“You have always loved her!” she cried.
David did not answer. The fates that had brought them to this pass were much too intricate to be lightly disentangled. Sajipona was to him a being exquisitely beautiful—beautiful in every way—the most perfect woman he had known. But there was a strength and glory in her loveliness that placed her above the reach of mere human affection. She was a being separate and distinct from all others—and yet necessary to the very existence of the thousands who seemed to be dependent on her. It might be love that he felt for her—but it was more like the adoration with which one regards something sacred, infinitely distant and beyond our own likings and frailties. This feeling of adoration might, indeed, have been transformed into the passion called love. This surely would have happened had it not been for one thing——
“Una, I love you!”
She started, looking wonderingly at him. How could he say that to her now, after all that had passed? Could it be possible that he was still in that strange dream-state from which, he declared, he had been so happily awakened? Ah, but it was in that dream-state that he did not love her, did not even know her! And now—her own exclamation was eloquent of the doubt, the amazement with which she heard him—
“David!”
“But, it is perfectly true,” he protested. “Why don’t you believe me? You always have believed me! What is before us I cannot tell for certain. Sajipona has my word, and whatever she commands I will do. I owe her my life. More than that—the faith that a man gives to one whose beauty has opened to him the depths of his own soul. But this has nothing to do with us. This is not love. Come what will, I love you, Una. I love you—I love you!”
They looked at each other fearfully. There might be logic, of a sort—logic born of a kind of poetic exaltation—in the distinction that David tried to draw between the two women and his own feeling for them. Circumstances, however, were stronger than argument. They felt the approach of disaster. By David’s own confession, if Sajipona willed it, their love was lost. For the first time Una realized that it was not David, not anything really tangible, but a power outside of him that kept them apart. Against the apparent evidence of her senses, her faith in David was restored. She knew him now, she felt, as she had never known him before. And they loved—that was enough. It was all very difficult to unravel, the maze they were in. There might be endless tragedy at the next turn of the gallery. But at least there was love here, if only for the briefest of moments. Their reawakened passion tingled in their veins. Reason or unreason, they knew they belonged to each other—although they might be separated forever before this day of miracles was over. Una’s jealousy, doubt, bitterness were all forgotten. Her cheek flushed with joy, her eyes sparkled with the sweet madness that belongs only to youth, youth at the highest pinnacle of its desire. Neither spoke. Speech would have silenced the wordless eloquence with which their love revealed itself. They drew closer to each other. Again their hands met. Their lips touched. Love swept away all doubts and denials in one passionate embrace.
Ever since the world began lovers have solved their difficulties thus, and they will doubtless choose this dumb method long after an aging civilization has pointed out a better one. Whether they are wise or not, a college of philosophers would fail to convince us. In this particular instance Love put forth his plea at the very instant when these, his youthful votaries, were wanted of another, alien destiny. As they stood together, oblivious of all else save their own passion, the music grew louder, more joyous, throbbing now in statelier, more intelligible cadence than before. At the end of the gallery a new light began to break. The intervening wall disappeared, disclosing an inner chamber filled with a throng of gaily dressed people, some of whom played upon musical instruments, while others swung golden censers from which floated forth in amber clouds the fragrance of many gardens.
A living corridor of color, formed of courtiers, musicians, priests, extended from this inner chamber in a spreading half circle, the broad portion of which reached the gallery where David and Una were standing. At the center of all this light and motion and color was Sajipona, every inch of her a queen, although the pallor of her cheek, the unwonted tenseness of eye and lip, told of emotions that needed all a queen’s strength to restrain. Immediately about her were grouped the explorers; Miranda, silenced for once by the splendor of the scene in which he suddenly found himself in a leading part; Leighton, still absorbed in the problems of science revealed at every turn in this wonderland. Just above and behind them rose a human figure of heroic proportions, concealed from head to foot in flowing white draperies. Against the rounded pedestal of green stone sustaining this figure leaned Sajipona, one arm resting along the base of the statue, the other lost in the silken folds of her robe.
As David and Una, startled by the sudden clash of the music, raised their heads, her eye caught theirs. Like a queen of marble she looked at them, unrecognizing, motionless, save for the slightest tremor of her faultlessly chiseled mouth—the one sign that she saw and knew. With a gesture she checked the music. Silence followed, unbroken by the faintest murmur of voices or rustle of garments from the waiting throng of cavemen. Unabashed by this strange reception, moved only by the steady gaze of the majestic woman standing before him, David, still clasping Una’s hand, came swiftly forward and would have thrown himself impetuously at Sajipona’s feet. The faintest hint of a smile gleamed in her eyes as she prevented this show of homage. Her greeting came clear and low from quivering lips: