This final communication from the god Anamac was received by the vast multitude with great shouts of rejoicing, for it was accepted as putting an end finally and for ever to the practice of offering annually human sacrifices to him. And upon those occasions the choice of victims was usually made jointly by the king and the chief priest; and the choice was always of so capricious a character that, when invited to attend the festival, no man could ever know whether he would survive to return from it. Therefore the substitution of a single animal for several human victims—seldom less in number than half a dozen—was regarded as a national boon; and never, perhaps, was Anamac worshipped with more sincerity, or with more gratitude, than he was upon the day when Dick Cavendish and Wilfrid Earle so narrowly escaped dying upon his altar.
The festivities not only lasted through the entire day, but were continued far into the night, some fifty oxen being slaughtered and roasted to provide a feast for the numerous visitors whom King Jiravai had invited to Yacoahite to participate in the great annual festival; and when at length it was all over, and the guests had departed to their respective homes, everybody agreed in the opinion that it had been the most joyous and successful festival within living experience. As for Dick and Earle, they were lodged in the king’s own house, with Inaguy to act as their interpreter—that astute individual having soon made up his mind that service with the white men was safer, and likely to be more profitable in the end, than even the position of chief of the Mangeroma priests. And on the night of the festival, when the great square of Yacoahite was given up to the populace, and all the great chiefs were being entertained at a banquet given by the king, Earle, “the white man with the black hair,” availed himself of the opportunity to demonstrate his capabilities as a great medicine-man by performing a few very clever conjuring tricks before the king and his guests, which the simple Mangeromas regarded as absolute miracles. It was a stroke of sound policy on Earle’s part; for after seeing him cause a pack of cards to vanish into thin air, extract coins—a few of which he still had in his pocket—from the hair, ears and noses of great warriors, and perform sundry other marvels, there was not a Mangeroma in all that great assemblage who did not regard the American as something superhuman, or who would have ventured, even in the most secret recesses of his soul, to meditate treachery to him or anybody connected with him.
Taken altogether, the day had been a rather trying one for both Dick and Earle, for, to start with, neither of them had slept at all during the previous night, their minds having been in a state of extreme tension with regard to the events of the coming hours; and when at length the suspense was over and they knew that they had escaped a terrible fate by the bare skin of their teeth, the reaction, combined with the necessity to preserve during several hours a perfectly calm and unruffled demeanour in the presence of those about them, had told upon both rather severely, and especially upon Earle, upon whose cleverness and readiness of resource the safety of the entire party depended. Therefore it was with a sense of profound relief that the two friends at length found themselves alone together and free to throw off the strain to which they had been obliged to subject themselves all day.
It was well past midnight when the king’s banquet having come to an end, the two white men were conducted with much deference and ceremony to an apartment in the king’s house, in which, to their great delight, they found the whole of their belongings, including their two camp beds, which some thoughtful individual—who afterwards proved to have been Peter—had fixed up and prepared for their occupation. They lost no time in discarding their clothing and flinging themselves upon their pallets, for both were feeling utterly exhausted; but before surrendering themselves to sleep they exchanged a few remarks relative to the events of the past day.
“Yes,” agreed Earle, in response to an observation of Dick’s, “we have had an exceedingly narrow escape, Dick, and don’t you forget it, a more narrow escape, indeed, than you probably realise. For example, do you know the name of this tribe of Indians?”
“Certainly,” answered Dick. “I heard the king call the idol, this morning, ‘Anamac, god of the Mangeromas,’ so I suppose these johnnies are the Mangeromas.”
“Correct, my son; they are,” returned Earle. “Remember ever hearing anything about the Mangeromas?”
“Of course,” returned Dick. “They are the tribe with the bad name that those Catu Indians told us about, and whom we have been looking for ever since, because they are supposed to know something of the whereabouts of the city of Manoa. Isn’t that it?”
“That is it, Dick,” assented Earle. “And you knew it? Well, you were so cool, so apparently unconcerned, during the whole time that our fate was hanging in the balance, that I thought you had missed the point of the king’s remark.”
“Not much,” retorted Dick. “But why shouldn’t I keep cool? What would have been the use of getting excited and anxious? That would only have given our show away and spoiled everything. But, although I may not have shown it, I don’t mind admitting now, old chap, that I was most confoundedly anxious. For I knew that if your ventriloquial trick had been discovered, it would have been all up with us.”
“You bet it would,” agreed Earle. “And that was just where our narrow escape came in; for I was so nervous that, when the critical moment came, it was only by an almost superhuman effort that I was able to control my voice. However, here we are, still alive and well, thank God! And—Dick—after all, I’m glad that you are with me. A chap with a nerve like yours is worth a whole regiment of soldiers. Good-night!”
The two white men slept the sleep of exhaustion that night, to awake refreshed and re-invigorated on the following morning, with scarcely a trace remaining of the stress and strain through which they had passed on the preceding day. Inaguy and Peter presented themselves at daylight with the accustomed morning cup of chocolate; and the former, who was by this time well acquainted with his master’s habits, mentioned that he had learned by inquiry, that there was a stream just outside the town in which the white lords might safely venture to bathe. Whereupon the pair sallied forth and enjoyed the now rare luxury of a swim, receiving, as they went and returned, the respectful salutations of the populace. Upon their return they found an excellent breakfast awaiting them, prepared by the indefatigable Peter from viands supplied by the king’s especial order.
Earle announced his intention of accepting the king’s proffered hospitality and remaining several days in Yacoahite, not only to afford his men time to recover from the hardships and sufferings which they had experienced while filling the rôle of prisoners doomed to the sacrifice, but also to enable him to prosecute the inquiries which he wished to make regarding the whereabouts of the city of Manoa. And he was not less anxious to stay than the king was to entertain him and get the benefit of his advice and guidance upon several burning questions which had of late been causing him uneasiness. For now that the great god Anamac had made it clear that the white strangers enjoyed his especial favour and protection, and were therefore not to be molested, but, on the contrary, were to be treated with the utmost honour and distinction, the astute Jiravai immediately arrived at the conclusion that they must certainly be something more than mere ordinary men—as witness the marvels which Earle had performed during the progress of the feast—and that consequently their advice and assistance must be of more than ordinary value, and well worth securing. Therefore the king took Earle and Dick unreservedly into his confidence and, with the help of Inaguy as interpreter, fully laid before the pair a number of exceedingly delicate and difficult problems which were just then confronting him. And Earle, being a born diplomatist, entered into the thing with keen zest, taking the problems one by one and asking question after question until, as he put it, he had fairly “got the hang of the thing,” when, by a judicious admixture of his own diplomatic instinct with Dick’s shrewd common sense, it became not very difficult to find solutions of the several problems, which not only effected a general clearing of the air, but also ultimately added considerable lustre to Jiravai’s name as that of a wise and powerful monarch.
The settlement of these matters of high and intricate policy took time; so that it was not until some ten days after the festival of Anamac that Earle was able to introduce to the king’s notice the subject of Manoa, to ask what his majesty knew about it and its precise situation, and to request his assistance to enable the expedition to find the place.
But no sooner was Earle’s project mentioned than Jiravai began to throw cold water upon it. First of all, he denied all knowledge whatsoever of any city named Manoa; and when Earle met this denial with the admission that there might possibly be some mistake in the matter of the name, explaining that it was not this that was of importance, but the fact that there was a city distinguished by certain curious and remarkable characteristics that he was anxious to find and visit, the king, while reluctantly admitting that he had certainly heard of such a city, most earnestly besought Earle at once and for ever to abandon his intention of visiting the place, since rumour had it that the inhabitants so strongly objected to the intrusion of strangers among them that, of the few who had been known to force a way in, not one had ever been known to come out again. Jiravai asserted that he knew nothing whatever about the city, beyond the above-named peculiarity, and the fact that its actual name was Ulua—bluntly adding that he desired to know no more—and he greatly doubted whether there was any Mangeroma now living who possessed more information on the subject than himself; yet, if the white lords very particularly desired it, he would cause immediate inquiries to be made. To which statement Earle replied that the white lords desired the information in question more than anything else, except to find themselves within the walls of Ulua itself; and that the king could not more conclusively demonstrate his friendship than by causing the most exhaustive inquiries to be made forthwith. And there the matter rested for nearly a fortnight, during which Earle and Dick wandered about the district together, shooting, but finding very little game; for they soon discovered that the Mangeroma country was pretty thickly inhabited, and that, between hunting and the clearing of the land for cultivation, the game had been nearly all driven away or exterminated.
At length, however, in response to the inquiries which the king caused to be made, an old man was found who asserted that, many years ago, when he was but a lad, he had been lost while engaged in a hunting expedition, and in his wanderings had actually seen, from the summit of a high hill, a great city of palaces, which he believed could be none other than the legendary city of Ulua, but that he had made no attempt to approach it, being afraid that, if he did so, he would fall into the hands of the inhabitants, and never more see his kith and kin. Asked whether he believed it possible, after all those years, to find his way back to the spot from which he had beheld the city, he replied in the affirmative, provided that he could be carried thither and back again, but not otherwise, the way being altogether too long and rough for his old limbs to traverse unaided. Arrangements were accordingly made for the construction of a litter for the accommodation of the old man, and on a certain morning the expedition set out from Yacoahite, the party now consisting of thirty men all told, including the old man, Busa, who was to serve as guide, his eight bearers, and ten additional bearers to assist in the transport of the white men’s baggage.
As Busa had warned them, the way proved both long and difficult, leading as it did up and down wild ravines, along the dry and stony beds of mountain torrents, through rough and narrow passes, and by the edge of dizzy precipices where a single false step would have meant a fall of hundreds of feet through space; but after ten days of arduous travel the journey was accomplished without accident, and without any very startling adventure, the party arriving, late in a certain afternoon at a “divide,” from which they looked down upon a vast basin containing a lake some thirty miles long by twenty broad, on the northern shore of which stood a city which Busa had not misrepresented when he spoke of it as a city of palaces. For a city it certainly was, covering an area of ground about four miles long by three broad, and many of its buildings seemed palatial, if one might judge by their lofty white walls and glittering roofs, shining like gold in the rays of the declining sun. Of course, it was not possible to judge very accurately the character of the buildings, or to see much detail, for the city was some twenty miles distant from the spot to which Busa had conducted the party, while the rarefaction of the atmosphere rendered even the field-glasses of little use. But that the city was actually there before their eyes was indisputable, and it was a city consisting not of a mere agglomeration of mud huts with thatched roofs, but of stately buildings of solid masonry, possessing such architectural adornments as towers, pinnacles, and domes, evidencing on the part of the inhabitants a condition of high civilisation and refinement.
From his knapsack Earle produced a folded map of the northern portion of South America which he opened and spread out on a rock. It was the most modern and up-to-date map that he had been able to procure, and it was drawn to a scale large enough to show not only every town of any importance but also innumerable villages, some of them so small that, as the party had themselves proved, they contained less than a hundred inhabitants. Yet on the part of the map upon which Earle now placed his finger, and for hundreds of miles in every direction therefrom, there was no indication of town or village, and only a mere suggestion of the mountain range through which they had lately been travelling, while even the courses of rivers were merely indicated by dotted lines; in short, the party were now, and had been for several weeks, in a region which had not been explored. But by means of astronomical observations made and worked out by Dick, the track of the party had each day been plotted upon the map, and such details as the forests they had passed through, the rivers they had crossed, the Indian villages they had met with, the great swamp, and the mountain ranges, had all been carefully plotted.
“Now,” remarked Earle, pointing to a pencil mark on the map, “that is where we were at noon to-day, and we are somewhere about here now. There is no indication of a town or village of any sort anywhere near, yet just about there”—laying his finger on another point of the map—“stands yonder city on the shore of a lake, in a great basin surrounded on all sides by mountains, of the existence of which this map affords no indication. What do I deduce from that? you will ask. I will tell you, Dick. I deduce from it that yonder city is the one which, though our friend Jiravai says it is named Ulua, has been spoken of ever since the Spanish conquest, and diligently sought, as the city of Manoa; and to us has fallen the honour and glory of having actually found it! Just think of the wonder of it, Dick. For over three and a half centuries the legend of the existence of that city has persisted, yet there is no absolutely authentic account of it having ever been reached, although hundreds, possibly thousands—if one could but know the whole truth—have most diligently and painfully sought it. And at last its discovery falls to the lot of two very undistinguished people, an Englishman and an American, as is quite in accordance with the fitness of things. Now let us make use of our remaining daylight to get down to a lower level, for, with the setting of the sun, it will be bitterly cold up here, and I have no fancy for spending the night in a temperature that will probably fall below freezing point.”
So saying, Earle folded up his map and, replacing it in his knapsack, gave the word for the party to proceed, Dick and himself taking the lead. Picking their way among towering rocks and along narrow ledges, they travelled a distance of some three miles and effected a descent of about two thousand feet before night overtook them, finally pitching their camp on a little rocky plateau under the lee of an enormous vertical cliff, which effectually sheltered them from the icy wind which sprang up and roared overhead with the force of a gale almost immediately after sunset.
Notwithstanding the shelter afforded by the cliff, however, the cold was intense, and the party, acclimatised by this time to the hot, humid atmosphere of the plains, suffered severely, the more so that they were camped among bare rocks without a vestige of vegetation of any kind, and were therefore without the materials for a fire; the return of daylight therefore found them more than ready to resume the march, in the hope that before long they would reach a region where fuel of some sort would allow them to kindle a fire and prepare a much-needed hot breakfast.
They reached such a spot after about an hour’s march, camping in the shelter of a small clump of stunted pines; and here, after breakfast, Busa approached the two white men with the request that, having performed his task of guiding the party to a spot from which the “city of palaces,” could be seen, he and his bearers might now be permitted to set out upon the return journey, he and they being anxious to recross the divide during the hours of daylight, and so escape the bitter cold from which they had suffered so severely during the preceding night. The request seemed a reasonable one, for the old man’s services were no longer needed; Earle therefore liberally rewarded the old fellow and his eight bearers, and dismissed them with a message of greeting and thanks to the king.
The two parties broke camp simultaneously, Busa and his bearers taking the back trail up the path which they had all descended an hour earlier, while the others, under Earle’s leadership, proceeded down the mountain side at their best speed, being impatient to reach the fertile, cultivated country bordering the lake below.
But the task was not by any means so easy as it had first appeared, for they had scarcely gone a mile when they unexpectedly found themselves at the verge of a long line of precipitous cliffs overlooking the great basin in which lay the lake and the city. It was by no means a pleasant situation in which they found themselves, for they were standing upon a steep slope, clad with short, dry grass, almost as slippery as ice to walk upon, and this steep slope ended abruptly in a precipice which Earle, going down upon his stomach and peering cautiously over the edge, declared could be not less than six or seven thousand feet high. So terrible was the shock it gave him to find himself overhanging and gazing down into that dizzy void, that it induced a violent attack of vertigo, causing him to scream out that he was falling, and to beg those who were holding him to pull him back. They, of course, did so at once; but several minutes elapsed before the adventurous gazer sufficiently recovered his nerve to stand, and when he did so he was bathed in a cold perspiration, while his teeth chattered to such an extent that it was some time before he could distinctly articulate.
“Never had such a fearful shock in my life,” he afterwards explained to Dick. “Of course, I knew that the valley was an enormous depth below us, but when I undertook to peer over the edge of the cliff I did not for a moment anticipate that I was going to find myself hanging over a sheer void, thousands of feet deep. I expected to find below me a precipitous cliff seamed and scarred with innumerable irregularities and projections, by means of which an ordinarily active man might easily make his way down; but, man alive, this precipice is sheer, from top to bottom like the wall of a house, without a single projection, so far as I could see, big enough for a fly to settle upon. It was awful to find myself lying there, with my heels higher than my head, gazing down into that dizzy hollow, at the bottom of which tall trees looked no higher than pins, and to feel that if I dared to move a muscle I should inevitably go sliding over, head first!”
“Ay,” assented Dick. “I think I know the kind of feeling. I experienced something very like it myself the first time I climbed to the height of the royal yard. The hull of the ship below me looked so small, and so utterly inadequate to sustain the substantial spars about me, that, quite unconsciously, I found myself moving with the utmost precaution, lest my additional weight should capsize the ship.”
“Yes,” assented Earle. “I guess that was something like what I felt, except that, in my case, I was convinced I should never be able to get back to safety. Nevertheless, here I am, safe and sound. And now the question arises: How are we going to get down into that valley? So far as I can see the cliffs are everywhere vertical, like this one; yet there must be a way down somewhere; else how did the inhabitants of the city get there?”
“Oh yes, of course there is a way down, somewhere,” agreed Dick. “We’d better camp, hadn’t we, and pursue our usual tactics, you going one way, and I the other, exploring?”
“Yes,” assented Earle. “But we won’t camp just here, thank you. I should be afraid that some of us would go sliding over that cliff edge before we knew it. We will go along yonder, to the eastward, a bit. The ground looks less steep in that direction, and probably we shall find a suitable camping place before long.”
They did, about a mile and a half to the eastward; and the camp having been pitched, Earle accompanied by Inaguy, set off in one direction, while Dick, accompanied by another Indian, named Moquit, went in the other, in search of a practicable route down to the plain and the shore of the lake, the two white men taking their rifles, as usual, and each carrying a pair of powerful binoculars slung over his shoulder.
The way taken by Dick led him back along the edge of the cliff by the route which they had traversed shortly before; and having reached the spot where Earle had taken his thrilling peep down into the abyss, the young man continued on, eventually entering a fir wood, through which he passed, bagging two brace of a species of pheasant as he went. Emerging from the wood, which was about a mile long, he found himself approaching a spot where the cliff seemed to dip somewhat, and halting for a moment to reconnoitre the prospect through his field-glasses, he became aware of the fact that work in the valley had begun for the day; for he observed smoke issuing from the chimneys of a number of detached buildings which he took to be farmhouses; while, studying the scene more intently, he was presently able to pick out the forms of numerous people apparently engaged in tilling the wide fields and at work in the orchards—as he took them to be—dotted here and there in the valley far below. Farther away, he perceived a number of small dots on the bosom of the lake, carefully watching which he at length became convinced that they were canoes, or some similar kind of craft, crossing the lake, some heading towards the city and others from it.
Some two hours later, Dick called a halt in a small pine wood, and ordered Moquit to kindle a fire and prepare a brace of the shot birds for their mid-day meal; and while this was being done the young Englishman sauntered off a little way in search of another spot from which he might advantageously effect a further reconnaissance of the valley. He found such a spot at no great distance and, unslinging his glasses, proceeded to search the valley and the face of the neighbouring cliffs from his new view point. But, look where he would, it everywhere seemed the same: vertical unscalable precipices of appalling height, and nowhere anything suggesting the existence of a road by means of which the valley might be reached.
Yet stay! As he was in the very act of removing the binoculars from his eyes his keen sight detected what appeared to be an infinitesimally small moving dot against the bare drab face of the cliff, some two miles away. Focussing his glasses afresh upon the spot, Dick watched it steadily for two or three minutes until he became certain that it was moving. Yes, moving downward along the cliff face toward the valley. Precisely what it was, he could not determine with any certainty, but he judged it to be a vehicle of some sort, a slow moving vehicle; and if so, it was of necessity travelling over a road, and that road, although it was indistinguishable from where Dick stood, was one of very easy gradient, judging from the movements of the object upon it. Satisfied now that he had made an important discovery, the lad carefully noted his surroundings, noted with equal care a number of objects which would enable him to fix the position of the road, and closing his glasses, walked briskly back to his temporary camp, where he found Moquit anxiously awaiting his return, with the birds cooked to a turn and just ready for eating.
Hurriedly dispatching his meal, Dick, with Moquit at his heels, resumed his task of exploration, proceeding first to the spot from which he had just observed the moving object, and there treating the face of the cliff to a further close scrutiny. But the object, whatever it may have been, was no longer to be seen; and, satisfied of this, Dick pressed on. Two miles farther on, still following the edge of the cliff as closely as was prudent, he halted, arrested by the sight of what, at the distance of about half a mile, had the appearance of a structure of some sort, clinging to the very verge of the cliff; and inspecting it through his binoculars, he saw that he was right in his surmise. It was a building, something in the nature of a wall, with what looked like a closed gateway in its centre. And on the parapet immediately above the gateway, there was a figure, apparently that of a sentinel, stalking slowly to and fro!
It was enough; the structure before him was undoubtedly the gateway at the head of the road giving access to the valley, and his mission was accomplished. His first impulse was to go on and view the gateway, or whatever it might be, at close quarters; but the inhabitants of the valley were evidently jealous of the intrusion of strangers, as was clear from the presence of the sentinel on the parapet; and giving the matter a few moments’ consideration, Dick came to the conclusion that, before revealing his presence, it would be well to return to Earle and report. He therefore faced about forthwith and, keeping under cover as well as he could, retired in good order, pretty confident that, up to that moment, he and his follower had not been seen.
The sun was just sinking behind the mountain ridges to the westward of the mysterious city when Dick reached the camp. Earle, he found, had not yet returned, but he arrived some ten minutes later, greatly disgusted at his own want of success. He had searched the northern cliffs for a distance of some twelve miles, it appeared, and nowhere had found a spot where even a goat or a monkey might have passed up or down them. But he had penetrated to within some eight or nine miles of the city, and having viewed it at that distance and from a great height through the lenses of his powerful glasses, was fully persuaded that, let the name of the city be what it might, it was none other than that which, crowned with the halo of legend and romance, had been spoken and written of and sought for as “Manoa.”
“It is a magnificent city, Dick,” he exclaimed, enthusiastically; “a city of palaces embowered in gardens; and the roofs of many of its buildings are covered with gold. They must be,” he insisted, in reply to Dick’s incredulous shrug of the shoulders, “otherwise they would not gleam so brilliantly in the sun as they do. And to-morrow night, please God, we will rest our weary limbs in that same city, and perhaps, if luck is with us, make the acquaintance of El Dorado himself, or at all events, his successor.”
The camp was astir with the coming of dawn on the following morning; and after an early breakfast the expedition started, under Dick’s guidance, for the gateway, which was reached shortly before noon. As the party approached, the sentinel was seen pacing to and fro across the parapet, as on the preceding afternoon; and that he was keeping a sharp look-out was manifest, for the little band had scarcely emerged from the pine wood in which Dick had halted for his mid-day meal on the preceding day, when the man was seen to pause in his monotonous march to and fro and gaze toward them under the shadow of his hand. Then, apparently satisfied that the party were bound for the gateway, he was seen to move a few paces and bend over, with his hand to his mouth, as though shouting to someone below, after which he resumed his march as before, occasionally eyeing the strangers as they approached.
Arrived at length at the gateway, it was seen that the structure consisted of a wall, some thirty feet high, very solidly built of great blocks of masonry dressed to a perfectly smooth face, and so accurately jointed that, even at the distance of a few paces, the joints were scarcely perceptible. The wall was built with a vertical face to a height of some twenty feet, above which it swelled outward in the form known as a “bull-nose,” the upper surface of which sloped so steeply upward as to render it unclimbable; so that, even if a man, or men, should climb as far as the swell of the bull-nose by means of a pole or ladder, the would-be intruders could get no farther. The wall was semi-circular in plan, jutting out from the edge of the cliff for a distance of some fifteen feet at either end and descending the face of the cliff, diminishing as it went, until it died away to nothing, some fifty feet below, rendering it an impossibility for anyone to pass round either end of it. The middle of the wall was so constructed as to form a watch-tower, some thirty feet square, with a flat roof, upon which it appeared a sentinel was always posted; and it was in the base of the watch-tower that the gateway, about ten feet wide, was pierced, the opening being filled with a pair of wooden doors of exceedingly solid construction.
As the party halted, the sentinel, who wore a burnished helmet and corselet that flashed in the sun like gold and was the colour of gold, leaned over the parapet and shouted to them what seemed to be an inquiry; but the words, though quite distinctly pronounced, were utterly unintelligible to all.
“Wants to know our business, I guess,” remarked Earle. “Step forward, Inaguy, and explain that we wish to pay our respects to his majesty, El Dorado. Try him in all the dialects you happen to be acquainted with.”
Inaguy accordingly stepped forward and did his best, but without avail; the sentinel, though he listened attentively to all that was said, could evidently make nothing of it, replying only with shakes of the head.
“It is the usual fate of the explorer who enters a new country,” remarked Earle. “He is unable to understand or make himself understood. But there is always the language of signs to fall back upon. Let me see what I can do in that way.”
Stepping forward and thus claiming the sentinel’s attention, he pointed first to himself, then to Dick, then, with a comprehensive wave of the hand, to the Indian carriers, and finally to the door, motioning with his hands as though opening it. This seemed to be intelligible to the sentinel, for he nodded, and stepping aside a few paces, shouted a few words to someone below in the interior of the tower. A few moments later a second man appeared on the top of the tower and, approaching the parapet, regarded the would-be visitors intently. The inspection appeared to result satisfactorily, for a few moments later he disappeared; a short interval of waiting ensued, then the gate swung open, and he came fearlessly forward, while the gates swung to behind him, and there was a sound of ponderous bars being shot into their sockets.
Judging from the richness of his dress and the quiet dignity of his manner, the man was probably an officer. He was apparently about thirty years of age, some five feet ten inches in height, and was well-made though perhaps a trifle slight in build. In complexion he was somewhat sallow, but he was distinctly good-looking, with a somewhat Hebrew cast of features, and with coal-black hair, eyebrows, beard and moustache, the beard trimmed square, and the hair worn rather long, trimmed square across the nape of the neck, with a short fringe trimmed square across the forehead. His eyes were black and piercing, but there was a straightforward honest look in them that instantly created a favourable impression. He was attired in helmet and corselet, apparently of gold, like those worn by the sentinel, but with the addition of a splendid plume of long black feathers surmounting his helmet. Beneath his corselet appeared a sort of skirt of fine chain mail reaching to just below the knees, and his legs were protected by greaves made of the same metal as the rest of his armour. His feet were encased in buskins, a sash of black and yellow passed over his left shoulder and was knotted upon his right hip, while at his left dangled a short sword encased in a jewelled scabbard, supported by a jewelled belt or chain of broad links, all made of the same gold-like metal. As he strode forward, his eyes glancing questioningly from Earle to Dick and back again, he threw up his open right hand, palm forward, and said a few words, which sounded like a greeting, in a full but very pleasant tone of voice. Like the speech of the sentinel, his words were quite unintelligible to those addressed, but his action seemed easily interpretable as the sign of peace, and Earle instantly imitated it.
“Thanks, old chap,” the American replied, beaming amiably upon the soldier; “it is good of you to say so; but I’m awfully sorry that I can’t understand you. The fact is, you know, that I and my friend Cavendish”—he indicated Dick with a wave of his hand—“have come all the way from New York expressly to discover your city—which I learn is called Ulua—”
The officer instantly caught the name Ulua and repeated it, smilingly pointing in the direction of the city.
“Yes,” proceeded Earle, “that is so. I guess you get me all right. We want to go in through that gate and make the acquaintance of your king, El Dorado, or whatever his name may be. Do you get that?”
All this was accompanied by much gesture, but it did not seem to be very illuminating to the officer, who merely repeated the word Ulua, pointing again toward the city. Then, pointing to himself, he pronounced the word “Adoni,” following it up by pointing at Earle, and uttering a word that sounded like “Hu.”
“Yes, sirree, I get you all right,” was Earle’s reply as he gripped the astonished man’s right hand and shook it heartily, smiling in his eyes as he did so. “Gee!” he exclaimed, turning to Dick, “we’re getting on like a house afire. He says his name is Adoni, and he asks who I am. Isn’t that right, old golden image?”
The “old golden image” looked a trifle nonplussed for a moment, but presently repeated his last performance; upon which Earle remarked:
“Of course, I knew I wasn’t mistaken. You sir,” pointing, “are named Adoni—” The officer nodded. “And I,” he continued pointing to himself, “am named Earle—Earle. You get that?”
“Adoni,” replied the officer, pointing to himself, “Earle”—pointing to the owner of the name.
“Right!” agreed Earle. “You are a quite intelligent guy, if I may be permitted to say so. And this youngster’s name is Dick—Dick. That’s easy enough to remember, isn’t it?”
“Adoni,” replied the officer, again pointing to himself. “Earle—Dick,” pointing first to one and then the other.
“Sure!” exclaimed Earle, delighted with the progress which he considered he was making. “I knew there must be a way of making you understand.” And he proceeded to explain all over again, and speaking very slowly, with plenty of gesture, his desire that he and his party might be allowed to pass through the gate and visit the city of Ulua. It was a tedious and lengthy process, but apparently it was in the end attended with a certain measure of success, for eventually the officer shouted an order, the gate was thrown open, and, taking Dick and Earle each by an arm, Adoni led the pair through. Inaguy and the other Indians, who had grounded their burdens while the long colloquy was proceeding, hastened to resume them and follow the white men, but before they could do so their leaders were inside, and the gate was bolted and barred upon them.
Taken by surprise for the moment, Earle did not realise what was happening until it was too late; but the instant that he did so he broke free from Adoni’s grasp and dashed up a flight of steps, which he saw a little ahead of him, and which he rightly guessed led up to the parapet. Arrived there he brushed aside the sentinel, who half-heartedly sought to bar his way and, rushing to the parapet, ordered Inaguy and the rest to remain where they were, and on no account to think of departing, for he would certainly arrange, sooner or later, for their admission. Then he calmly descended and surrendered himself to the astonished and somewhat amused Adoni, who said a few words which sounded as though they were intended to be reassuring.
Resuming the rôle of guide, Adoni now conducted the pair into a room in the rear portion of the tower, in which was a window opening, unglazed, affording a delightful view of the valley and lake, with the road leading thereto; and here they were turned over to another officer, who by signs, indicated a request that the strangers should remove their outer garments. Earle at first evinced a disposition to refuse this request, but Dick was less fastidious, and stripped to the waist without demur, whereupon the unnamed officer, who was evidently a physician of sorts, after glancing admiringly at the young Englishman’s stalwart proportions and magnificent muscular development—to which he particularly drew Adoni’s attention—proceeded to tap Dick on the chest and between the shoulders, listen to the action of his heart and lungs, punch him in the ribs, and act generally as though he were examining the lad on behalf of a life insurance company; finally expressing his approval of the youngster’s physical condition in a manner which there was no possibility of mistaking.
Then Earle was again invited to subject himself to the same ordeal, and this time he did so without demur, stripping off first his thin linen jacket, and next the light woollen singlet which he was wearing as a substitute for a shirt.
And now came a startling surprise. For the removal of Earle’s singlet revealed the curious lozenge-shaped jewel with its inset emerald, which he had removed from the neck of the idol in the sculptured cave discovered by Dick, and which the American had ever since worn round his neck for safe keeping. No sooner did the eyes of the examining officer glimpse the jewel than he uttered a strange cry, suggestive of the utmost astonishment. He gazed upon it with awe-struck eyes, drew cautiously near to inspect it more closely, half stretched forth a hand, seemingly to touch it, and then, suddenly, saying something to Adoni which seemed to suggest that a most wonderful and amazing thing had happened, prostrated himself at Earle’s feet, an example which Adoni instantly followed.
“Now, what in the nation does this mean?” demanded Earle in a low voice of Dick. “Why are these two guys kowtowing to me in this fashion? Gee! They surely don’t think that I’m some fancy god of theirs, come down from Olympus to visit them, as a special mark of favour, do they?”
“Well, it looks very much like it, by the way that they are carrying on,” returned Dick. “I think that it might help matters a bit, both now and in the future, if you were to play up to the idea and infuse a general air of benevolent condescension into your intercourse with them. I don’t see that it could possibly do any harm. Do you?”
“Don’t know,” answered Earle. “It might if, later on, they were to come to me and demand that I do some impossible thing for them. But, on the other hand, I guess it would be up to me to refuse, if I chose. On the whole, perhaps—and yet, I don’t know—Yes, I guess I’ll try it, and see how it works.”
Bending down, he lightly touched the two officers upon the shoulder and, when they ventured to glance up at him, graciously signed to them to rise, which they did, with every mark of the most profound reverence. From that moment there was no further trouble. Without waiting for permission from the examining officer, Earle calmly resumed his singlet and coat, taking care now, however, to leave fully exposed the jewel, or amulet, or whatever it was, that had produced such a wonderful effect; and this done, he signed to Adoni to open the gate and admit Inaguy and the rest of the Indians, which was instantly done. In the meantime, while the Indians were with much deliberation gathering up their loads and adjusting them upon their shoulders, in response to Earle’s reassuring call, Adoni and the other officer had withdrawn to a little distance and were plunged into an earnest, anxious consultation, the result of which was that, a few minutes later, a man, naked save for a sort of breech cloth wrapped about his loins, started out from the guard house and set off down the road leading to the city, as though running for his life.
As the last of the Indians passed through the gateway, the massive timber gates were closed and securely barred behind them, and Earle and Dick stepped forward to place themselves at their head, intending to resume their march toward Ulua. But Adoni, perceiving their intention, at once intervened and, firmly yet with the utmost reverence of manner, intimated by signs an earnest desire that the party would postpone their departure. He did this by standing before them in the middle of the road, with his arms outstretched as though to bar the way; then he signed to the Indians to remove themselves to a wide plot of grass by the side of the road and deposit their burden there; and finally beckoned the two white men to accompany him into the guard house, where he conducted them into a plainly but comfortably furnished room, and signed to them a request to rest themselves upon a couple of couches which he indicated, at the same time giving them to understand that a meal would presently be served to them.
Earle, well pleased at the success which had attended his effort to penetrate to the interior of the forbidden country, signified his acquiescence by seating himself on one of the couches, whereupon Adoni, equally well pleased, withdrew, with a profound bow, leaving the two friends to themselves.
“Well,” remarked Earle, rising from the couch and gazing with satisfaction upon the glorious prospect of lake and valley revealed by the window opening before which he placed himself, “we are inside the gate, and that is something achieved, anyway. For, at first, I feared that they were going to refuse us admission, and if they had done so I guess we should have found it a pretty difficult matter to get in. But our friend Adoni has evidently no authority to allow us to go on without first referring to the boss, whoever he may be; and I guess that naked runner was the bearer of a report and a request for further instructions. Now of course our line of conduct will be to conform to the manners and customs of the natives, so far as may be, and give no trouble; for our only object in coming here is to see the country and the people, and that can best be accomplished by keeping on good terms with everybody; therefore we will just let them make all the arrangements, and we will fall in with them. But I have great hopes from the possession of this jewel, which evidently has some powerful mystic significance in the eyes of these people. Adoni and the other fellow appeared to recognise it at once, and there can be no question as to the reverence with which they regard it. Judging from the behaviour of those two, the thing ought to secure us a very favourable reception at headquarters. I wish I knew the history of it.”
“We shall perhaps learn that later on,” returned Dick. “And I anticipate that when we do, it will prove both curious and romantic. The mere finding of it in that wonderful cavern was remarkable enough, but the astonishment and delight of Adoni at recognising it were still more remarkable, to my mind. To me, their behaviour was that of men suddenly brought face to face with something that they had almost despaired of ever seeing again.”
“Yes, I guess you are right,” agreed Earle. “Not that either of those two could ever have actually seen the thing, for it must have lain hidden in that cave for—well, a hundred years or more, I should say. But be that as it may, it is evidently in their eyes an object of extraordinary sanctity, and should—indeed, most probably does—confer some very special privileges upon its possessor, of which I shall feel justified in making the fullest use.”
The pair were still chatting in a somewhat desultory fashion when two men, evidently servants, entered the room, bearing a table already set for a meal, and they were immediately followed by others who brought in several smoking dishes of food, a jar of a light kind of wine, an open-work metal tray heaped with small cakes, and a piled-up basket of fruit, consisting of oranges, grapes, nectarines, and one or two other kinds which neither Earle nor Dick was able to identify. The plates, dishes, and drinking-cups were unmistakably of gold, but quite plain, as were the dagger-like knives and a kind of skewer which was evidently intended to serve as a fork. The food consisted of a stew, apparently of kid’s flesh, a roasted bird about the size of, and somewhat similar in flavour to, a duck, roasted yams, ears of green maize, boiled, and a dish of some kind of bean which both pronounced delicious; indeed the meal as a whole was excellent, and was done full justice to by both participants. The wine, too, if wine it was, was almost icy cold, and of exceedingly agreeable though somewhat peculiar flavour, and was apparently unfermented, for although both drank freely of it, it might have been pure water, so far as its intoxicant effect was concerned. At the conclusion of the meal Earle produced his pipe and, lighting up, sallied forth with Dick, to see how the Indian bearers were faring; his appearance, with smoke issuing from his mouth and nostrils, again so profoundly impressing the beholders that they were once more impelled to prostrate themselves as he passed by. The Indians, with characteristic philosophy, had camped on the grass plot at the side of the guard house, and had been as well cared for in their way as had their masters, and were evidently quite satisfied with the state of affairs in general.
The afternoon was well advanced when, as Dick and Earle sat in the embrasure of the window, looking out over the lake and valley, and chatting together upon the sort of reception which they might expect from the Uluans, they observed a light yellow cloud-like appearance across the lake, on that side of it upon which the city was built, and bringing their glasses to bear upon it, they perceived that it was dust, in the midst of which could be perceived the forms of horsemen and the glitter of accoutrements. After careful scrutiny, Earle pronounced the troop to be about a hundred strong, and it appeared to be advancing at a fairly rapid pace.
While the American kept his glasses bearing upon the cavalcade, Dick permitted his gaze to search the nearer landscape; and it was while he was thus engaged that he detected another and much smaller dust cloud, almost immediately beneath the guard house, on the road which wound round the south-eastern extremity of the lake toward that part of the valley where the cliff road leading to the guard house began. Focussing his glasses on this smaller dust cloud, he saw that it was caused by a group of three horsemen who were riding as if for their lives. Judging from the richness of their garb and the sumptuous trappings of their horses, they were persons of considerable consequence, and Dick, who always had an eye for detail, noticed that two of them, who rode a horse’s length in the rear of the third, carried each a capacious roll or bundle of some sort strapped to the bow of his saddle. He directed Earle’s attention to the little group; and together they watched it until it disappeared round a bend in the road.
“Coming here, I guess,” pronounced Earle. And half an hour later his surmise proved to be correct, for, still watching from the window, the pair again sighted the trio of horsemen urging their animals at top speed up the gentle slope of the cliff road toward the guard house.
A few minutes later the trio reined up their winded and sweat-lathered steeds and dismounted at the door of the guard house, where they were met and greeted with profound respect by Adoni; and while the leader, accompanied by Adoni, entered the building, the other two busied themselves unstrapping from their saddle bows the bundles which Dick had noticed, and bearing which they presently followed their leader.
For fully twenty minutes the newcomers remained in close conference with Adoni and the officer who had acted the part of medical examiner—and whose name, it transpired, was Camma—and at the end of the conference they were conducted by the two officers into the presence of Earle and Dick. It was Adoni who presented them, naming them respectively, Acor—who subsequently proved to be the captain of King Juda’s guard—Tedek and Kedah, the two latter being lieutenants in Acor’s corps. They were all fine, upstanding men, of distinctly imperious and haughty bearing—Acor perhaps exhibiting those characteristics most markedly, as was only natural, considering the exalted position which he occupied at Court, and the almost autocratic authority which he wielded; nevertheless, at the sight of Earle’s talisman, they suddenly subdued their haughty demeanour to one of deep reverence, and bowed low before the American, with their hands crossed upon their breasts, while they murmured a few words, which sounded like something in the nature of an invocation. Then they turned to Dick and, with a glance of admiration at his stalwart frame, bowed again, though with somewhat less of deference than they had manifested toward Earle. As for Earle, he did his best to act up to the distinguished position into which Fate seemed to have pitch-forked him, returning the bows of the officers with a slight inclination of the head and a still slighter flexure of the body, while he gazed upon them with a kind of bland abstraction; Dick imitating his friend’s deportment as closely as possible, though there was a gleam of frankness and friendliness in his eyes which Earle had not permitted to appear in his.
Notwithstanding a certain suggestion of reserve in the demeanour of the new arrivals, they could not altogether conceal the astonishment they evidently felt at the style and cut of the white men’s clothes—by this time very much the worse for wear and travel stains—which afforded so marked a contrast to their own splendid habiliments. The three officers were attired alike in helmets, corselets, greaves, and gauntlets of gold plate worn over a shirt of fine chain mail, also made of gold, and were armed with short swords, encased in golden scabbards suspended from belts consisting of gold plaques linked together. But there were certain differences in the uniform of the three; for whereas the plumes which adorned the helmets of the two lieutenants were black, those of their chief were red; and whereas their helmets were perfectly plain, Acor’s was richly decorated with embossed ornamentation. Also the arms of the two lieutenants were bare from corselet to gauntlet, while Acor’s were clad in sleeves of thin red silk. The lieutenants’ sashes were black and yellow; that of the captain red; they wore buskins of white leather, while his feet and legs were encased in golden armour to just below the knee; and lastly, his sword hilt, belt and scabbard were much more richly ornamented than theirs.
The introduction having been effected, Acor addressed himself at some length and with much gesture to Earle. Precisely what he said was of course unintelligible to the white men; but they gathered some hint of meaning from his gestures, which they interpreted—rightly, as afterwards transpired—as a sort of qualified welcome to Ulua, founded entirely upon Earle’s possession of the mysterious amulet. Acor concluded his address by beckoning forward his two lieutenants and directing the attention of the white men to the contents of the bundles, which, when unrolled, proved to be two dresses made of an exceedingly fine, silky sort of woollen material. The dresses consisted of a sort of singlet without sleeves, a pair of short pants somewhat like those worn by football players, and an outer garment, cut somewhat like a shirt, but rather longer, the hem reaching to just below the knee. This garment, made quite loose, was confined at the waist by a belt. The costumes were completed by the addition of sandals and a kind of turban. But the two costumes, although similar in cut, were different in appearance; for while that which was offered for Earle’s acceptance was decorated with turquoise blue braid sewn round the edges of the outer garment in a broad pattern very similar to the Greek “key” pattern, with an edging of bead fringe of the same colour, the ornamentation of the costume offered to Dick consisted of an elaborate pattern beautifully worked in red braid, with a fringe of red beads. The turbans, too, were somewhat different in shape, Earle’s being considerably the higher of the two, intertwined with a rope of large blue beads, while Dick’s was perfectly plain. Recognising that Acor was inviting them to accept these garments and don them, the two white men bowed their assent and took the garments, whereupon Acor and his lieutenants retired, leaving Earle and Dick to themselves. Truth to tell, the presented garments were most acceptable gifts, for not only were the clothes which the explorers were wearing grimy and tattered, but, having been originally designed for hard service, they were also unpleasantly heavy and hot, so that their owners were only too glad to discard them in favour of others much more suited to the climate, and the pair lost no time in effecting the change.
They had scarcely done so when the sound of horses’ hoofs approaching up the road attracted their attention, and going to the window, they perceived a dozen horsemen, with two led horses, galloping toward the guard house. A few minutes later, these having arrived, Acor presented himself, and by signs invited the two white men to follow him. This they did, passing out of the guard house just as three servants led forth the horses of Acor and his two lieutenants, which meanwhile had been groomed and fed. Then, as the two white men stepped forth into the open, each of the newly-arrived horsemen flung up his right hand in salute and shouted a word that sounded remarkably like “Hail!” The two led horses were then brought forward, and with a gesture of deference, Acor invited his two guests—or were they prisoners?—to mount.
The horses were beautiful animals, full of mettle and fire, notwithstanding the journey which they had just performed, and they were most sumptuously caparisoned, the saddles, though differently shaped from the European or American article, being made of soft leather, thickly padded, with a handsome saddle cloth beneath, under which again was a fine net made of thin silk cord, reaching from the animal’s withers to his tail, the edges of the net being fringed with small tassels.
Earle was of course an accomplished horseman, riding indeed like a cowboy, and therefore, out of a feeling of compassion for his companion, he chose what appeared to be the most mettlesome of the two proffered horses; but Dick, although a sailor, had also learned how to keep his seat upon a horse’s back, and the manner in which the pair lightly swung themselves up into the saddle, and the easy grace with which they retained their seats, despite the curvetting and prancing of their steeds, evoked a low murmur of admiration from the beholders as the latter formed up round the white men.
Then, just as Adoni and Camma were bidding their strange guests a respectful farewell, Earle noticed that his Indian followers and all his goods had disappeared.
“Say!” he exclaimed, seizing Acor by the arm and pointing to the spot where the Indians had been camped a couple of hours earlier—“where are my Indians? Surely, you haven’t turned them out, have you?”
The tone of voice in which the question was put and the gesture which accompanied it were evidently quite intelligible, for Acor instantly replied in deferential tones, at the same time pointing down the road; and, sure enough, after the cavalcade had proceeded about two miles, Inaguy and his companions were overtaken, trudging cheerfully along under the escort of a man who both Dick and Earle remembered having seen about the guard house earlier in the day.
The two friends, with their escort, reached the foot of the cliff road, after a ride of some six miles, shortly after the sun had disappeared behind the mountains at the western end of the valley. They were now in the valley itself, with mountains hemming them in on every hand; and as they gazed upward in wonder at the high, vertical cliffs all round them, they realised at last that they were inside an absolutely impregnable fortress, hewn out of the mountain range by the hand of Nature herself, and accessible only by air, or by the road which they had just traversed. After a thoroughly comprehensive survey of their surroundings, Earle explained to Dick that the only theory upon which he could account for so extraordinary a formation was, that thousands, or possibly even millions, of years ago the valley had been the crater of a gigantic volcano which, after the volcano had become extinct, had gradually filled with débris, leaving a depression in the middle, which in process of time, had become a lake. And, indeed, if the theory of a volcano upon so gigantic a scale could but be accepted, it looked very much as though Earle’s explanation might be correct; for the soil of the valley—a belt of flat land some two miles wide, extending all round the lake—was light and friable, but extraordinarily rich, as is apt to be the case with volcanic soil, while the vertical cliffs which hemmed it in all round bore a striking resemblance to the interior of certain well-known craters.
Just clear of the foot of the cliff road the party came upon an encampment, easily recognisable as that of the body of soldiers seen advancing from the city earlier in the day; and here the night was spent, the two white men being housed in a capacious tent, most luxuriously furnished and adorned, in which, shortly after their arrival, a meal of so elaborate a description, that it might almost be termed a banquet, was served to them by a staff of reverentially obsequious servants, and in which they subsequently slept the sleep of the just, on great piles of soft rugs spread upon the short grass.