_In the Enemy’s Land. The Weird Light on the Valley Wall. Mr. Vancouver.
A Visit with Lentala. She Tells a Secret Which I Already Know._
I Would respect Beelo’s wish that she appear as a boy, and must keep
hammering into my mind the words, Boy, Lad, Dear Little Brother. I
must not for a moment think of her otherwise. “Boy, Lad, Dear Little
Brother.”
“What are you dreaming, Choseph, and what are those words your lips are
saying?” It was Beelo’s cheery voice.
He was sitting up; I was beside him looking down at the gliding water. I
woke to the familiar raillery, and turned with a smile.
“Dear lad!” I joyfully responded.
“You had forgotten me,” he ruefully said. “And you, old Christopher!
Don’t you see I’m dying of thirst?”
Christopher plucked two large leaves, fashioned them into a cup, and
brought the water, which Beelo eagerly drank. He held out his hand, and
I helped him up. He tried his legs.
“That’s better,” he said.
The perfect grace of movement, the exquisite feminine figure so artfully
concealed,----
“Boy, Lad, Dear Little Brother.”
“Mooning again, and talking to yourself!” cried Beelo.
“It was a rough trip through the passage, boy. I’m a little shaken.”
“That’s past. Shake the other way.” He was pirouetting round a tree.
“But how are we going back, lad?”
“This way,” he carelessly answered, making wing-motions with his arms.
“There was an earthquake, Beelo.”
He stopped short, and his eyes lighted deep.
“Yes!” he softly but impressively exclaimed.
The old caution settled in his face; he peered and listened warily, and
then came a look of assured repose.
“That is good,” he said,--“if--” a cloud drifted over his face--“if they
felt it on the surface.”
“They did,” interposed Christopher.
“How do you know?” Beelo sharply demanded.
Christopher pointed to a large rock near us, to the path that it had
freshly torn through the brush, and to a steep slope from which it had
been dislodged.
“Good for Christopher!” said Beelo. He studied the sky, and dejectedly
added, “But the storm is coming!” After a little reflection he remarked,
as if to himself, “I don’t know whether that should change our plans or
not.” He seated himself to think it out, and began arranging twigs
on the ground. “No Senatras will be within miles of the passage,” he
ruminated. “They fear it, for the earthquake is born here, and they have
run away. So, we can make better time. Mr. Vancouver is safe today; we
won’t go _there_.”
“Where, dear little brother?”
Pain crossed his face. “To the clearing opposite the Face. If only
another earthquake would come, or this had come sooner!”
“Is one usually followed by another?”
“Often. Sometimes not. Come! The sun will be setting before long, and we
have miles to go.”
We hid the battered raft and struck out. Our way led parallel to the
stream, which tore foaming down a gorge of steeply sloping sides. It
slipped into a pleasant valley, richly verdured. There we left it and
began the ascent of a mountain on the west. Dusk was coming on. Beelo
fearlessly pursued the trails in the darkening hours.
Occasionally we paused to rest. The valley which we had crossed lay a
black-green sea below. Behind us the eastern sky was cut straight across
by the level summit of our valley wall. Beelo was closely studying it.
“You see no sign of fire over there, do you?” he asked, pointing toward
the clearing opposite the Face.
There was none, and Beelo was gratified. Our attention was diverted from
that spot by a faint purplish flash, which slipped along the crest above
the river passage, and was quickly gone. Beelo stood tense and still,
and whispered:
“Did you see _that?_”
“Yes.”
We waited for its reappearance, but none came. Beelo said no more. The
light had come from the subterranean lava-pot.
Beyond the wall was the blackest part of the sky. Under the horizon
in that direction lightning was at play, as we judged from faint
illuminations in the distant heavens, and the rumble of far thunder.
Night had nearly fallen when we reached the summit. The descent
was rapid on the other side, for Beelo went with the sureness of
familiarity. At last we stopped at an abandoned hut, hidden in the deep
forest. Beelo paused on the door-step.
“See,” he said, pointing to a glow a mile or less away, down the valley.
“That is the main settlement of the Senatras. The king’s palace, where
Lentala and I live, is there. We will visit it tonight,--if Lentala
agrees. You will rest here awhile and have something to eat. After the
visit to the palace you will sleep here.”
He showed us within, closed the door, blew a flame from smothered embers
on the hearth, and lighted a nut-oil lamp. He had been very sober and
quiet all the way, but now his eyes began to dance.
“This is your mansion!” he exclaimed.
The place had been made clean and sweet, good beds of leaves were on the
earth floor, and fresh water stood in calabashes. Beelo dragged forward
a copper vessel, and took from it a generous food supply.
“Isn’t she pretty good--for a girl?” he casually asked.
“Who?”
“Lentala. She did these things.”
Ever since the scene at the end of the passage, sadness had sat upon me,
and I was in no mood to enjoy Beelo’s pleasantries,--this, too, while
I was deeply touched by the labor and gentle thoughtfulness with which
everything had been done for our comfort. Still, something precious was
gone from my life; my heart hungered for the lad. But he was here! In a
swirl of perversity I seized Beelo’s hands, and held him before me.
“Dear lad,” I said, “I am walking in the dark. Believe me, little
brother, I am grateful--more grateful than any words could say--for the
skill and the kindness that we have seen from you. But my heart is sore,
and you are laughing at me.”
Something between suspicion and embarrassment had been rapidly growing
in Beelo’s face. Of a sudden he closed my mouth with his hand and made a
brave rally of Beelo’s old flippancies.
“Christopher,” he said, “did you ever see such a goose? Such an _old_
goose?”
I gently removed his hand.
“I am serious, boy.”
“Hush!” commanded Beelo in a whisper.
His hunt down into me was ruthless, but the hurt there helped me to
steady my gaze. “When I fainted----” he began, and stopped, having
found my face expressionless. He turned to Christopher, who, giving no
attention to us, was setting out the supper on a mat. Beelo’s sharp eyes
came back to me.
“Dear little brother,----”
“No, no! Not a word!” he broke in. “I haven’t time, and you are hungry.
Come, Choseph!”
He turned me to the supper and forced me to sit on the ground opposite
Christopher. It was pleasant to be man-handled by Beelo. His abuse of
me was always smoothed by affection. I had no appetite, but who could
resist Beelo? He played that I was an invalid and unable to help myself.
He patted my cheek, put food into my mouth, chattered nonsense as though
I were a baby, and petted me with outrageous condescension. There was
nothing to do but melt under his dear absurdities; and when he found
me re-established, he kissed me on the forehead and dashed out, calling
that he would be back before long.
When he returned he was brilliantly alive. There seemed no end to his
vitality.
“It’s glorious!” he cried, seizing Christopher and sending his bulk in
a twirl across the hut. “It’s splendid!” he went on, smashing my dignity
with boy’s play. “It’s just----” But his breath was gone, and he tumbled
in a panting heap on the ground.
“What news, Beelo?” I inquired.
He sat up, but as yet had meager breath for speech.
“Mr. Vancouver--is safe. Doesn’t look very--happy. Hasn’t seen--the
king. Oh, no! Lentala,--who is an Angel--and Sweet--and Kind--and
Beautiful,--is just dying--to see you. And----”
“Rest a minute,” I interrupted.
He flung a little pout at me, and then archly demanded, “Aren’t you
good-natured yet, Choseph?”
I shook my head.
“You will be when you see Lentala,” he said with mock melancholy. “Don’t
you like girls?” he suddenly fired at me.
“Y--es,” I stammered consciously.
“You like Annabel!” with a spitfire touch on his tongue.
“I once liked, very much, a dear lad named Beelo more than any girl.”
“_Once_ liked Beelo!” His shining eyes were lances.
“I like him just as much yet--when he is Beelo.”
I knew by his start that the thin ice on which I walked was cracking.
“And what is he when he isn’t Beelo?”
“A little devil.”
He laughed. “You aren’t _quite_ dead,” he said, and a briskness sprang
into his manner. “We must go. Most of the Senatras have already gone to
sleep. Come.”
He rapidly led us into the valley, meanwhile instructing us how to
respond if greeted. The natives were not garrulous nor inquisitive, and
we passed unnoticed, until the outskirts of the settlement were reached.
There, in a dimly lighted hut, Mr. Vancouver was resting under guard,
Beelo informed us. A barely visible figure challenged Beelo. The prompt
response made the shape sink from view.
“We haven’t time to see Mr. Vancouver now,” said the lad to us.
A turn in a lane lined with huts brought us into a beautiful highway,
broad and white, and picketed with odorous trees which arched overhead.
The darkness would have been profound but for a diffused light which
glowed ahead upon something white. We went rapidly toward it, and found
it to be a high stone wall; the light was from two lamps on posts where
the highway swung to the left and ran at the foot of the wall.
Instead of following the main road Beelo turned into a narrow way to the
right. The overhead growth was so dense that the light from the lamps
was soon lost, but Beelo knew the way. At last he stopped, and slipped
a key into a lock. The heavy wooden door, plated and strapped with iron,
suggested a postern in an archaic fortress. He led us within and secured
the door.
The nearer approach of the storm brought lightning, which increased
Beelo’s caution while revealing glimpses of our environment. In the
region behind the wall the verdure was less dense and more orderly
than in the park through which we had come. The lightning made the open
spaces embarrassing to our guide, who hurried us across them to the
shadows. Finely kept paths wound and intersected, but Beelo knew shorter
routes. A rising wind assisted the stealth of our progress.
He brought us under the shadow of a low arcade, open on one side, and
closed on the other with a long stone house. The pillars were massed
in vines. Here the darkness was intense. The stone floor gave no sound
under our tread.
Beelo stopped us, advanced a few paces, and rapped on a door. It was
cautiously opened, but we could not see within as Beelo entered. A very
faint light barely made him visible.
“Lentala!” he whispered, “they are here.”
A voice fuller and mellower than Beelo’s yet much like his, answered,
“Yes? I had given you up, and was undressing for bed.”
“You’ll dress?” Beelo spoke nervously.
“Yes. Tell them to wait a little while. They are safe out there. Beelo,
the king is furious because you ran away tonight. He is waiting for you.
Go at once. It is something about the man from the colony.” I resented
her domineering manner toward Beelo.
“Very well. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he answered sweetly.
Coming back to us, he began to explain, but I told him we had heard. A
reassuring hand was given to each of us, and he was hurrying across the
garden fronting the arcade. He halted and came back.
“Don’t stay with Lentala longer than ten minutes,” he earnestly said.
“The king may detain me. If I don’t come, can you find your way back?”
I assured him that we could, and that even should he come, we would not
let him conduct: us to the hut.
He gave my hand a grateful little squeeze as he slipped the gate-key
into it, and darted away, saying:
“Wait at Lentala’s door till she opens it.”
Presently she bade us enter. Instead of her barbarous but highly
becoming dress at the feast, with neat jacket and short skirt blazing
with gold embroidery, she now wore a plain, loose garment. It was partly
redeemed by a low cut in the neck, a splendid girdle consisting of a
heavy and elaborately linked chain of gold, and a necklace of wonderful
diamonds.
I could not have explained why this dazzling woman, who had filled
so wide a space in my fancy, now looked a negligible quantity, an
intrusion. There was little of the sparkle that I had expected. The
childlike coquetries, the careless abandon, the subtleties that
had flitted so unconsciously through the conduct of the Lentala I
remembered,--these and a thousand other graces were absent from the
sedater young woman smiling upon us and composedly seating us.
She had greeted us with a warning finger on her lips.
“My servants,” she explained in a low, rich voice, “are all in bed and
asleep. But they are not far away, and we must be careful.” There was a
curious reminder of Annabel’s preciseness in this new Lentala.
She must have felt my discomfort, for she let some of her consciousness
slip away, and a dash of her native wildness gradually returned.
“Beelo has told me everything,” she said; “I’ll not trouble you with
questions. And we are not to discuss any plans tonight.”
The beauty and richness of the room came forth, faint in the light of
suspended lamps, which, clouded in thin fabrics, cast no shadows and
softened all contours. A rich massing of hammered gold and silver, of
exquisite bronzes and ivories, of hangings and rugs, was softened to
grace by their perfect arrangement, and over that in turn was a fine
breath of daintiness. My astonishment grew as the significance of it
came over me. Did this girl, all seeming innocence, gentleness, and
kindness, _feel_ none of the crime and blood with which these treasures
were drenched? Yet only the sweetest of spirits could have cast upon
this charnel-house loot the cleansing that held its grisly suggestion
back.
She had been moving about and gently chatting, and I had made empty
responses. At last I discovered that she was growing nervous. A heavy
crash of thunder brought out the cause. She looked anxious, and said:
“The storm is near. You must go before it breaks. Beela”--I noted her
odd pronunciation of the final syllable--“said that if he didn’t return
in ten minutes you must go without him, but I can’t think of that. He
has been gone much longer.”
I tried to assure her that we could go alone, but still she was uneasy.
Christopher and I rose. She came and laid a hand on my arm.
“Wait a little while.” She hesitated over the next words. “Do you like
Beela--Beelo?”
“Very much,” I answered dully.
A liquid softness entered her beautiful eyes, and with it a sparkle of
the old Lentala--and of Beelo too.
“I am going to tell you a secret,” she went on. “You will keep it?--and
you, Christopher? And you’ll not let Beelo know?”
We pledged ourselves. She removed her hand, looked down, and while
busying herself with a readjustment of her girdle, said, very low:
“Beelo isn’t a boy.”
Her fingers stopped in her acute tension. I stood silent. With an effort
she raised her eyes to mine, and hers betrayed a keen suspense.
“Beelo is a girl,” she added, as though I had not heard. “Her name is
Beela.” She found my look coolly meeting hers.
“You liked Beelo the boy,” she groped on; “don’t you like Beela the
girl?”
“I--I’m not acquainted with her,” I fumbled.
For a moment the Lentala of the feast returned in a look of mischievous
amusement, followed by one of pretended sorrow. I was enjoying the fine
play in her face..
“But don’t you see,” she asked, “that in knowing and liking the boy, you
knew and liked the girl?”
It would have been impossible for me to make her understand that I was
not nimble in violent readjustments; so I held my peace.
“She was Beela the girl all the time,” Lentala insisted. “It couldn’t
have been anything but the girl in her that you cared for.” She did not
know in the least that she was talking to the wind.
“Of course,” agreed I, very uncomfortable.
My tone made her turn impatiently away. With much spirit she went on as
with ease and softness she paced the floor:
“After all she has done, too! I don’t see------”
“Lentala!” I interrupted; “don’t misunderstand. I do like----”
“No, you don’t!” Her voice was growing unsteady. “My poor little Beela!
I _know_ she’s a madcap, but she is good, she is kind. She _had_ to be a
boy. I _made_ her be one. She couldn’t have done what she did----”
“Lentala, please----”
“-----unless she _was_ a boy. And now she is shamed and humiliated!
Don’t let my sweet sister ever know that. It would break her heart. Poor
little Beela!”
“This is all wrong. I----”
“Even for _my_ sake you might be generous. It is----”
Three strides brought me to her, and I was unconscious of the power in
my angry grip on her wrist, but her tongue went silent. She raised her
eyes under the compulsion of mine.
“That is enough,” I said.
There was a moment’s matching of our forces. A ripple of mischievous
and innocent surprise animated her, and she laughed with the glee of a
gentle child. She was very much like her sister then.
A deepening thunder-crash came.
“You must go--now! I’m going with you. I won’t let you----”
“You shall not go,” I firmly said.
“I _must_. I _want_ to. I’ll get a----”
“No, Lentala. Good-night.”
As I was turning away, I saw the second time in her face the look of
one whose road has stopped at a wall. When I smiled and bowed to her as
Christopher and I were passing out, she was standing where I left her,
looking blankly at me.