“Modern rack and thumbscrew,” exclaimed David, eyeing curiously the machine whose gleaming surface of glass and polished metal was in striking contrast with the somber oratory.
Harold Leighton paid no heed to the comment. He was apparently too busied with some detail in the complicated mechanism before him to attend to anything else. David and Una, on the other hand, were more amused than impressed with the odd kind of entertainment chosen for this memorable evening of their betrothal by the eccentric scientist, although every now and then some unexpected bit of irony from him came disconcertingly enough.
“Why should people, whose lives are blameless, think of racks and thumbscrews when they see a simple machine like this?” he asked suddenly, taking up David’s apparently unnoted exclamation. Not waiting for an answer, he went on, as if with a lecture to which they had been invited to listen.
“So far as I know this machine is the first of its kind to reach this country. It is an ingenious development of certain laws psychologists have been using for some time in their experiments, and is based on a theory that is, roughly, something like this:
“A thought is a part of the body that gives it birth. Thinking is not confined to the brain. Like the assimilation of food, it involves man’s entire physical nature. In cases of exaggerated thought or emotion—intense grief, fear, joy—the physical effects are obvious. The scientist, however, claims that the physical result from a mental cause is not confined to these extreme cases. A thought, the presence of which is not perceptible in gesture, facial expression, or the slightest visible emotion, is, nevertheless, communicated physically to every part of the body. Throw a stone into a pool of water. If the stone is large, the waves caused by it can be seen until they spend themselves on the shore; if it is small, the resulting ripples become invisible long before that. The point is, the ripple exists, whether we see it or not, just as does the wave, until it has run its course.
“A thought, in its physical effect, is like the stone thrown into a pool. If it is a big, exaggerated thought, the agitation produced is outwardly visible. If it is small, more subtle, less sensational, its physical effects are invisible, although, theoretically, reaching in ripples to the extremities of the body. Hence, the psychologist’s problem is: to detect and measure these invisible, intangible ripples of the mind.
“This machine, my ‘ghost-hunter,’ solves the problem. A Russian scientist discovered that an electric current passing through the body is affected by any abnormal physical, or nervous, activity there encountered. Thought is a form of electric impulse and would, therefore, modify any other electric force crossing its path. Hence, Tarchanoff’s law. Its practical application means, the literal measurement of our mental ripples. And this is done by the psychometer.”
“How?” asked David.
“It’s very simple. You hold these electrodes in your hands. An electric current is turned on and passes through you. While you are thus charged with electricity, I throw the stone, the thought, into your mind. The degree, or quality, of disturbance caused by this thought modifies the electric current, the varying agitation of which is made visible by the movements of an electric finger across this mirror. From there it is recorded on the sheet of paper in this cylinder.”
“What a horrible contrivance!” exclaimed Una.
“I see how it works,” mused David, “except for one thing. How do you introduce the thought you want to measure?”
“If I explain that the experiment wouldn’t be possible,” said Leighton with a laugh. “The thought must come through unconscious suggestion, or our Ghost of the Forgotten will refuse to appear. In a way, it is like a game—and is more interesting than most games. Did you ever play the game of twenty questions?”
“I have,” interjected Una. “It’s this way. Something—a book, a piece of furniture, anything at all—is chosen by one set of players to be guessed by the other set. Then the set who know the secret have to answer twenty questions about it, asked by the other side. The questions sound silly, but they usually discover the secret.”
“Is your experiment like Una’s game?” asked David.
“Not exactly. Sit down in this chair and you’ll see.”
Seated as directed, the psychometer stood a little back and at one side of him.
“Now,” said Leighton, giving him the electrodes, “hold these, one in each hand.”
“It’s like an electrocution!” exclaimed Una. “Are you very uncomfortable?”
“Oh, quite the contrary! Now, Mr. Leighton——”
“Ready? Here goes the current. You will scarcely feel it.”
Leighton pulled out a small lever. A faint humming sound was heard. The electric finger on the mirror in the machine became suddenly illuminated.
“Do you feel it?” asked Una.
“Yes; it’s rather nice. This hero business is all right, especially when you preside at the performance, Una.”
“Now for your game of twenty questions, Uncle Harold. Of course, you are going to let me into the secret?”
“How can I?” he retorted. “David has the secret.”
“I have it?” repeated the other, perplexed.
“Certainly. But this isn’t exactly a game. You’ll find it tedious, Una. Why not stay with Mrs. Quayle in the library until it’s over?”
“Nonsense! Of course I’ll stay here,” she replied firmly.
“What am I to do?” asked David. “Holding these handles is easy enough—but nothing happens.”
“Let me explain,” said Leighton. “I am going to give you, one at a time, a number of disconnected words. As you hear each word, you must reply with the first word that suggests itself to your mind. For instance, suppose I say ‘black.’ The word gives rise, instantly, to some answering mental picture, and that picture will suggest a word with which your experience has associated it. Thus, when I say ‘black,’ you may think of ‘night’; or, if your thought goes by contraries, the word ‘white’ may occur to you. In any case, tell me the first word that comes into your mind upon hearing my word—and remember that the promptness of your reply is an important factor in the experiment.”
“It sounds easy,” remarked David. “Let’s begin.”
On a small table at which he was standing, Leighton placed his watch, a writing-pad and pencil. Seating himself, he commenced the experiment in the way he had proposed, noting each word as he gave it on the pad before him, and marking the number of seconds elapsing before each of David’s answers. Una, ensconced in a large armchair, watched the scene intently.
“Theater,” was Leighton’s first word.
“Music,” came the prompt reply.
“Noise.”
“Sleep.”
“Lion.”
“Teeth.”
“Sound.”
“Desert.”
“Ocean.”
“Blue.”
A long series of similar question and answer-words followed, apparently chosen at random and not indicating any sequence of ideas. Leighton spoke with exaggerated monotony, his eyes fixed on David, his hand moving with mechanical precision as he jotted down the words and the time taken for each reply. Scarcely any agitation was noticeable in the finger of light upon the mirror, and this part of the experiment seemed—at least to Una—a failure.
“I don’t see what the machine has to do with it,” she said, somewhat puzzled. “David could just as well answer your words without holding those things in his hands.”
“Una,” said Leighton, giving this as the next question-word and ignoring the interruption.
David smiled, hesitated a moment before replying, while the electric finger trembled slightly and then moved, slowly and evenly, back and forth across the mirror.
“Light,” he answered softly.
More question-words followed, most of them receiving prompt answers and producing no appreciable effect in the psychometer. It was noticeable, however, that words having to do with places gave a different result—a vibration of the electric finger, indicating, according to the theory, that they awakened a deeper interest than other words in David’s mind.
In experiments of this kind the operator’s choice of words is carefully made, as a rule, and not left to chance. They usually have a certain continuity of meaning. Theoretically, also, the operator’s personality is kept in the background, so that the subject is freed from any emotional impulse save that created in him by the question-words. But there is always the possibility that this personality will unconsciously influence the subject’s mind, which is thus impelled in directions it might not otherwise take. Hypnotism may thus, unintentionally, play a part in an experiment of this kind, and the subject made to follow, in the words uttered and the degree of emotion displayed, his inquisitor’s suggestions.
It would be hard to tell whether hypnotism gradually came into Leighton’s experiment with David. Certain it is that as the trial went on a change came over the two men. Their features grew tense, they were as vigilant to thrust and parry in this game of words as two fencers fighting on a wager whose loss would mean much to either of them. In David anxiety was more marked. The electric finger in the psychometer, unconsciously controlled by him, moved more rapidly and with greater irregularity over the face of the mirror. At times it remained fixed in one place; then, with Leighton’s utterance of some new word, it would leap spasmodically forward, in a jagged line of light which would be recorded automatically on the cylinder at the back of the machine.
David could not see what was happening in the psychometer. Outwardly he showed no emotion, except the anxiety to hold his own in this word duel with Leighton. Nevertheless, the electric current passing through him registered a series of impressions that grew in variety and intensity. Theoretically, these impressions were David’s thoughts and feelings acting upon the electric finger; and thus the line of light traced upon the mirror was really a picture of his own mind.
For Una the affair had lost its first element of comedy. The meaningless words, the monotonous seriousness with which they were uttered, seemed, in the beginning, a delicious bit of fooling improvised for her benefit. She delighted in the original, the unexpected, and nothing, certainly, could be more foreign to the customary betrothal night entertainment than this ponderous pairing of words between her lover and her uncle. The real purpose of the experiment had not impressed her. The talk about ghosts gave an amusing background to it; but this was afterwards spoiled, it is true, by the tedious discussion of psychological problems. Of course, Una assured herself, this experiment—or this game—was a psychological problem, and she felt certain David would solve it, whatever it might be, in the cleverest fashion.
Had Una understood from the first just what Leighton intended by his proposed “ghost-hunt” she would have followed more keenly the details of this novel pastime. As it was, these details appeared to have no intelligible object in view and failed to arouse her interest until some little time had elapsed. Then she began speculating on the meaning of her uncle’s disconnected words and wondering why they drew from David just the replies they did. More to amuse herself than anything else she compared the images which these words evidently aroused in David’s mind with the images suggested to her.
For “ship,” he gave “sky”; she thought of “water.” “Mountain” produced “tired”; she would have said “view.” Her word for “river” was “rowing”; his “sunshine.” He said “mystery” for “Africa”; she, “negroes.” His words were never the same as hers, a fact indicating the wide differences in their individual experiences. More singular still, David’s words were always remote, in meaning or association, from the question-words to which they were the answer; hers were quite the opposite. Why, she asked herself, did he say “anger” in response to “India”; “misery” to “temple”; “joy” to “ocean”; “lost” to “guide”; “slave” to “friend”?
As the experiment progressed most of her uncle’s words were bound together, Una noticed, by a similarity in character. She even fancied she could detect in them the disjointed bones of a story. Most of these words had to do with foreign travel, and as David was known to have visited many countries it was natural that the test should follow this line, especially as this was a quest for the Ghost of the Forgotten. In this connection it was noticeable that the series of words chosen by Leighton reversed the itinerary which Una was certain David had followed. Thus, the first question-words indicated the English Lake region, where David had ended his travels. Then came various European countries, and after these Morocco, Egypt, Arabia, India, China, the Islands of the Pacific and the western coast of America. Supposing that Leighton had David’s actual itinerary in mind, he was going over it by a series of backward steps, and had now reached a point at which, as Una remembered, the long journey began. With each backward step, also, she noted that the agitation of the electric finger in the psychometer increased. David could not see what was happening in the machine behind him, although it was his own emotions that were being recorded there. Why was he so agitated? Why did he try to hide his feelings? Why did these simple words from Leighton have such power over him? As Una asked herself these questions her sympathy for him increased, and she awaited the end of the experiment with anxiety.
Leighton paused after David matched his question-word, “California,” with “home.” The electric finger threw a tremulous line of light upon the recording mirror, and in both men the indifference shown when they began this strange game was lacking. The expectancy in David’s face changed to defiance as “California” was followed by the question-word “ship.” The electric finger gave a swift upward flash, and there was a longer pause than usual before the answer came—“storm.” “Pacific” was met by “palm trees”; and these were followed by “land,” “Indians”; “hotel,” “strangers”; “natives,” “lost”; “clew,” “wealth.”
With the last pair of words the agitation recorded in the psychometer reached its highest point. David’s face was pale, his features drawn, his grasp on the electrodes tense. Una could not bear to witness his struggle. Although ignorant of the cause, his suffering was all too evident, and she determined to rescue him at once from her uncle’s cruelty. Leighton met her appeal with characteristic coolness, ignoring her demand to bring the experiment to an end. But he changed the sequence of words he had been using.
“Homer” was the next question-word given.
The effect was immediate. David looked at the old man with astonishment. The jerky motion of the electric finger ceased, while instead an even line of light was traced over the mirror. The answer-word came promptly this time: “Iliad.”
A series of similar words followed, and as the experiment took this new direction David’s nervousness vanished. Then, without warning, the travel series was taken up again; and this time each word came like the blow of a hammer upon a nail that is swiftly and surely driven to its mark.
There was no mistaking the result. David’s limbs stiffened, as if to ward off a blow. His look of relief gave place to a hopeless sort of misery; the telltale electric finger jumped forward in exaggerated lines as if to escape from some merciless pursuer.
“South America,” demanded Leighton.
“Spaniards,” after a pause, was David’s answering word.
“Mountains.”
“Muleback.”
“Lake.”
“Gold.”
The answers were hesitatingly given, almost inaudible. Again Una protested.
“Stop!” she commanded. “You have no right——”
Leighton waved her imperiously aside.
“Dynamite,” he continued, addressing David.
“Darkness,” came the hesitating answer.
“Raoul Arthur.”
Silence. A weird dance, as of some mocking spirit, seized the electric finger pointing at the mirror. Una knelt at David’s side, her hands upon his shoulders. His lips quivered as he looked despairingly at her.
“Guatavita,” said Leighton harshly.
No answer. The electrodes slipped from David’s grasp. The finger of light became suddenly motionless.
David had fallen, unconscious, in Una’s arms.
“Leave him with me,” said Leighton. “Wait for us with Mrs. Quayle.”
“No! No!” answered the girl passionately, kneeling beside David, who was lying on the couch. “You have killed him!”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” he said coldly, yet with sympathy in his keen gray eyes. “This had to be, and I took my own way about it. Now, go. He is all right. He is safe with me.”
David drew a long breath. He looked vacantly at Leighton, then turned to Una.
“Do as he says,” he whispered.
“David, I will stay with you.”
“Not now; I must speak to your uncle.”
“David!”
She looked into his eyes, trying to read there the mystery that was parting them.
“It will be better for all of us,” said Leighton gruffly.
Unable to hide her fears, Una rose and moved away from them. The boards of the well worn floor creaked harshly as she walked to the far end of the room. Pausing at the door, she looked back.
“I will wait for you,” she said.
When the sound of her footsteps died away, David turned to the old man, who was busied with his scientific apparatus.
“Well, how do you feel?” asked Leighton, gathering up the notes which were strewn on the little table.
“Curiously here,” replied David, drawing his hand across his forehead. Then he asked: “How did you know?”
“That’s easily answered. About two years ago I read, in the Journal of Psychology, a paper by your friend, Raoul Arthur, describing the strange mental effect produced on a young man by a dynamite explosion in a South American mine. Arthur is something of an authority in abnormal psychology, and his report of the accident interested me. The name of the young man was not given. I made inquiries long before our chance meeting with you in England. I learned, among other things, who the young man was. Before we met on the Derwentwater, I had watched you at the hotel.”
“You wrote to Raoul Arthur?”
“I did not,” he answered drily. “A newspaper account of the accident gave me the clue I needed. According to this account, you were killed in the mine explosion, and no trace of your body or clothing was found. It was long afterwards, in Arthur’s report, that your reappearance, under peculiar circumstances, was described. Since then I have learned of your travels. But I have noticed that you always avoid any reference to your South American experiences. So, I appealed to the psychometer.”
Leighton, absorbed in his notes, was apparently unaware of the eagerness with which David followed his explanation.
“It’s all very simple,” mused the young man. “And yet, it seemed like necromancy.”
“Science is not necromancy.”
“But the report,” urged David; “I didn’t know Raoul had written a report.”
“You know he is a psychologist, a hypnotist?”
“Yes,” was the answer, with something of a shudder. “But—why all this elaborate experiment of yours?”
“To prove a theory—and to be certain about you.”
“Why?”
“What a question! You expect to marry Una. Before your marriage takes place—if it does take place—I wish to clear up whatever mystery there is hanging over your past.”
“And your experiment has shown you——?” David asked in a low voice.
“It confirms the theories of Tarchanoff and Jung,” he replied pedantically. “It proves the intimate connection existing between mental and physical phenomena. The personal result is still incomplete. On that side I must know more.”
“I will tell you what I can,” said David resolutely. “But first—what has Raoul written about me?”
“Merely a reference. Read it after you have told me your story. Our experiment is still unfinished, you know.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the very thing you want to know. The series of words in your test seemed to revive some forgotten nightmare; and the horror of it was that this nightmare kept just beyond my reach—as it always does—its riddle unsolved. This, with your strange knowledge of what had happened, surprised me into this ridiculous weakness.”
“So I thought,” said Leighton. “Now, what do you remember?”
“I’ll have to go back a little. But—you probably know it all, you know so much of my history.”
“Never mind. I want you to prove the truth of what I know.”
David looked at Leighton doubtfully.
“Very well,” he said, “I’ll do what I can.”
Much of his story, as he told it, was decidedly vague. In the main outline, however, it was simple enough, although ending in a mystery that he was unable to clear up.
Three years ago, it seems, David went to work on a project based on a legend belonging to prehistoric America. Traditions of the immense wealth and the civilization found in certain parts of South America by the Spanish conquerors had always fascinated him. And of all these traditions the one telling of El Dorado, the Gilded Man, interested him most.
From the early South American chronicles he learned that, within a few years of Pizarro’s discovery of Peru, three other explorers, starting independently from points on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, after months of perilous adventure, reached a great tableland in the Upper Andes, where Bogota, the capital of Colombia, now stands. It was “El Dorado” who drew these explorers thither. From the Indians on the coast they had heard stories of the great Man of Gold, who lived among the mountains of the interior and who possessed treasure so vast that all the wealth of the rest of the world could not equal it. Arrived in this mysterious region, they found, not El Dorado, but a superior race of people, somewhat like the ancient Peruvians, showing, in the barbaric splendor of their temples and palaces, every evidence of wealth and culture. These people, however, known as the Chibchas from their worship of the god Chibchacum, were suspicious of the Spaniards. A war of conquest followed, in which thousands of the natives were massacred and their finest temples and monuments destroyed. Sajipa, the Chibcha king, was subjected to the cruelest torture by his conquerors in their effort to find out from him where he had hidden his treasure. But he proved hero enough to suffer martyrdom rather than reveal the secret. For this he was put to death, and the Spaniards contented themselves with the trivial amount of gold and emeralds extorted from his subjects. They then established themselves in colonies on the Plains of Bogota. The climate was delightful, the land fertile and, as they soon discovered, rich in minerals. From the few surviving Indians they learned some of the native legends. In one of these, the legend of El Dorado, they believed they had the clew to the treasure they had been seeking. This legend was mixed up with the ancient mythology of the Chibchas, and had played a leading part in their religious ceremonial for centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. It was as follows:
On the edge of the Bogota tableland, not many miles from the city that is to-day the capital of Colombia, there is a lake, Guatavita—the Sacred Lake of the Chibchas. Geologically, it is a pocket formed by a cluster of spurs near the foot of a conical mountain. It is small, circular in shape, and reaches a central depth of 214 feet. Beneath this lake, according to tradition, lived the national god, Chibchacum. To keep on the right side of this god, to make atonement for the people, a semi-annual feast was observed—the Feast of El Dorado.
Twice a year the king of the Chibchas, in celebrating this Feast, was floated on a raft to the center of the Sacred Lake. He was then stripped of his royal robes, his body anointed with oil and covered with gold dust. Glittering in the sunlight this Gilded Man stood at the edge of the royal raft and was saluted by his subjects, who encircled the shores of the lake, each one bearing an offering of gold and emeralds. Then, as if dazzled by the splendor of their monarch, the people reverently turned their faces away from him and, at a signal from the priests, threw their treasures over their heads into the lake, while the Gilded Man, followed by the heaps of precious stones and metals which were with him on the raft, plunged into its waters. No god ever received such a shower of wealth at his shrine as was thus lavished twice a year, for centuries, on the god Chibchacum. All this wealth, except an insignificant sum that the Spaniards rescued, is to-day, according to the legend, at the bottom of Guatavita.
Besides this semi-annual tribute, it was rumored that at the time of Sajipa’s murder the entire remaining treasure of the Chibchas had been thrown into the lake, not as a votive offering, but as a means of hiding it from the Spaniards. It took fifty men, so runs tradition, to carry the gold dust to Guatavita from the king’s treasury alone. All the minor chieftains of the kingdom made a similar sacrifice of their possessions on this occasion.
Years afterwards, the Spaniards, stirred by these stories, attempted to drain the lake. This meant the piercing of earth and rock walls nearly nine hundred feet thick and proved too great an undertaking for the engineering machinery that they had in those days. But before they gave up the work they succeeded in lowering the level of the lake sufficiently to recover a certain amount of treasure. Since that time the secret of Guatavita has remained undisturbed. To solve it David went to Bogota. Raoul Arthur, who had done most of the practical planning for the expedition, went with him.
The motives of the two men engaged in the enterprise were not exactly similar. David, according to what he told Leighton, hoped to solve an archæological riddle and to study a hitherto lost people whose prehistoric civilization equaled that of their neighbors, the Incas of Peru. Arthur, on the contrary, whose fortune was still to be made, regarded it frankly as a mining scheme that promised fabulous returns in money, with a comparatively small amount of risk and labor. The two points of view were not antagonistic, and for a time the friends worked amicably enough together. In Bogota they easily secured from the government the necessary permit to drain Guatavita. But the attractions of the Colombian capital, the hospitality with which they were received, delayed the actual working out of their plans. Fascinated by the romance of this picturesque city and charmed by the unique race of mountaineers inhabiting it, David postponed the prosaic task of mining, while Raoul became absorbed in studies relating to their proposed venture, meeting people with whom his companion seldom came in contact. Lake Guatavita and its secret was thus, for a time, forgotten—at least by David.
When the social gayeties of the capital were exhausted, he took up in earnest the work he had planned to do. He bought a full equipment of the best mining machinery and hired a large number of laborers. But the enterprise proved more difficult than he expected. The Spaniards, who had worked at the problem three centuries before, were bound to fail on account of their lack of engineering machinery. To empty Lake Guatavita, they tried to cut through the mountain which formed one of the containing walls of that body of water. Under the circumstances their partial success was amazing. The V-shaped gash they cut through the mountain is a proof of their industry, even if it failed of its full purpose. But it did lower the level of the lake—although this result was followed by an unforeseen catastrophe. The sudden release of the water through the channel opened for it left the precipitous shores of the lake unsupported. These shores then caved in, covering whatever treasure there might be in the center of the basin with masses of rock and earth, and thus placing a new obstacle in the way of the future miner.
David and Raoul took the problem from a different angle. They abandoned the old cuttings of the Spaniards and planned a tunnel through the thinnest part of the mountain to the bottom of the lake. In this way they hoped to control the outflow of water, after which, they calculated, the recovery of the treasure would be a mere matter of placer mining. To do this they had boring machines and dynamite—modern giants, of whose existence the old Spaniards never dreamed.
As a first test of the existence of treasure in the lake, native divers explored some of the shallow places near the shore. A few ancient gold images were thus secured, enough to corroborate the legend regarding Guatavita. These images were curiously carved. One represented a small human figure seated in a sort of sedan chair. Another was a heart-shaped breastplate upon which were embossed human faces and various emblems. Others were statuettes, rude likenesses, probably, of those who threw them into the lake as votive offerings.
These gold tokens spurred on the miners. Work on the tunnel was rushed, and a subterranean passage, several hundred feet in length, directed to a point just below the bottom of the lake, was soon completed. Then a peculiarly hard rock formation was reached that the boring machines could not pierce. To overcome it, dynamite was used.
“Since dynamite was one of the final words in your test,” said David, in telling his story to Leighton, “you know that its use in our venture brings the climax of my mining experience. How to explain this climax to you—or to myself—is beyond me.
“When we decided to use dynamite in our excavations, a long fuse was laid from the tunnel’s entrance to the unyielding wall at the other end. There this fuse was connected with a dynamite charge placed in the crevice of the rock to be destroyed. Raoul, waiting to set off the fuse, remained at the opening of the tunnel. I was at the further end, looking after the laying of the dynamite. As I started for the entrance, I was a little behind the others. The latter no sooner gained the outer air than a muffled roar shook the tunnel. The ground swayed, the terrific concussion of air seemed to rend my very brain, and I fell unconscious.”
David’s story came abruptly to an end. Pale and listless, wearied by the effort to give a coherent account of his experiences, he looked hopelessly at Leighton.
“Well,” said the latter, “what then?”
“If I could only tell you!”
“Surely, you remember something—there is some clew——”
“Nothing! Just—darkness.”
“Some faint flashes here and there—glimpses of people, scenes, a house, a street—the sound of voices, a word——?”
“Nothing!”
“Try to remember.”
“No use. I’ve tried it too often. It’s all a blank. I thought, for an instant, that in your psychometer test the veil would be lifted. Instead—as you know—I went to pieces.”
“Very well,” said Leighton reassuringly, “let us go back to your story. You were in the tunnel when the dynamite went off. You were thrown to the ground; you lost consciousness. What is the next step in memory?”
“Wait,” said David slowly. “The explosion was on the ninth of May. The date was indelibly fixed in my mind; I have verified it since. When I recovered consciousness——”
“You mean, your normal consciousness,” interjected Leighton.
“Very well. When I came to myself, then, it was on the morning of the fifth of August.”
“Nearly three months afterwards,” ruminated the old man. “You found yourself——?”
“Seated in a chair, in a room in a strange house in Bogota.”
“Alone?”
“Raoul Arthur was with me. He was bending over me, his eyes fixed on mine, making passes with his hand before my face.”
“You were in a hypnotic trance.”
“I was coming out of one apparently.”
“It would be hard to define your condition. Of course, after the explosion you had been picked up and carried to this house in Bogota, where you had remained, suffering from a severe nervous shock—perhaps concussion of the brain—for three months.”
“I had been in that house scarcely an hour before my memory was suddenly revived.”
“How do you know that?” demanded Leighton sharply.
“The rainy season was on in August in Bogota. I found myself in my riding dress. My rubber poncho, dripping with rain, was on the floor. My boots, the spurs still attached to the heels, were caked with mud.”
“And Arthur told you——?”
“At first, I was bewildered, as one is when suddenly aroused from a long sleep. With full return of consciousness, I asked Raoul how I came to be there. He said he didn’t know.”
“He must have given some explanation.”
“Very little. What he said mystified me more than ever. He declared that a short time before a messenger had come saying that I was in the house, waiting for him.”
“Whose house was it?”
“Raoul’s. He had rented it two months before and was living in it alone with two servants who were running it for him.”
“And this messenger——?”
“An Indian, whom neither of us saw or heard of again, although we inquired high and low.”
“The servants must have had information to give?”
“On being questioned they said I had arrived that morning on horseback, with an Indian, who left me there. This Indian was probably the messenger who informed Raoul of my arrival, and who afterwards disappeared. My horse was tethered in the courtyard.”
“The clews seem to have been pretty well obliterated,” remarked Leighton sarcastically. “But Arthur must have been able to shed some light on the affair.”
“He said that when he found me, I did not recognize him and was in a sort of dazed mental state. Then he tried hypnotism. He had often hypnotized me before that, and was thus familiar with my condition while in a trance. Well, as soon as he saw me, after my long disappearance, he declared that I showed every symptom of hypnotic trance. So, he at once tried the usual method for bringing me back to a normal condition—and with complete success.”
“In his report Arthur emphasizes that as the singular feature of the case. His account, so far as it goes, agrees with yours. It gives the facts of the explosion, how you were supposed to be killed, how you disappeared for three months, and how, when you were found, you were in a trance from which he awakened you.”
“Does he say that, on coming out of the trance, I could remember nothing that happened during those three months?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there’s the whole case. You know all that I do about it.”
“All that Raoul Arthur knows?”
“All that he says he knows.”
“Ah, then you have your doubts?”
“Just a suspicion. I have a feeling that he could tell more about my disappearance than he chose to tell.”
“Why did you leave him?”
“I left Bogota the day after I came out of the trance. My distrust of Raoul and the horror that I felt for everything connected with my mysterious experience, made my stay there more than I could stand. But we parted friends, and I’ve sent him money to go on with the excavations. How he’s getting on I can’t tell you. I’ve lost my interest in El Dorado. I won’t visit Bogota again.”
For some minutes Leighton paced up and down the shadowy room. Then he stopped, with the air of one who has reached a decision.
“Our course is plain,” he announced.
“I’ve tried everything; there’s nothing to be done,” said the other hopelessly.
“David, you’ve missed the obvious thing,” was the emphatic reply. “We must go to Bogota.”
“Go to Bogota!”
“You and I will face Arthur together. If he knows anything more about this matter, he’s bound to tell us. If he doesn’t know—if your suspicions are groundless—we’ll solve the mystery of those three months some other way. And perhaps we’ll stumble upon your Gilded Man at the same time,” he added with a chuckle.
“And Una——?”
“She has a way of deciding things for herself. For all I know she may want to go with us.”
“Would you consent?”
“There’s no reason against it. In a ghost hunt a woman’s wit may help.”
“Very well, then,” said David, new energy in his words and manner.
“You agree?”
“I am entirely in your hands.”
“Then we’ll take up our interesting little experiment again in the land of El Dorado—and this time we’ll run it out to the end.”
“Without a psychometer, I hope,” said David.
There is in Bogota a street, the Calle de Las Montanas, that meanders down from the treeless foothills of the gray mountain ridge overlooking the city, and broadens out into a respectable thoroughfare before losing itself in the plaza upon which, facing each other diagonally, stand the venerable Catedral de Santa Fe and the National Capitol. This street, resembling the bed of a mountain stream, in the first half mile of its course runs through a huddle of lowly houses whose thatched roofs and white adobe walls seldom reach more than one story in height. The inhabitants of this district are called, in playful irony, by their more prosperous neighbors, “paisanos,” fellow-citizens; or else, scornful of compliment, “peons,” day-laborers. Here dwell the teamsters of the city, the washerwomen, the tinkers, the runners, the street-sweepers, the beggars, the proprietors of small tiendas, the bootblacks, the vendors of sweets—a mixed army of workers and idlers, who gain a livelihood, as chance favors, by their hands or their wits.
The peon of Colombia is an interesting possibility. He is more Indian than Spanish, but he has developed certain novelties of feature that belong to neither of these parent races. He has something of the savagery of the one, and the romance of the other; yet he is quite unlike Spaniard or Indian, and when these have disappeared from the mountain republic the peon will take their place. To-day he lacks the energy needed for self-assertion. There have been occasions, however, when this peasant of the Andes has taken the lead in a popular uprising and, although he has usually failed to win what he was after, his reserve of power promises well for the future of his race.
It was the politically awakened peon who was in evidence on a certain morning in Bogota, not so very long ago, at the upper end of the Calle de Las Montanas. The sign of his awakening was to be seen in an unusual commotion among the good-natured “paisanos” of the street, from which an onlooker might reach the astonishing conclusion that some sort of “demonstration” was under way. Revolutionary or otherwise, there are people, it would seem, who engage in these affairs simply through a desire for sociability. Their warlike declarations are really not unamiable. An Andean revolution, indeed, may not be more terrifying than a “fiesta,” and is never so noisy. In either case, these people make common cause of their joys or their grievances; and it was unquestionably a sudden burst of neighborliness that brought the inhabitants of the Calle de Las Montanas together on this particular morning.
An army of bootblacks was assembled in the middle of the street. Bogota, ancient seat of the Muyscas, City of the Mountains, is, for some unknown reason, rich in bootblacks. Hence, it was not surprising to find a hundred or more knights of the brush and bottle mustered here. They were of varying age and size, clad in nondescript rags, over which protectingly flapped the ruana, or poncho, a garment inherited from the Indians, and now universally worn in Spanish America. War’s ordinary weapons were lacking in this tattered regiment. Instead of sword and musket each youngster carried in front of him, hanging from his neck, a rude box containing the bottles and brushes needed in his calling. Ordinarily these weapons are harmless enough; but these volunteer soldiers felt that they were adequately armed for whatever adventure might be in the wind. Patriotism—and a ruana—can start any revolution. In expert hands, the vicious twirl of a ruana should bring terror to the most stalwart of foes—and of patriotism there was a generous supply this morning in the Calle de Las Montanas.
Pedro Cavallo, a wiry youth, taller than his fellows, gifted with shrill eloquence, acrobatic gestures, and hence acclaimed the King of the Bootblacks, was the leading spirit of the throng surrounding him.
“Viva Pedro! Por la Patria! Por la Patria! Baja los puercos!” shouted first one and then another in answer to his orders given with all the assurance of royalty.
“Compadres!” he addressed them, switching his cumbersome box of blacking to one side with oratorical cunning; “we will lead the way! We will march to the palace! We will offer ourselves to the President! We will march to the coast, and then we will sweep out the Yankees!”
“Si! Si!” they shrilled in eager response. “Por la Patria! Por la Patria! Mata los Yankees puercos!”
A quizzical spectator, a true Bogotano, robust and red-cheeked, swathed in an ample ruana, echoed the enthusiasm.
“It is an army of emboladores!” he shouted sonorously. “Let the Yankee bull beware!”
Now, “embolador,” although it is a word familiarly used in Bogota to designate a bootblack, has for its first meaning “one who puts balls on the tips of a bull’s horns,” a thing not easy to accomplish, requiring, as it does, the conquest of a traditionally warlike animal. Applied to this Falstaffian army of bootblacks, the irony of the term was broad enough to delight the bystanders, at the same time that it flattered the vanity of those for whom it was intended.
Distances meant little to the emboladores. No matter how far they had to travel, they vowed they would keep going until they met “los Yankees.” And, when they did meet them, they had no doubt of what would happen. Confident in their own ability to put the “usurpers” to flight, they had the sympathy of the peons surrounding them.
At this period, immediately following the proclamation of Panama’s independence, there was widespread indignation throughout Colombia against the United States. Americans were accused of starting the “revolution” which robbed the mother country of her richest possession, and the Colombian government was accordingly expected to avenge the national honor. The native authorities, lacking money and troops, did not respond to the popular demand, and it was left to the “patriots” to denounce the invading Yankees, and to fit out such volunteer expeditions as the one planned by the emboladores of the Calle de Las Montanas. Bogota, the largest city of the republic, the center of its official life, became the rallying place for political malcontents. A “Sociedad del Integridad Nacional”—a body of agitators at odds with the native government and bitterly opposed to the United States—had been formed here. This Sociedad had already organized two expeditions against the Yankees and the Panamanians. Both expeditions, made up of the dregs of the city, poorly armed, scantily clad, relying for their food on such contributions as they might pick up along the way, had left for the coast where they planned a guerilla warfare that would bring them, they believed, in triumph to the Isthmus. The third expedition was being engineered by the emboladores, whose enthusiasm and love of adventure made them excellent starters of an uprising. Even the elder peons, skeptical at first of what was going on, soon threw aside their reserve and fell into line with the bootblacks. Cheers greeted each addition to the little army, and it was not long before Pedro Cavallo, “Rey de los Emboladores,” headed an eager throng of followers numbering well into the thousands.
What to do with so strange a mob of volunteers might have puzzled a more experienced leader than Pedro. But nothing daunted him. The bigger and the more unruly his army, the greater seemed to be his confidence in himself as its commander. And his royal swagger won unbounded admiration. Grimy children, too young to join the ranks of the emboladores, scurried hither and thither among the bystanders, shrieking with delight at this staging of their favorite “Pedro the King.” Women, setting down their bundles under the projecting latticed windows of the houses, talked wonderingly of this sudden glory that had come to a youth whom they had thought skilled in nothing mightier than the blacking of boots. Solemn greybeards, proprietors of dingy little tiendas, stood in the doorways of their shops, secretly amazed, but still holding themselves grimly aloof from the noisy demonstrations of their neighbors.
“Yankees are pigs,” said one of these sellers of sweets, native tobacco and white rum, quoting gloomily the popular estimate of Americans.
“Yes,” replied another; “and pigs are easily beaten.”
“Truly, that is so,” quoth the first philosopher, struck by the turn of a new idea. “Yes, that is so. Even a woman can beat a pig, if the pig has eaten too much.”
“Yes, yes, Compadre! And Panama is too much for the hungriest pig.”
Then, out of the surging crowd of volunteers, came a stentorian voice:
“Donde vamos, Pedro el Rey?” (“Where shall we go, King Pedro?”)
“To the President! To the Palace San Carlos!” shouted Pedro, brandishing a stick snatched from one of the faithful.
As the volunteers had agreed to do this in the first place, the announcement was instantly approved. San Carlos, “the palace,” was not far off—a few short blocks this side the principal plaza of the city—and word was quickly passed along to march thither. Still shouting vengeance on all Yankees, the emboladores, followed by a mob of peons, moved down the street, encouraged by the primitive jests and delighted cheers of the bystanders.
Early as it was, San Carlos was ready for this unusual visit. Although it was popularly known as “the palace”—as all residences of high officials are in Colombia—this large rambling structure of stone and plaster was in no way distinguished from the buildings that elbowed it at each side. Its dilapidated walls ran sheer to the narrow sidewalk, overlooking which were several balconies of the kind commonly used in Spanish-American buildings. A large square opening, guarded by rude, heavily timbered doors, formed the entrance to this simple executive mansion which was built around a huge courtyard, or patio. From this patio two broad flights of carpeted stairs led to the living rooms and offices above. This arrangement of rooms, balconies, patio—the fountain in the middle of a bed of flowering shrubs and plants, perpetually spraying a moss-grown cupid; the brick walls; the inner corridor supported on arches of masonry and forming the boundary of the four-sided court—all this one finds, with slight variation, in the home of the average Bogotano, as well as in the official “palace.” The unique feature of San Carlos, growing out of the very heart of this ancient dwelling, is a huge walnut tree, rising some forty or fifty feet above the patio, overtopping the adjacent roofs, and marking this, better than could any national emblem, as the presidential residence.
Within the gateway of the palace and at the foot of the stone steps leading to the corridor above, there is always a guard of soldiers. On the morning of the visit of the emboladores this guard was greatly increased in numbers and was commanded by a youth whose resplendent uniform was in striking contrast with the dingy, ill-fitting apparel of his men. As the tramp of the peons echoed along the street, the soldiers marched hastily across the patio and drew up outside the entrance to the palace. Here, waiting groups of idlers shouted with delight as the bootblacks, King Pedro in the lead, rounded the corner of San Carlos.
“They will polish the Yankees,” declared one admirer.
“No, they have come for the president’s boots.”
“Emboladores! Emboladores! Beware the bull!”
“Here, King Pedro, give us a shine!”
“Don Pedro is busy; he’s lost his brush.”
“He’s keeping it for his Yankee customers.”
“He will take Panama with it.”
The unterrified Pedro, meeting this raillery with serene indifference, halted his men before the entrance to the palace and addressed the captain of the guard.
“We have come to see Don Jose.”
“But, muchacho,” replied the captain affably, “that is impossible. His Excellency is busy. Who are you?”
“Pedro, El Rey de los Emboladores!” piped up several volunteers.
“Ah!” said the captain, saluting profoundly. “And what do you want with his Excellency, Majestad?”
“To tell him we will fight the Yankees who have stolen Panama.”
“I will tell his Excellency this,” was the grave reply. “Of course, he will be pleased.”
While these two youths were talking—for after all, the magnificent toy captain was quite as young as the King of Brush and Bottle—the curtains of the large window above were drawn aside and a tall, spare figure, in a long frock coat, stepped slowly forth on the balcony. He was an old man, with a close-clipped beard and moustache, sharp, thin features, and an owlish way of peering through his large, gold-bowed spectacles that made one look involuntarily for the ferule of the schoolmaster held behind his back. This elderly personage had been, indeed, one of the notable pedagogues of Bogota in his day, a fact which, joined to his scholarly achievements in his country’s literature, seemed to his neighbors a sufficient reason for voting him in as the proprietor of San Carlos. To this decision the less powerful and more numerous citizens of the republic could make no effective protest.
On this particular morning it was the schoolmaster, wearing his most indulgent smile, who faced the bootblacks in the street below him. As soon as they caught sight of the familiar figure they gave him an enthusiastic greeting, the democratic flavor of which he seemed to relish. Popular applause had been lacking in Don Jose’s career, and since the troubles over Panama had broken in upon his quiet cultivation of the muses, it looked very much as if his countrymen’s indifference might turn to open hostility. Thus, the friendly greetings of a rabble of bootblacks and peons was not to be despised.
“Don Jose! Don Jose!” they shouted cheerfully, with that peculiar upward inflection by which the Spanish-American gives a warmth to his salutation not suggested by the words themselves. “El Presidente de Colombia! Viva Don Jose! Baja los Yankees!”
To all of which Don Jose, one long thin hand thrust stiffly between the breast buttons of his coat, listened in dignified silence, inwardly gratified by these boisterous visitors.
“Bueno, bueno,” he said in a high querulous voice; “I am very glad to see you, my friends. This is a great honor. But, what can I do for you?”
“Send us to Panama!” bawled Pedro, acting as spokesman for his men.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the old man, enjoying the situation and ignoring its political consequences. “Panama is far off—and why should I send such good citizens away from Bogota?”
“Por la Patria! Por la Patria! To fight the Yankees!”
“The Yankees? But why——”
“They have stolen Panama. They are pigs!”
“What a people!” he exclaimed, nonplussed. “I am sorry for that. Well, if I send you, what will you do?”
“Esta bueno! Don Jose will send us to kill the Yankees!” they shouted enthusiastically.
“No! No! I didn’t say that!” he expostulated; then continued, as if by rote: “The government will look after Panama. If fighting is needed to preserve the republic, the army will do its duty”—an assurance which increased the martial swagger of the gold-braided toy captain, although unappreciated by his men.
“We will fight with the army, Don Jose,” declared Pedro. “We will drive out the Yankees and save Panama.”
“Viva Colombia! Baja los Yankees!” shouted the peons. As this voiced the popular sentiment, and as Don Jose’s loyalty in the Panama affair had been questioned by some of his enemies, no sufficiently discreet reply occurred to the puzzled schoolmaster, whose intellectual gifts, moreover, were lacking in the quick give-and-take needed for street oratory. So, smiling benignly, and somewhat fatuously, upon the noisy rabble, he thrust his hand deeper into his coat, peered more owlishly through his gold-rimmed glasses and, forgetting its future possibilities, got such enjoyment as he could out of the novel situation.
The volunteers exploded with joy over the president’s apparent approval of their demand. Had Pedro cared to stop for further talk the impatience of his comrades would have prevented him. Although these peons had no definite plan, they were looking for something more exciting than an exchange of opinions with this old grey-beard of San Carlos. A march through the city, and then on to Panama, seemed as good a program as any to men who were indifferent to the dry details of geography. There were more cries of “Down with the Yankees!” and cheers for Don Jose. Then, before that bewildered statesman could take himself off, his unwashed admirers filed past his balcony, leaving the toy captain and his men to close the gates they had so courageously guarded.
Under other skies and among a more vindictive people, a roving crowd of peons, clamorous for war and threatening all who opposed them, might be regarded with some alarm. But the mildness of the Andean character, its dislike for actual bloodshed, lessened Bogota’s danger. Even the timid Don Jose was not apprehensive. But there were others who thought it wiser to keep these peons away from Americans living in Bogota. Not that anything would really happen—past experiences seemed to prove the harmlessness of this kind of patriotism. When the second expedition left for the Isthmus, for instance, an American, looking for novel impressions, had posed the volunteers before his camera and snapshotted them to his heart’s content while they were denouncing “los Yankees.” But one mob of patriots may be quite unlike another, and it so happened that when King Pedro’s army of emboladores, in its aimless wanderings after leaving the Palace of San Carlos, stumbled upon a native of the United States, the encounter became a very lively one indeed.
As a rule plenty of Americans are in Bogota. Some go there to do business for the merchant houses which they represent; some have their own local interests, others are after those tempting government “concessions” granted to the disinterested person who develops the natural resources of the country by monopolizing them. When the Panama “revolution” came, most Americans left Bogota, conscious that it was not a promising time to seek aid from the national treasury for their ventures. Those who were unable to leave, stayed within their respective hotels whenever a popular uprising seemed likely.
It was down a blank little side street, leading nowhere in particular, lined with modest one-storied houses, in a quiet district unfrequented by foreigners, that the roving peons met the one American who had failed to conceal himself on this particular morning. After leaving San Carlos, Pedro had turned his men into the Plaza de Catedral, where they had clattered along the wide concourse, pausing to make a few fiery speeches before the capitol, whose unroofed courts—the building was unfinished at that time—and majestic Doric columns seem meant for oratory. From here they had gone the zigzag length of the principal business street. Then tiring of their progress through an unresponsive city, they had started to find their way back to the Calle de Las Montanas, choosing for this purpose the obscure Calle de Las Flores.
At their approach the street was practically deserted, all the doors opening on it carefully barred and, in some instances, even the blinds of the windows drawn. Thus, it happened that a tall man, muffled in a ruana, wearing a wide sombrero, and with his back against the entrance to one of the houses, became unavoidably conspicuous as the throng of emboladores surged along the roadway abreast of him.
“Viva Colombia!” shouted Pedro, giving the usual greeting. “Baja los Yankees!”
Instead of answering in a like strain of enthusiasm, the man addressed tossed the loose end of his ruana over one shoulder, showing, as he did so, a pallid face on which played a contemptuous smile.
“Soy un Americano,” he replied composedly, glancing at Pedro and then turning his eyes, which were singularly piercing, from one to another of those crowding about him.
“Un Yankee! Un Yankee! Baja los Yankees!”
The cry was followed by a threatening movement of the emboladores toward the man whose attitude seemed to be a challenge to them.
“Halt!” yelled Pedro. “I know this senor. Give him a chance. If he cheers Colombia, we will let him go. If he refuses, he is prisoner. Now, Senor Yankee—viva Colombia!”
The emboladores gave a lusty cheer. It was met with scornful silence by the man who had declared himself a Yankee.
“Si! Si! Pedro el Rey!” they all shouted. “He is an enemy to Colombia. He is prisoner!”
The wily Pedro unwilling to risk his position by denying the demands of his followers, yet fearing to aid in an act of violence, diplomatically said nothing. The defiant American, meanwhile, regarded the peons with a disdain that enraged them, although checking, through its very audacity, their hostility.
“I am not a Colombian,” he said quietly; “I am not an enemy to Colombia. But I won’t cheer against the Yankees.”
“Un Yankee! Un Yankee!” they retorted. “A Yankee thief come for our gold!”
“There is truth in that,” he laughed sardonically. “I want gold that you are too lazy to get for yourselves—just as you were too lazy to keep Panama.”
“Un loco! He is insane!” cried Pedro in disgust. “Let us go!”
“No! No!” yelled the angry mob. And amid cries of “Loco! Demonio! Yankee! Puerco!” those in the front ranks made a lunge at the man whose exasperating coolness had kept them at bay, while a shower of missiles came from the peons who hovered in the rear.
But the attack was skilfully met. Tripping up his first two assailants and warding off the blows of a third, the Yankee, smiling derisively, stealthily passed his left hand along the ponderous door against which he was leaning. This street door, as is usual in Colombian houses, had a small “postigo,” or wicket, large enough to admit one person at a time, and opening much more readily than the unwieldy mass of timber of which it formed an insignificant part. Having found the latch of this wicket, the Yankee gave it a quick backward thrust, stepped lightly over the threshold and closed and barricaded this scarcely revealed entrance behind him.
A storm of oaths followed his escape. Then, not content with this vent to their anger, the peons, using such stones and weapons as came to hand, rushed upon the wooden barricade standing between them and their prey, at the same time calling upon the inhabitants of the house to let them in. These Colombian doors, however, are built to withstand a stout siege, and the din might have been indefinitely prolonged had it not come to an abrupt and unexpected conclusion.
Three sharp blows upon the door were given from within. Then a clear feminine voice was heard above the uproar.
“Stand back, Senores! I will open.”
There was a dead silence. This time it was the great door itself that swung slowly open. There was no sign of the escaped Yankee in the wide corridor beyond. In his stead there stood, unattended, unprotected, a woman.
She was clad in a long robe of white, her dark hair flowing unconfined down her shoulders. Her bare arms, exquisitely molded, and of a tint that vied with her dress in purity, were crossed upon her breast. There was no fear in her eyes as she faced the abashed men and boys before her.
“This is my house, Senores,” she said calmly. “What do you want?”
Involuntarily the leaders of the mob fell back, awed by the girl’s courage and dignity. There was a murmur of voices, ending in a chorus of admiration and homage.
“La Reina! La Reina!” they cried. “La Reina de los Indios!”
Then the sharp-witted Pedro, resuming command over his ragged troops, stepped forth, waving to the others to keep silence.
“It is nothing, Senora,” he said, bowing with an awkward grace that played sad pranks with the box of blacking hanging from his neck. “We are patriots of Colombia marching to Panama. We mean no harm to you.” Then, turning to the emboladores, he shouted, with his old enthusiasm:
“Por la Patria! Por la Patria! Viva la Reina! Baja los Yankees!”
The crowd took up the familiar call, and with one of those quick changes of sentiment that sometimes sweeps over such gatherings, fell into a march, cheering the motionless “Reina de los Indios” as they filed past her, and leaving the Calle de los Flores to its accustomed dreams and quiet.