The trip was a hard one for Leighton, who was wedded to his quiet methodical life in Rysdale, and who had no mind for the distractions and annoyances of foreign travel. He was spurred to activity, however, by his interest in the psychological puzzle presented by David, added to which was a growing curiosity regarding the mysterious Indian lake and its reputed treasure. An ordinary mining scheme, no matter how promising, would not have moved the philosophic master of Stoneleigh. But here was something out of which might come a fine scientific discovery revealing the secrets of a bygone civilization. Hence, he had not regretted his resolution to make this quixotic pilgrimage and, as he had latterly fallen into a sort of dependence on Andrew Parmelee for much of the detail work connected with his scientific studies, he had arranged with the village authorities for the schoolmaster to accompany him to Colombia.
Andrew was not a little alarmed at the intimate daily association with Una, the object of his adoration, which such a journey involved. But the fancied terrors of the situation had their compensations. It might even happen that in the primitive region to which they were going he could be of vital service to this stony-hearted fair one—a possibility that filled him with dreams of deadly peril by land and sea in which he acted the part of rescuer to helpless innocence. So, this modern knight errant was miraculously strengthened to ward off the attacks of his Aunt Hepzibah, and departed on his mission fired with all the zeal of the hero of La Mancha, his high resolve unclouded by the horrors that speedily came to him in the rotund nightmare known in the flesh as Doctor Miranda.
“Ah, this little Yankee,” repeatedly declared that restless follower of Aesculapius, regarding the bewildered Andrew with professional glee; “he must take my pills or he will die!”
Then, Andrew, helplessly declaring that he never felt better in his life, would be seized by the merciless doctor, his eyelids forced apart until the whites of the eyes were fully exposed to whoever cared to inspect them, while a triumphant announcement marked the success of the dismal exhibit: “See! it is all yellow! This leetle fellow have the malaria, the calentura. And he refuse to take my pills—the estupido!”
But if Andrew was disturbed by these alarming outbreaks of the doctor, his companions enjoyed to the full that mental and physical relaxation experienced by many only in the tropics. An endless panorama of primeval forest, broken at intervals by clusters of wattled Indian huts, known as villages, with high-sounding names, to the Magdalena boatmen, gave to the long river journey the pleasant surprises of some half remembered dream. There was the charm of the familiar as well as the picturesque in the drowsy air, the swift oily flow of turbid waters, the flashing green, gold and scarlet of the riotous shore. Merely to feel, if only for a day, the changing moods of this tropical nature, more than repaid, one felt, all the hardships and weariness of primitive travel.
For Una and David all this formed a memorable interlude in their mutual experiences. Even the complex mission upon which the girl had entered was forgotten in the novelty of the world to which chance had brought her. The scenic splendor of the river exceeded anything she had imagined. She was fascinated by the wide sweep of water, the foliage, the glorious passion-flowers that embroidered, here and there, the thick mantle of green vines and swaying lianas that bound the treetops to the river beneath; by the flocks of parrots, glistening like living emeralds in the sun-bathed air, chattering their language of wild happiness as they flew from branch to branch on the silent shore. Never had she beheld such serene, graceful creatures as the swans—she took them for swans, although Leighton chuckled grimly when appealed to on the subject—great, long-necked birds, wheeling and soaring far above the steamer, clouds of shimmering white in a sea of purest sapphire. White, too with head and neck a brilliant scarlet, was the stately King of the Vultures, surrounded by a fluttering throng of dusky followers, dining on a dead alligator.
“See, Senorita!” exclaimed Miranda, pointing to a bowerlike opening amid the bushes and trees on the shore. “Ah, he is one bad fellow, that canaille!”
“I see nothing. Oh, yes—another dead alligator!”
“Dead!” laughed the doctor. “He is just one trap. Soon he come together—so!—and catch his dinner.”