THE TREE'S LAST MEAL.
"And now," said Monella, "I have some other news to give you; for you
have slept for nearly two days, and in that time much has been done.
While you slept we have been busy."
"Do you _never_ sleep--yourself?" Templemore asked.
"Yes; but not for long at a time. However, the long rest you have taken
is no reproach to you, for it was my doing. I saw that it was needful
to restore your strength and good spirits. You are the better for it;
the princess, the lady Zonella, and others have also had long rests and
are the better for it, as I have already told Leonard. The king Dranoa,
too, is better--in a sense; for he has now no mental trouble, and with
his sickness there is no physical pain nor suffering nor distress of
any kind. But he is very wishful now that the marriage of his daughter
should take place as soon as possible; for only then, he feels, will he
be able to die happily. In deference to his earnest wish I have settled
for it to be solemnised at the end of a fortnight; and, in view of the
fact that the state of his health cannot but be a source of sadness to
his people, I have deemed it better to order that it shall be a quiet
ceremonial, and not a great _fête_, as had been planned. This will not
offend your feelings, my son?"
Leonard looked up with a bright smile.
"After what you have told me," he said, "I feel, with gladness and
gratitude that it is not without reason that you have so often thus
addressed me--as your son. _Now_, I may indeed claim you as a father."
"You may indeed," Monella assented; "I take the place of my lost
friend."
"Then you have no need to ask whether what you think best pleases _me_.
If you will be my father, choose for me and instruct me; for I feel
I have need of your help to enable me to take up, and bear worthily,
the position I owe to you. I felt this," continued Leonard, with great
earnestness--"I felt this very strongly when I lay in that foul den
that the poor demented wretch called 'the devil-tree's larder.' I made
then a vow that, if it should please God to deliver me from the peril
that threatened me, I would thenceforth devote my life to the good
of the people I had come amongst. I repented sorely that I had given
my thoughts too much to selfish--albeit innocent--enjoyment; and I
vowed I would not be guilty of that selfishness in the future, if the
chance and the choice were offered to me. And now that they _are_, help
me--instruct me, my father, I pray you, in all that may enable me to
fulfil that vow."
Monella gazed long and fixedly at the young man; and in his eyes there
was a glistening as of a tear. Then he rose and went to the window that
looked out over the lake, and stood awhile, with a far-off vacant look
that told his thoughts were wandering to distant scenes or persons. It
was some time before he looked round.
And, when he again turned to speak to the young men, they were both
conscious that some indefinable change had taken place in his manner.
His face expressed unmistakably a great and exalted joy; and the eyes,
that at all times had had so strange a charm in them, had taken on
a new expression. For a little while Templemore strove in vain to
ascertain in what the change consisted; but presently it seemed to him
that they had lost that half-sad, half-wistful expression he had so
constantly remarked; and that they now conveyed, instead, a sense of
contentment and repose.
"That which you have now told to me," said Monella, walking slowly up
to Leonard, "is as sweet to me as water to the thirsty in the desert."
With grave deliberation he placed both hands upon the young man's
shoulders and looked into his eyes with fatherly affection.
"Know, my son Leonard--or rather Ranelda, as you rightly should be
called--know that in these words you bring to my soul the message it
has been awaiting--sometimes in hope, too often, alas! in doubt and in
despair--through the long ages. Yours is the hand--the hand of the son
of Apalano--that bears to me the key of my fetters; and yours are the
lips that announce my coming freedom! My work, then, nears its end, and
soon--ay, _soon_--I--shall--be--_free_!"
While uttering these last words Monella raised his hand, and with
upturned face looked rapturously above him, as if his sight, piercing
the marble ceiling overhead, perceived some far-off scene that, while
invisible to his companions, filled him with the most intense delight.
Presently, he turned away with a regretful sigh, as though the vision
he had been gazing at had vanished, and added, with an absent manner,
"Now, when I leave you, I shall feel----"
He stopped; in his eyes there was a far-off look; and Leonard, who
had been looking on with wide-open, wondering eyes that comprehended
little, if anything, of his discourse, exclaimed in anxious tones,
"Leave me--leave us! What mean you, my father? You surely do not think
of leaving the people you so love, to become again a wanderer?"
Monella shook his head; and, appearing to rouse himself, he replied in
quite a different voice,
"You misunderstand, my son; I speak of when I shall be called
away--called from this earthly life."
"But that will not be for a long, a very long time yet," urged Leonard,
looking with confidence at the stalwart frame, and remembering the many
feats of strength the other had performed.
Monella turned his eyes on Templemore.
"Do you remember," he asked, smiling, "a conversation we had one day in
the museum; when I explained to you that no 'Plant of Life' or other
specific--no power, indeed, of earth--can keep in its earthly cage the
soul that feels its work is done, and that, therefore, frets itself
against its prison bars?"
"I remember," answered Templemore in a subdued tone, and avoiding
Leonard's questioning eyes.
"Ah! then _you_ understand me. And now"--this with a gesture that
enforced obedience--"now let us go back to that which we were speaking
of. I was saying that King Dranoa desires that you and Ulama should be
wedded without delay. To spare the feelings of the maiden, and give
her time, so that the matter may not come upon her too suddenly, I
have named a day two weeks hence. There will be no pageant, no public
_fête_; only the necessary ceremony, quiet and solemn."
"I should prefer it so," murmured Leonard.
"Then that is arranged; and it will take place in the great Temple of
the White Priests that has been closed for so many years. Workmen are
engaged upon it, and it is now being cleansed and renovated. It will be
ready in time.
"The next thing I have to tell you is that Coryon has suffered his
punishment, and is dead."
"Coryon dead?" the other two exclaimed in a breath.
"He is dead," Monella repeated solemnly. "It seems that during the
night after we left, there were dreadful scenes in the amphitheatre.
Those large reptiles--they are called 'myrgolams' here--came out of
their pool and attacked the half-dead wretches entangled in the tree.
But the branches tried hard to retain their victims, and so--well,
you can almost imagine what took place. The creatures carried off the
miserable beings in scraps; tore them piece by piece from the clutches
of the branches till nothing was left!"
He paused for a moment, and his listeners shuddered.
"Thus it came about that the greedy tree was, after all, baulked of
most of its intended victims; all, indeed, save three or four; though
the deaths the others met with were not less horrible. Yesterday,
finding the monster had no victims in its grasp, I ordered the
separating door to be withdrawn. In a moment, Coryon was seized and
carried up into its awful gorge. With that, the tale of this terrible
tree must end. I have no heart to devote more criminals to it; though
there are some among the prisoners who are scarcely less guilty than
was Coryon. But these Sanaima will deal with; he will punish them as
seems best to him; and I have set men to work to dig a mine from one
of the cells so as to get underneath the tree. Then it can be blown up
with gunpowder. And I designed to ask you to superintend the work for
me," turning to Templemore.
"That I will gladly do. And--the--reptiles?" Templemore was doubtful of
the name.
"Kill them off, if you can, with bullets. And now, to turn to your own
affairs. Think not I have forgotten them; I know you are anxious and
will be getting restless and unhappy. As I said to you before, when
you go away, you will not go empty-handed. On the contrary, you will
carry with you such riches as will place you beyond the need of toil
for the remainder of your life. I need not say, 'Do not therefore be
an idle man,' for I know that you will never be. Whenever it pleases
you to go, some of my people shall escort you through the wood to
'Monella Lodge,' as we called it, and there await you while you go on
to Daranato and bring back such Indians as you require. Then, do you,
in turn, with your Indians, re-escort my people to the cavern; for, you
must remember, they are not used to forest life; nor can they, if left
alone, protect themselves against wild animals. Will that please you?"
"Yes, truly it is all I can ask or wish for," Templemore responded.
"I shall wish to know--that is, all here will wish to know," said
Monella, "that you get back in safety to 'Monella Lodge.' With the
heliograph mirror which you will find packed away at 'Monella Lodge'
you can send us back a message to that effect; then, with the one we
brought here with us, we can reply, and send you a 'God speed you' to
start you on your way. Shall it be so arranged?"
"Gladly," responded Templemore with emotion. "But must I then resign
myself to the thought that I shall never see Leonard or any of you any
more?"
"You must," Monella answered quietly, but firmly. "Leonard--or Ranelda,
as I prefer to call him--has asked me to guide him and instruct him;
and my first and last advice to him is, and will be, to keep his
people to themselves. Now let us consider this question from what you
yourself would term a practical point of view. The term 'El Dorado'
has come to be a synonym in the outside world for a sort of earthly
paradise, has it not? Originally handed down from actual facts and
history relating to this, the celebrated island capital of Manoa--the
Queen City of my once powerful and extensive empire--with the tales of
its wonderful wealth and the virtues of the Plant of Life; its memory
lingered through the ages long after the waters had receded and left
it isolated and unknown. And the Spaniards called it 'El Dorado,'
which has ever since been but another expression--as I have said--for
'Earthly Paradise,' or 'summit of every man's ambition.' Is it not so?
And seeing that the great curse that so long lay upon the land has been
removed, can you say that _now_ it does not deserve the term? Have we
not here a veritable 'Earthly Paradise'--an actual realisation of what
you in the outside world understand when you use the expression 'El
Dorado?'"
"Truly I believe it."
"Ah yes! It is so now--or will be henceforth, when those who have
had such sorrows here shall have outlived them," said Monella with
impressive emphasis. "But what I would put to you, is this; you have,
perhaps, seen something of frontier settlements, or miners' camps,
and gold diggings--at least, _I_ have--and you have heard of them.
Now, you know well enough that the only people who would care to brave
the hardships of the journey hither would be those led on by the lust
and greed of gold. Supposing things were reversed, and you were in
Leonard's place, and had here your wife--as he will have--your friends,
your own people--all that was dearest in the world, with ample wealth,
would you care to allow him, or any one else, to lead people hither, to
turn this 'El Dorado' into a 'Gold diggings,' a 'Miners' camp,' with
all their hideous associations, their gambling and drunkenness; their
rowdyism and their debauchery, their shootings and murders?"
"No!" said Templemore thoughtfully, "you are right there. Still--surely,
between that, and forbidding intercourse altogether--forbidding me even
to come to visit my friend----"
Monella smiled and gravely shook his head.
"You think that, between the two extremes, there should be some middle
course possible," he rejoined. "Unfortunately--or fortunately--there
is none. _You_ will have no need to come here seeking for wealth.
You would not be likely to undertake the expedition alone. Those who
accompanied you would do so from self-seeking motives. Then, again,
you will have other ties; you will have your wife, children. You do
not contemplate dragging them hither through trackless wastes to greet
friends _they_ have never known as you have? They would not like it,
again, if you, a man of wealth, able to do as you pleased, were to
leave them for a long space while you made the journey hither alone!
And, finally, the thing is not practical or feasible for another
reason. You will have much ado to find your way out from here. You know
that in these regions vegetation spreads rapidly unless--as in the
canyon we came up, or in the clearing immediately outside around the
cavern by which we entered, or out on the savanna--there are special
causes that check its spread. Should you come back in a year's time,
you would not only find the road we cut out impassable--you could not
even trace it. The spread of the undergrowth, the fall of great trees
or branches, the hurling down of rocks from the heights above, floods
from the streams and watercourses--all these, and other forces of
nature in this wild region, will, within a few months, have combined
to block up or obliterate completely the path we cut with so much
difficulty. Is it not so?"
"I fear you are right, though it had not occurred to me," Templemore
admitted with reluctance.
"Then, again, with the wealth you will take back with you, you will not
care to remain in Georgetown. You will wish to travel with your wife;
in any case, it would be years before you would be likely to think of
undertaking another journey."
"If ever you _do_, though, dear old Jack," Leonard burst in
impulsively, "if ever circumstances should arise to make you wish to
communicate with me, you can always do so by the heliograph, you know,
or perhaps by balloon, if I'm still alive."
But, though Leonard put on a cheerful tone, it was easy to see that
both he and his friend felt deeply the severance that too clearly lay
before them. Yet, after Monella's argument, they saw no alternative.
"I am as sorry as you can be," Monella wound up kindly; "but your
duties call you away from us, even as Leonard's call upon him to stay.
And now I must leave you, for many are waiting to see me. First,
however"--this to Leonard--"I will lead you to the princess."
Leonard followed him from the apartment into another, where Monella
left him; and presently Ulama entered, looking radiant, lovely,
beautiful--so Leonard thought--beyond belief.
At the sight of Leonard, she threw herself upon him with a joyous cry;
with her face upon his shoulder, she sobbed and laughed by turns.
"Oh, my darling! my darling!" she murmured in gentle accents, "if you
only knew how _glad_ I am to see you! I've had such dreams--dreams
about you--dreams that frightened me so! They _were_ only dreams, were
they not?"
She looked up anxiously, and fixed her glorious eyes upon his face, and
closely scanned it. Then she gave a sigh, the token of relief, and once
more she nestled her face upon his shoulder.
"Yes!" she said softly, "after all 'twas but a dream! For you look
well, and your eyes are bright and happy-looking; and in my dream
you were looking _dreadful_! Your poor face looked so thin, and so
_different_, and your eyes so sunken, and they had dark rings around
them, and oh! their terrible, despairing look! But it was only a dream,
or you could not look well again so soon, as now you do. Yes, 'twas
but a dream, my darling! But oh! an _awful_ dream. I thought there was
a great tree--like that you said you saw one day; and it was a tree
that fed on human beings, and you were lying bound and they were going
to give you to that dreadful tree! Oh, Leonard, my love, think what
a dream that was for me! Think, for a moment, what I felt! And there
were other dreadful, awful things!" She shivered and cried softly for a
space.
"Yes, my darling," Leonard answered soothingly. "But, as you say, 'twas
but a dream!"
"Ah, yes! And now it seems far off; for, after it, came other dreams,
that were happy and delightful, so that the bad one receded ever
farther. Just when I seemed even at the very point of death from
horror, a cool hand pressed tenderly on my brow, and brought me peace.
It seemed to cool the fever that had made me think my very brain would
burst; and a voice said--oh _so_ kindly--'Be at rest, my daughter, I
bring thee peace, and surcease of thy sorrow.' Then I opened my eyes
and saw a strange form leaning over me. It was dressed in a warrior
dress, just like that which stands in our museum and which is called
Mellenda's. Helmet, sword, everything the same. Then I felt secure and
happy, for I thought the great Mellenda had come to deliver me in my
trouble. But--and this seems so strange--when I looked up at his face,
who do you think he was? Ah! you would never guess! But the countenance
was Monella's--your friend Monella's! Was not my dream a strange one?"
"Strange, indeed, my dear one," said Leonard tenderly.
"From that moment," went on Ulama, "everything was changed, everything
was _lovely_. It seemed to me that _you_ then came to me, and led me
from that scene of horror. Where we went I know not; but, hand in hand,
we wandered on, till you led me home. Then once more things became
confused--I can scarcely remember--but I'm nearly sure Mellenda seemed
to come to me again. And--yes--I remember, he repeated, 'Rest, my
child; I bring thee rest and peace.' Then he left me, and we wandered
on--you and I, my Leonard--through the loveliest, the most entrancing
scenes; among places, people, strange to me, yet all delightful; and,
oh, it all seemed _so_ sweet, so restful, so grateful, after the horror
of that first awful dream! At last I wakened, and they tell me I have
slept through two whole nights and nearly two whole days! Did you not
wonder that you saw me not the while? Tell me how you have passed your
time without me?"
And thus the gentle, loving girl talked on with childlike innocence,
Leonard at first evading her inquiries, averse to mar her happiness by
telling her the truth.
Indeed, it was not for some days, and then only by degrees and
carefully guarded words, that he revealed the truth about her 'dreams.'