’Nea,’ the puma, alone showed no fear of the gloomy forest. She went hunting there daily, and nearly always returned with something to reward her enterprise.
When all was ready for the start, two or three last messages passed between the travellers and their friends upon the mountain.
“Heaven keep you and all those dear to you! Your memory will always be cherished by all here,” came from Leonard. To which Templemore replied:—
“Long life and happiness to you and your dear wife and all your people.”
“God bless you, Jack!”
“God bless you, Leonard!”
Thus they finally parted; and a few hours later the homeward-bound friends looked their last upon Roraima from the ridge near Daranato. The mountain was lighted with the red rays of the setting sun and towered up in glowing splendour. The greens of the wood at its base, varied and vivid in colouring, as they were, contrasted with the pinks, and purples, and reds of the precipitous walls above, that now looked again like a fairy fortress in the clouds, smiling, and fascinating in its light, aerial beauty.
“What a pity the city does not show!” said Harry. “What a glorious sight it would make!”
“At least you have conquered the secret the mysterious mountain has so long and so well concealed,” Doctor Lorien observed to Templemore.