THE GOLDEN CITY
Our stay in that place was marred by no other untoward incident; but
right glad was I when, on the following morning, we were in our boat
and going down the stream once more.
"We ought to be safe out here," I remarked at last.
"I don't know about that, Bill," smiled Milton. "The stream is not
a wide one certainly, and those bushes and trees that line the bank
offer--there, look at that!"
But a hundred feet or so before us, a boat was gliding out from the
concealment of a mass of foliage. There were three men in it, and the
looks which they fixed upon us were lowering and sinister.
"Look at that fellow!" said Milton Rhodes, drawing his revolver. "If
that isn't the chap who broke through with the amicable intention of
carving me, all I have to say is that he is his twin brother."
This man was thin almost to emaciation, but his companions were burly
fellows, every lineament of them bespeaking the ruffian.
They held their craft stationary or nearly so. In a few moments,
therefore, we were drawing near to them. Drorathusa had arisen, and she
spoke to the occupants of the strange boat in a rather sharp, imperious
manner. Her presence or her words seemed to awe them; and I was
thanking our lucky stars that, after all, there was not going to be any
trouble, when of a sudden, just as the drift of our boat brought Rhodes
and me alongside, their bridled passions burst forth in a storm of
snarls, cries and fierce gestures of menace. There was a moment when I
thought that they were actually going to attempt to board us. But they
then drew off a few yards, though there was no diminution in that storm
of abuse, execrations and threats that was hurled upon us. All three
were armed, but no motion towards their weapons was made. The reason
for that, I suppose, was the sight of Ondonarkus and Zenvothunbro
standing there each with an arrow to the string. Certainly the fellows
did not in any way fear _our_ weapons.
Some minutes passed, during which the two boats continued to drift
almost side by side and that hideous clamor filled the air. At last,
in an attempt to put an end to it, Milton Rhodes raised his revolver
and took careful aim. Drorathusa gave a cry and then addressed some
rather fierce words to the trio. In all likelihood, she did not know
what Rhodes was going to do. He fired. As he was standing and as but
a little distance separated the boats, the bullet, which struck just
above the waterline, went out through the bottom. The change was
magical. You should have seen those fellows! Whether it was the report
of the weapon or whether it was the hole through which the water came
spouting in, I do not know; but the taming of those wild men was swift
and complete. As soon as they had recovered their wits, round flew the
bow of their boat and away they went towards the shore. Our Dromans
burst into laughter, even Drorathusa. And that was the last that we saw
of those three fanatics.
But why had they done it? Wherefore were Milton Rhodes and I the
objects of a hatred so fierce and so insensate?
Nor were we permitted to forget that fact. Intelligence of our arrival
had spread almost as quickly as though it had been broadcasted by
radio, and along the banks the people were waiting, in twos and threes,
in scores and in hundreds, to see the men from the mysterious and
fearful World Above--harbingers, in their minds, of calamities and
nameless things. Goodness only knows how many fists were shaken at
Rhodes and me during the day, how many were the maledictions that they
hurled upon us. Happily, however, there was no act of hostility.
"You know, Bill," Milton smiled, "I am beginning to wish that we
were back there among those _gogrugrons_, whatever they are, and the
tree-octopi."
This day's voyage brought us to the City of Dranondocrad. There a
change was made that certainly did not displease me--from our little
craft to none other than one of the queen's own, a long beautiful
vessel with oarsmen and guards.
The next day we passed a large tributary flowing in from our left,
from out a yawning cavern there. This was by no means, however, the
first cave we had seen entering the main one. As one moves through some
valley in the mountains, smaller ones are seen coming in on either
hand; and so it was in this great cavern of Drome, save that the
valleys were caves. In that place, the great cavern itself has a width
of two miles or more, and it is four or five thousand feet up to the
vaulted roof.
"One wonders," said I, "why the roof doesn't cave in."
"Pooh, Bill!" said Rhodes. "One doesn't marvel that natural bridges
don't collapse or that the roof of the Mammoth Cave doesn't come
crashing down."
The two days succeeding this brought us into the very heart of Drome,
and on the third we reached the Golden City itself.
This, the capital of the Droman nation, is situated at the lower end of
a lake, a most picturesque sheet of water some fifteen miles in length.
Where the river flows into it and for a distance of about a league
down, the lake extends from one wall of the great cavern clean to the
other. The walls go straight down into the water to what depth no man
knows.
It was about midafternoon when our boat, followed by a fleet of smaller
craft, glided out onto this lovely expanse of water. At a point about
halfway down the lake, we had our first view of Narnawnla Prendella,
the Golden City. I say view, but it was in reality but little more
than a glimpse that we obtained. For, almost at that very moment, a
dense gloom fell upon water and landscape. Fierce and dreadful were the
flickerings along the roof a mile or more above us. So sudden and awful
was the change that even the Dromans seemed astonished. There was a
blinding flash overhead, and then utter blackness everywhere.
Rhodes and I flashed on our lights. For a time the Dromans waited, as
though expecting the light to come at any moment; but it did not come.
Along the shore on either side and in the distant city, lights were
gleaming out. A sudden voice came, mystic and wonderful; Rhodes and I
turned, and there was Drorathusa standing with arms extended upward in
invocation, as we had seen her in that first eclipse. Minutes passed.
But the light did not come. At last the oars were put in motion again.
Dark and agitated, however, were the looks of the Dromans, and more
than one pair of eyes fixed themselves on Rhodes and me in a manner
that plainly marked us as objects of some superstitious dread--if,
indeed, it was not something worse.
Steadily, however, our boat glided forward through the black and awful
night.
"What is that?" I at length asked as suddenly there before us some
vapor or an obscuring something thinned out or rose from the surface
of the water. "It looks like a floating-palace, with a lot of dwarfish
buildings floating behind it. That isn't part of the city itself."
"No; but a palace in all probability," Rhodes answered. "Certainly a
very large and imposing structure. That must be an island."
And an island it is.
At this moment Drorathusa moved to our side, and, indicating the great
building in question, many windows of which were a perfect blaze of
light, she said:
"Lathendra Lepraylya."
Her eyes lingered on Rhodes' face, and her look, I saw, was somber and
troubled.
So that was the queen's palace.
Soon we would be in the presence of this Lathendra (Queen) Lepraylya.
What manner of woman was this sovereign of the Dromans?
What awaited us there?
I remembered that look of Drorathusa's, and I confess that my thoughts
were soon troubled and somber.