_Subtle Changes in Beela. A Startling Discovery in the Palace Vaults.
The Secrets of the Council Chamber Overheard. Urgent Measures Planned._
YOU are late!” blithely greeted Beela when we arrived at the palace
gate after leaving Mr. Vancouver. “That shows how much you think of the
beautiful, the angel, the sweet, the good Lentala, for you are to sleep
in her quarters tonight.”
We were just in time, for the heavens were opening, and the deluge was
at hand.
With great caution Beela conducted us to a chamber in Lentala’s wing
of the palace. Evidently it was a sanctuary, for it was quite different
from the room in which Lentala had received us, and Beela carelessly
remarked that in giving us the room, her sister was bestowing a special
favor, since not even her servants were ever admitted.
“Because,” Beela chattered on as she lighted the beautiful lamps, “this
is where she comes to lead alone the life that she dreams about, far,
far away, where there are no Senatras,--the life that was born in our
blood, Choseph, and that we can see very dimly, and in our dreams only.
But this room helps Lentala to dream of it. Do you remember the story
you told me one day? She has changed the room tonight merely by bringing
in these couches for you and Christopher to sleep on.”
I felt something new in Beela’s manner,--a note of sentiment singing
low in her voice, an augmented softness and grace in her bearing. She
appeared to be struggling against it and striving to be the boy Beelo.
Some success came, but the winning note still sang in her throat.
She opened an adjoining room, and disclosed a bath.
“Your Senatra tint is a little damaged,” she cheerily said. “Wash it
off; you’ll not need it tonight. Here’s a fresh supply for tomorrow
morning. Don’t forget to put it on! But there’s much to do before you
sleep. I am going to take you to the Council Chamber. Dress as quickly
as possible. I have to make some changes myself. When you are ready,
give three light taps on that door.”
“Thank you, dear little brother, but where’s Lentala?”
“Lentala! Do you think she can sit up all night waiting for callers?”
“We are to see her in the morning, then?”
Beela had been bustling over finishing touches for our comfort, but my
question--perhaps my tone--stopped her.
“Do you wish to see her?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Beelo! Can you ask that? Unless we see Lentala whenever we come to the
palace, the jungle is more comfortable.”
She turned away, pretending to be hurt.
“And so you don’t care for Beelo. It is nothing to sleep under the same
roof with him.”
“But Beelo is a part of my life, dear lad. However far away he may
be, he is always with me. Whenever and wherever I go, my dear little
brother’s hand is in mine; and no matter when or where I sleep, his
sweet breath is on my cheek; and the touch of his light fingers on
my lids and the ring of his cheery laugh in my heart wake me in the
morning. In my dreams----” I paused, for Beela embarrassed me by the
breathless interest with which she was listening.
“In your dreams, Choseph?”
“Then Beelo comes with another. He leads that one by the hand, and
smiles at me, and says in his musical voice, ‘This one also you must
like, big brother, for this is Beelo’s best friend.’”
She came close and looked up into my eyes.
“That other one, big brother?”
“Is Lentala.”
Her breath caught as she moved away, and she was silent for a little
while as she gave the last touches and started to leave. At the door she
threw me a mischievous glance, and said:
“You have funny dreams, Choseph, but I’ll tell Lentala you wish to see
her,” and was gone.
I had already observed that no touch of native savagery rested on
this room. Every article of use or adornment was of a highly civilized
production. The barbaric splendor of the reception-room was absent here,
and a dainty, girlish simplicity was the note. Exceedingly charming
were products of her needlework and other handicraft copied from foreign
articles. There were some English books that showed signs of hard use. I
picked up one and found a dainty handkerchief within it, and felt a pity
for Lentala thus reaching out for what she could not understand.
Beela appeared in different clothes when I rapped, and was much fresher
and smarter than I had ever seen her. She looked conscious under my
admiring glance, and expressed gratification at the improvement in my
looks.
“Beelo, you are as pretty as a girl. Fie!”
She pretended not to hear, and was busy lighting a lantern.
“They are all asleep in this wing,” she said. “Now we’ll go. Listen to
the storm! Mr. Vancouver is safe for another day, I hope. And still no
earthquake.”
I felt a twinge, but no opportunity had offered for my telling her of
the incident in the hut. The truth is, I dreaded lest she find fault
with Christopher for disclosing our identity to Mr. Vancouver and my
knowledge of his perfidy.
It would be difficult to say in what lay the finer air of Beela’s dress.
In cut the garments had a masculine approach, but in China they might
have passed for feminine. The trousers and blouse were of fine dark-blue
cloth, and were ample. In place of the somewhat shabby straw hat was
a becoming red turban, and the shoes were Turkish, red, and richly
embroidered in gold. The blouse opened like a V at the neck, and a
negligee tie matching in shade the turban and the shoes was secured with
a splendid diamond at the bottom of the V.
More insinuating than these outward things were the girl’s gentler voice
and manner. There was a hint of the young mother in her caressing look
and touch, and the cello note in her voice had fallen still softer and
smoother.
In lighting the lantern, she disarranged her turban by striking it
against a piece of furniture. She straightened, and raised her arms
to readjust it. Her sleeves were wide and open, and they slipped down,
baring her arms.
I had been trying with all my might to keep from my mind the delicious
thought of Beelo’s metamorphosis, but self-deception was no longer
possible. I _must_ revel in this new and pleasant experience. The one
duty that I must observe was the keeping of my promise to Lentala that I
would not let her little sister know that I knew.
“Are we ready?” cheerily asked Beela, picking up the lantern and
darkening it with a cloth. “Come. No talking till I give you leave. We
must be careful in this wing, for Lentala’s servants might wake. The
noises of the storm will help us, but the veranda is drenched. We must
take the other way.”
She opened the door through which she had entered last, and we were
in darkness when she closed it; but I had dimly seen that it was a
corridor.
“We can’t use the lantern yet,” she whispered, slipping her hand down my
sleeve to my fingers. “Can you find your way, Christopher?”
“Yes.” There was always something tragic in Christopher’s whisper.
“Do you love me, Christopher?” she teasingly asked, squeezing my
fingers.
“Yes, ma’am.”
It required great stoicism for me to hold my hand passive and not return
the pressure, but I was amazed when she abruptly dropped my fingers.
I could see nothing except a faint glow through the cloth about the
lantern, but I peremptorily seized her sleeve, drew her arm up, took her
hand, and squeezed it hard, for reproof. She made no resistance. Beela
was very sweet in the dark,--I remembered the passage through the
mountain.
We almost immediately turned into a much longer stretch, as I knew
by the whispering echoes of our steps; and soon the shrouded light of
Beela’s lantern made the walls visible. After leading us down a dark
stair she halted before a door, unlocked it, ushered us within, relocked
the door, and removed the cloth from the light.
This chamber was a disordered lumber-room, filled with odds and ends of
broken things, native and foreign. I was less interested in the rubbish
than in the new picture of Beela in the ascending light from the
lantern. It made a witchery of her chin, emphasized the graceful curve
of her lips, filled her delicate nostrils, and threw her eyes into
mystical shadow. I tried to get her hand again, but failed. Beela in the
light was not the same as Beela in the dark.
She paused, and breathed more freely.
“We are safe for a while now,” she said. It was hard to listen
composedly to her words, so sweet was the tone of them.
She wound and twisted through the stores, we following, and brought up
at a door which a stranger, likely, never would have found. This she
unlocked, passed us through, and secured behind us. The air was dank
and musty, and despite the lantern there were uncanny patches of
phosphorescent light on walls otherwise invisible as yet. The space was
roomy, the floor earthen. It proved to be a large cellar-like chamber
with a low ceiling supported by stone pillars groined into arches, and
was paved, furnished with grated windows, and sweet and dry. Here were
immense stores: American-tinned provisions in astonishing abundance;
bale upon bale of cloth of many kinds; modern farming implements,
and machinery and tools for sawyers, carpenters, cabinet-makers,
upholsterers, and many other useful trades; and at one side an array of
firearms and ammunition.
Beela was watching me in my astonishment, for not the smallest item of
this store had I seen in use by the natives.
“Don’t you know what it all is, Choseph?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“It is the cargo of your vessel.”
I was speechless. Two things were clear: one, that the water-tight
bulkheads in the Hope had not given way (which accounted for her pursuit
of us instead of sinking), and the other, that the natives had carefully
repaired all the water-damage possible. The thorough care of the cargo
very likely had extended to the vessel herself.
My emotion was profound. I wrung Beela’s hand, but something in my eyes
made her dim and floating. Only vaguely could I see the sweet uplift and
happiness in her face. Christopher was standing apart like a man of wood
except that his eyes were living. If he needed any expression from me of
the almost cruel joy that filled me, he gave no sign, but stood in the
pathetic loneliness that forever invested him.
“We must go on,” said Beela. “It is time for the king’s privy council.”
A devious way through another storage vault filled with things no doubt
of great value, the ascent of a stone stair, a turning into this passage
and another into that, and a short flight of steps, brought us at last
upon a curtained balcony overlooking a dimly lighted council hall of
considerable size and rich in savage appointments. The king was on a
throne facing us, and in a semi-circle before him, seated on rugs on the
stone floor, were old and elderly native men splendidly appareled. The
king was even more sumptuously robed than on the day of our reception
by him. He had no personal attendants, for this, Beela explained in a
whisper, was not a state council, but a secret one, called occasionally
for extraordinary purposes, composed of selected wise men, and generally
held late at night. The balcony where we sat was for the use of the
queen and her feminine friends at state meetings. The diaphanous
curtains, of an exquisite native texture and handsomely embroidered,
could be seen through from our side, which was in shadow, but not from
the other.
One thing had been puzzling me exceedingly. It was that no American and
European articles looted from wrecks were in use in their original form
by any of the natives except Lentala and Beela.
“Because,” Beela had told me in answer to my question, “the natives
don’t need them, and are more content without them. The king is wise
with his people, and they love him.”
The council was under way. An old man had been droning something that
I did not hear, for his voice was weak and the storm noisy. The king
nodded to another, a younger man, who came to his splendid full height.
His gold-embroidered cloak of office slipped from his great right
shoulder and arm after he had risen from his obeisance.
“What is the temper of the Senatras, Gato?” the king asked.
“Very impatient, Sire. There are murmurings and small secret gatherings.
Rebellion is in the air.”
The king moved uneasily. “And your soldiers?” he inquired.
“I have them in hand as yet, but they are naturally affected by the
restlessness among the people, and are sick of waiting and of guarding
the passes. They have never been on duty so long. They love their homes
and farms, and they can’t understand the delay. If a wreck should come
with this storm, where will the people from it be held?”
“There is plenty of room in the valley,” snapped the king, making an
impatient gesture. “And don’t our people know that the crowd we have
there is different from any castaways we have had before? Of course we
can’t let any of them leave the island, for they suspect its wealth,
and would return with soldiers and guns, and destroy us. But we have to
proceed cautiously. There are more than a hundred and fifty picked men
in the party, and their leaders, Mason and Tudor, and the giant ape
Christopher, are shrewd, bold men, and have no fear.”
We three were sitting close together, Beela in the middle. One of her
hands stole out, took Christopher’s, squeezed it, and released it. The
other found my hand; I closed on its warm softness and kept it prisoned.
“In some mysterious way,” Gato explained, “they have outwitted us. Our
plan was to break them up by using the old traitor Vancouver, but they
evidently discovered his treachery, and I have just learned that they
sent him out as our first offering to the Black Face, while letting him
think that he was going to betray them to us.”
“I suppose,” said the king, “that he is as good as another for the
sacrifice. That will satisfy the people for a time, but he is the first
and the last that we’ll get from that crowd without bloody work, and I
don’t wish my subjects to be killed.”
He paused, and the others waited. Beela’s breathing had grown quick;
there was a slight quiver in her hand.
The king went on:
“Mason evidently suspects that the people taken out of the valley will
not be sent away, and so he is holding them together. No doubt they have
armed themselves, and are ready to fight. Mason will be in no hurry to
precipitate an issue with us, for they can subsist indefinitely where
they are, we can’t strengthen our position against them, and time, he
reasons, may bring me to liberate them in a body.”
It was impossible not to recognize the kindliness and benevolence in the
king’s voice and words.
“May I speak, Sire?”
“Yes, Gato.”
“I fear that Vancouver is going mad.”
The king looked his dismay.
“He mumbles,” proceeded Gato; “his eyes are wild at times; he calls for
his daughter, and weeps like a child; he cannot eat, and his sleep is
broken with loud cries.”
“Is there much of that?” the king asked in alarm.
“No, Sire; only rarely. If he is taken to the sacrificial altar when he
has a lucid period,------”
“The risk is great,” groaned the king. “The people would resent the
offering up of a madman; and we can do nothing while the storm lasts.
The people can’t assemble. We must wait. You men go among the Senatras
tomorrow and pacify them. Tell them that all will be well. Do they say
that the Face is threatening, Gato?”
“Yes, Sire. Some fools have seen it and spread tales about it. One is
that green water streams out of its eyes, and another is that the mouth
has opened and that purple flames come forth.”
Beela’s start thrilled me. The news brought the king to his feet.
“Is it true, Gato,--the open mouth and the purple flame?”
“I do not know, Sire. I have not seen it, and I do not believe it.”
“But it may be true! Find out tomorrow morning, and let me know.” He
was leaving the throne, and although the light was poor, I could see a
totter in his step and haggardness in his face.
The others were rising. The king turned to them, and said:
“If _that_ is true,--” He did not finish, but stood in a daze. “The
council is ended,” he weakly added, and slowly left the chamber, the
others filing after him.