened to now was not continuous; its lack of formal melody, unity of theme, gave it a quality different from anything she had ever heard. In the outer world it might have been taken for the windsong sweeping through tossed branches of forest trees. But here there was neither wind nor forest. The air was motionless, and had ever been so; the vast spaces seemed filled with the unruffled sleep of centuries. Down below, in the great court, and even in the palace garden, saturated with light and beauty though both were, one felt something of the chill mystery that penetrates all underground places. Here there was mystery, but it was a kind that soothed rather than terrified. Tier by tier, as Una passed along the slender white columns enclosing the gallery up which she was ascending, the sense of gloom, foreboding, that had weighed upon her until now, was weakened. She felt the magic of a new world of romance and adventure. She was at the very heart of its secret. Flashes of color in paneled niches along the walls piqued her curiosity. Robes of vivid scarlet, hiding limbs of sparkling whiteness, it might be, hung just beyond her reach. Further on these niches were filled with glittering masses of gold, heaped high in barbaric scorn of art or fitness. Rudely fashioned crowns, massive enough to have burdened their wearers with more than the traditional care that goes with royalty; armlets, breastplates, tiaras heavy with emeralds—in deep recesses, row on row, from story to story, these witnesses of the pomp and pride of fallen nations, were thrown together in a careless profusion possible only in an Aladdin’s palace of marvels.
As Una hurried past she realized with a thrill that she was in the ancient treasure-house of a once mighty empire. The fruit of the earth’s richest mines, brought here by the labor and cunning of centuries, lay at her hand. It seemed impossible that all this jeweled splendor could have escaped the fires of war and crime that had kindled within the breasts of millions who had sacrificed their lives merely to grasp some small portion of it. Fascinating baubles now were these relics of past greatness, dainty or rude, meaningless, or eloquent of forgotten faiths and legends. Innocent of harm they seemed, a passing feast for the eye, trophies to celebrate and adorn feminine loveliness, but no longer a madness in the bones of men.