Thus, vaguely, did this vision of ancient riches appear to Una. Gold and jewels, robes and ornaments wrought by an art that had been lost long since—the rich color, the glitter of all these things delighted her. They seemed a part—the visible part—of the music and fragrance with which the winding gallery of marvels was filled. It appeared to her that she was on the threshold of some great awakening experience. She knew that it was David whom she would see; and this knowledge started a strange conflict of emotions. The memory of his lack of faith, the incomprehensible manner in which he had turned from her, brought humiliation, anger. But the first bitterness that went with all this had lost its corrosive power. The spell of the ancient Indian race whose secrets she was exploring was upon her. Her senses were soothed by the mysterious beauty of these enchanted corridors. Here she would see David—and the thought was indefinitely satisfying. She did not know whether she could forgive him, whether she could become reconciled to a disloyalty that had so easily swerved him from the most sacred of vows. But after all it was witchcraft—only witchcraft could work such things as these—that had estranged him from her. This she knew because the inner heart of her own love remained as it had ever been. He was still David. He needed her, he was unhappy. Outwardly he might seem faithless as the most shameless Proteus of romance. Nevertheless, there was something else, something that even Sajipona could not know, but that she knew and that bound him to her. It was for this she had followed him through inconceivable adventures—for this, one danger after another had been faced and overcome. And now all this misery had reached a happy ending. He was here, awaiting her like some prince in a fairy palace. Sajipona had promised it, had brought them together at last. She felt his presence before she heard his voice. And then he spoke to her:
“Una, what new witchcraft has brought you here!”
He stood at a turn in the gallery up which she was ascending. As their eyes met, the distant, wind-blown music, the subtle fragrance of flowers, seemed to bring into this palace of mystery and enchantment the fields and meadows of Rysdale. There she and David were again together, vowing their first love. The harmonies of brooks, birds, the ripples that sped their canoe past woodland and down shaded valleys, the thousand intimate details of the springtide loved of lovers, were about them once more. For the David who stood beside her in the queen’s treasure-house was the David of that far-off, peaceful countryside, not the strange being she had met for that brief dark moment in front of Sajipona’s palace. At the first glance she could see he had passed through some vital change since then. He was no longer as a man walking in dreams. There was no troubled uncertainty in his face, no faltering in his step. He came to her now, all his soul in his eyes, but with perplexed look for all that, as if the destiny that had parted them had not yet consented to their reunion.
“I have been dreaming,” he said simply. “It was an old dream, I find. Now that I am awake, some lights and shadows from my dream-world remain to haunt me.”
His brief explanation of the strange mental experience he had just been through was scarcely needed. Una told him how they had searched for him, how they had finally heard of this cave and of his first adventure in it. And then, how, tracking him to this place, they had met Sajipona and learned of the wonders of her underground kingdom.
“We are awaiting the festival now,” she said wistfully. “She told me of it, and sent me here to meet you. I think it must have begun already. The music—it must be the music for the Gilded Man—has grown louder and louder as I have climbed this wonderful gallery. Sajipona and the rest will meet us—it must be just there, beyond.”
They had clasped each other’s hands, their eyes looked their fill. But now they stood apart, their faces averted, words of passionate avowal unuttered on David’s lips.
“The festival! I know!” David exclaimed.
Then he turned again to Una, taking her hand and trying to disguise the grief that was all too plain in words and manner. He told her of Sajipona’s kindness, of his gratitude to her. He described something of her plans to redeem her people from the ill fortune that had shut them out from the rest of the world. All this, he said, could not be accomplished right away; but the first step would be taken now. David had a part to play in the working out of the queen’s plan. But just what he was to do, what this part was, he guessed only vaguely. The bringing together of the ancient people with the new, the Indian race with their white conquerors—something of the kind was in her mind. The vast store of wealth, also, that they saw about them was to be distributed among those who needed it. Sajipona and her people had long since ceased to care for this treasure that had brought such untold suffering and misfortune to their race. But they would not part with it until they were certain of their recompense. And perhaps they wouldn’t part with it at all—there seemed to be a curse attached to these blood-stained emeralds and gold.
In all this, perhaps symbolically, the festival, the first strains of which they could hear, would have much to do—and Sajipona and he were to be the leading figures in that festival. He had consented to this—freely. The declaration was made with melancholy emphasis. It seemed to Una the death-knell to their happiness. It placed David suddenly in a world quite outside her own, as if all along his life had been, must be, apart from hers. There could be only one reason for this, of course—Sajipona! Una seized upon it bitterly.