This afternoon they had set out with the intention of visiting the ruins, taking with them a rug and a tea basket for a tête-à-tête picnic. At first Dalton had thought of leaving the car on the high road and walking the rest of the way, but on second thoughts he decided to risk the tires and springs over the bumpy ground, forcing a passage through the obstacles in the way. Remembering the nature of the jungle, he came prepared with the necessary implements for hacking a passage through, so that he was enabled to take the car much farther than he had at first thought possible. After they had partaken of refreshment under the drooping boughs of a great banyan tree, with a screen of bamboos on the west sheltering them from the afternoon sun, they proceeded on foot to the ruins, he carrying the rug in case she should need to rest.
"How fairy-like and lovely it all is!" cried Joyce clinging to his arm and picking her way among the dead leaves. The speckled sunlight dancing through the leaves, the spreading branches overhead, the graceful foliage of the tropical vegetation, the beautiful birds, made the spot peculiarly fascinating. "It gives one such a sense of isolation," she added.
"We are completely isolated," he returned. "Hardly a soul comes this way. Some months ago when I wandered down here, a native who was chopping wood said the place was haunted, for which reason the people give it a wide berth."
"Haunted!" exclaimed Joyce fearfully, as she crept closer to his side.
"The natives are terribly superstitious and easily scared. The devil is said to be in possession of the palace, and ill-luck or disaster to overtake any who enter it. Are you nervous?"
"Not if you are not. You see, I have such immense faith in you," she said with charming flattery.
"Then we'll brave the fellow together." He hacked at the creepers and tore them aside, and having cleared a path, drew her towards the gloomy walls visible through gaps in the foliage. It was a friendly little hand that nestled confidingly in his. "These wild convolvuli grow with such amazing rapidity, that in a month of rainy weather the whole path is blocked. If you were put to sleep in the ruin by a wave of the devil's wand, the creepers would make a wall and shut you in, like the princess in the fairy tale. How would you like to sleep here for a hundred years walled in by creepers as high as the tree-tops?"
"And be awakened by a splendid prince?" she laughed, entering into the spirit of his raillery.
"I can picture him tearing his way through with the instinct to kiss you, so as to learn the true meaning of Life! You don't need enchantment to turn you into the Sleeping Beauty; you are that now. It would be interesting to see what would happen were the Prince to arrive."
"He arrived when I met Ray," she said colouring richly.