Across the bridge and entered into the bungalow-like dwelling on stilts, they found themselves in a large room better furnished, crude as the furnishings were, than they would have expected in the Valley of Lost Souls. The grass mats on the floor were of fine and careful weave, and the shades of split bamboo that covered the window-openings were of patient workmanship. At the far end, against the wall, was a huge golden emblem of the rising sun similar to the one before the altar by the Long House. But by far most striking, were two living creatures who strangely inhabited the place and who scarcely moved. Beneath the rising sun, raised above the floor on a sort of dais, was a many-pillowed divan that was half-throne. And on the divan, among the pillows, clad in a softly-shimmering robe of some material no one of them had seen before, reclined a sleeping woman. Only her breast softly rose and softly fell to her breathing. No Lost Soul was she, of the inbred and degenerate mixture of Carib and Spaniard. On her head was a tiara of beaten gold and sparkling gems so large that almost it seemed a crown.
Before her, on the floor, were two tripods of gold——the one containing smouldering fire, the other, vastly larger, a golden bowl fully a fathom in diameter. Between the tripods, resting with outstretched paws like the Sphinx, with unblinking eyes and without a quiver, a great dog, snow-white of coat and resembling a Russian wolf-hound, stedfastly regarded the intruders.
“She looks like a lady, and seems like a queen, and certainly dreams to the queen’s taste,” Henry whispered, and earned a scowl from the Sun Priest.
Leoncia was breathless, but Torres shuddered and crossed himself, and said:
“This I have never heard of the Valley of Lost Souls. This woman who sleeps is a Spanish lady. She is of the pure Spanish blood. She is Castilian. I am as certain, as that I stand here, that her eyes are blue. And yet that pallor!” Again he shuddered. “It is an unearthly sleep. It is as if she tampered with drugs, and had long tampered with drugs——”
“The very thing!” Francis broke in with excited whispers. “The Lady Who Dreams drug dreams. They must keep her here doped up as a sort of super-priestess or super-oracle.—That’s all right, old priest,” he broke off to say in Spanish. “If we wake her up, what of it? We have been brought here to meet her, and, I hope, awake.”
The Lady stirred, as if the whispering had penetrated her profound of sleep, and, for the first time, the dog moved, turning his head toward her so that her down-dropping hand rested on his neck caressingly. The priest was imperative, now, in his scowls and gestured commands for silence. And in absolute silence they stood and watched the awakening of the oracle.
Slowly she drew herself half upright, paused, and re-caressed the happy wolf hound, whose cruel fangs were exposed in a formidable, long-jawed laugh of joy. Awesome the situation was to them, yet more awesome it became to them when she turned her eyes full upon them for the first time. Never had they seen such eyes, in which smouldered the world and all the worlds. Half way did Leoncia cross herself, while Torres, swept away by his own awe, completed his own crossing of himself and with moving lips of silence enunciated his favorite prayer to the Virgin. Even Francis and Henry looked, and could not take their gaze away from the twin wells of blue that seemed almost dark in the shade of the long black eyelashes.
“A blue-eyed brunette,” Francis managed to whisper.
But such eyes! Round they were, rather than long. And yet they were not round. Square they might have been, had they not been more round than square. Such shape had they that they were as if blocked off in the artist’s swift and sketchy way of establishing circles out of the sums of angles. The long, dark lashes veiled them and perpetuated the illusion of their darkness. Yet was there no surprise nor startlement in them at first sight of her visitors. Dreamily incurious were they, yet were they languidly certain of comprehension of what they beheld. Still further, to awe those who so beheld, her eyes betrayed a complicated totality of paradoxical alivenesses. Pain trembled its quivering anguish perpetually impending. Sensitiveness moistly hinted of itself like a spring rain-shower on the distant sea-horizon or a dew-fall of a mountain morning. Pain—ever pain—resided in the midst of languorous slumberousness. The fire of immeasurable courage threatened to glint into the electric spark of action and fortitude. Deep slumber, like a palpitant, tapestried background, seemed ever ready to obliterate all in sleep. And over all, through all, permeating all, brooded ageless wisdom. This was accentuated by cheeks slightly hollowed, hinting of asceticism. Upon them was a flush, either hectic or of the paint-box.