A WOODLAND WONDERLAND
What we saw was a circular chamber formed of tree-trunks at the sides
and roofed with masses of green leaves. The central trees had been
cleared away by some means, for a large mahogany stump was used for a
table and its beautifully polished surface proclaimed that it had been
a live tree when sawed through. Also there were several seats formed
from stumps in various parts of the room, and one or two benches and a
couch had been manufactured very cleverly from polished mahogany wood.
But these were by no means the chief wonder of the place. The walls
were thickly covered with climbing vines, which reached in graceful
festoons to the overhanging central boughs; but these were all the
creation of man rather than of nature, for they were formed from virgin
gold.
Also the ornaments scattered about the place, the mountings of the
furniture, swinging lamps and tabourettes, all were of gold, and never
have I beheld the equal of their exquisite workmanship or unique
designing. The tracery of every leaf of the golden bower imitated
accurately nature itself, the veins and stems being so perfect as to
cause one to marvel. Not only had a vast amount of pure gold been used
in this work, but years must have been consumed in its execution.
“Oh, Tcharn!” cried Ilalah, in a shocked tone, as soon as she had
recovered from the wonder of her first look; “you have broken the law!”
“It is true,” answered the arrow-maker, calmly.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
“The yellow metal is very beautiful,” said he, looking upon the golden
bower with loving eyes; “and it is soft, and easy to work into many
pretty forms. Years ago, when I began to gather the metal for my arrows
and spears, I found in our mountains much of the forbidden gold, and
it cried out to me to take it and love it, and I could not resist. So
I brought it here, where no white man could ever see it and where not
even your father was likely to come and charge me with my crime. My
princess, you and your friends are the first to know my secret, and
it is safe in your care because you are yourself breaking the law and
defying the king.”
“In what way?” asked Ilalah.
“In seeking the pebbles that are denied our people, and in befriending
the whites who have been condemned by us for centuries.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, bravely:
“Tcharn, such laws are unjust. I will break them because they are my
father’s laws and not my own. When I come to rule my people I will make
other laws that are more reasonable--and then I will forgive you for
your gold-work.”
“Oh, Ilalah!” exclaimed Moit; “how can you rule these Indians when you
have promised to come with me, and be my queen?”
She drew her hand across her eyes as if bewildered, and then smiled
sweetly into her lover’s face.
“How easy it is to forget,” she said, “when one has always been
accustomed to a certain life. I will go with you, and I will never
rule my people.”
“You are wrong, my princess,” declared the dwarf, eagerly. “What to you
is the white man’s land? You will rule us indeed, and that in a brief
space of time!”
“No, my friend,” she said, “the house that moves will carry me away
with my white chief, and in a new land I will help him to rule his own
people.”
The arrow-maker looked at her with a dreamy, prophetic expression upon
his wizened features.
“Man knows little,” said he, “but the Serpent of Wisdom knows much. In
my forest the serpent dwells, and it has told me secrets of the days to
come. Soon you will be the Queen of the Techlas, and the White Chief
will be but your slave. I see you ruling wisely and with justice, as
you have promised, but still upholding the traditions of your race. You
will never leave the San Blas country, my Ilalah.”
She laughed, brightly.
“Are you then a seer, my cousin?” she asked.
The dwarf started, as if suddenly awakened, and his eyes lost their
speculative gaze.
“Sometimes the vision comes to me,” he said; “how or why I know not.
But always I see truly.”
Duncan Moit did not understand this dialogue, which had been conducted
in the native tongue. He had been examining, with the appreciation of a
skilled workman, the beautiful creations of the Indian goldsmith. But
now our uneasy looks and the significant glances of Nux and Bryonia
attracted his attention, and he turned to ask an explanation.
The princess evaded the subject, saying lightly that the dwarf had
been trying to excuse himself for breaking the law and employing
the forbidden gold in his decorations. I turned to Tcharn and again
demanded:
“Show us the pebbles.”
At once he drew a basket woven of rushes from beneath a bench and
turned out its contents on the top of the great table. A heap of stones
was disclosed, the appearance of which at first disappointed me. They
were of many shapes and sizes and had surfaces resembling ground
glass. In the semi gloom of the bower and amid the shining gold tracery
of its ornamentation the “pebbles” seemed uninteresting enough.
But Moit pounced upon the treasure with exclamations of wonder,
examining them eagerly. Either the German or the arrow-maker had
chipped some of them in places, and then the clear, sparkling
brilliancy of the diamonds was fully demonstrated.
“They are magnificent!” cried the inventor. “I have never seen gems so
pure in color or of such remarkable size and perfect form.”
I compared them mentally with the stones I had found in the roll of
bark taken from the dead man’s pocket, and decided that these were
indeed in no way inferior.
The dwarf opened a golden cabinet and brought us three more diamonds.
These had been cut into facets and polished, and were amazingly
brilliant. I am sure Tcharn had never seen the usual method of
diamond-cutting, and perhaps knew nothing of the esteem in which
civilized nations held these superb pebbles of pure carbon; so it is
remarkable that he had intuitively found the only means of exhibiting
the full beauty of the stones.
[Illustration: “Diamonds! They are magnificent!”]
“Will you give me these, my cousin?” asked the princess.
For answer he swept them all into the basket and placed it in her
hands. She turned and with a pleased smile gave the treasure to Moit.
“At last,” said I, with a sigh of relief, “we have accomplished the
object of our adventure.”
“At last,” said Duncan, “I have enough money to patent my inventions
and to give the machine to the world in all its perfection!”
“But we mus’ get out o’ here, Mars’ Sam,” observed Bry, gravely.
“That is true,” I replied. “And I hope now that we have no further
reason for staying that we shall have little difficulty in passing the
lines of our enemies.”
We confided to the arrow-maker a portion of our adventures, and told
him how Nalig-Nad had seemed determined to destroy us. When the
relation was finished I asked:
“Will you advise us how we can best regain our ship without meeting
the king’s warriors?”
He considered the matter with great earnestness. Then he enquired:
“Will your machine run safely in the waters of the ocean?”
I repeated the question to Moit.
“Yes,” he answered, “if the water is not too rough.”
“Then it will be best for you to go east until you come to the coast
of the Atlantic,” said Tcharn. “The tribes of the south-east will not
oppose you if the Princess Ilalah and I are with you. When you get to
the ocean you may travel in the water to your river, and so reach your
ship.”
This advice was so good that we at once adopted the suggestion.
The arrow-maker now clapped his hands, and to our surprise three tall
natives entered the bower and bowed to him. He ordered them to bring
refreshments, and they at once turned and disappeared.
“Who are these men?” I asked.
“They are my assistants, who help me to forge the arrows and the
spears,” he replied. “The king always allows me three men, and their
tongues are cut out so that they cannot tell to others the secrets of
my art.”
That explained why he was able to devote so much time to the execution
of his gold-work.
The servants shortly returned bearing golden dishes of exquisite
shapes, on the polished surfaces of which familiar scenes in the lives
of the San Blas were cleverly engraved.
We were given fresh milk, a kind of hominy boiled and spiced, slices of
cold mutton and several sorts of fruits, including cocoanut meats.
Sitting around the splendid table, which would have conferred
distinction upon a king’s palace, we made a hasty but satisfying meal
and then prepared to return to the automobile.
I think the little arrow-maker was as eager to ride in the wonderful
machine as to guide us on our way; but we were very glad to have him
with us, and he sat quietly absorbed by the side of Duncan Moit and
watched the inventor direct the course of his automobile over the
difficult pathway between the trees.
We reached level ground without accident and then, turning to the left,
increased our speed and travelled rapidly over the now familiar plains
in the direction of the sea.
We followed the edge of the forest as well as we could, for here in the
uplands the numerous streams were less difficult to cross; but soon
after we had passed beyond the point of our first excursion in this
direction we came upon a good sized river sweeping out from the wood,
which Tcharn told us flowed into the Atlantic further toward the north.
There were dangerous rapids in it, however, so we decided it would
be safer to continue on to the coast than to trust ourselves to this
treacherous current.
And now we soon began to pass the cocoanut groves, while groups of
natives paused to stare at us wonderingly. But we made no halt, for the
plains were smooth and easy to travel upon and the less we had to do
with the natives the better we were off.
A mile inland from the ocean the dwarf told us were many villages. We
decided to rush past these quickly to avoid being stopped, and Tcharn
agreed that it would be wise. Explanations would be sure to delay us,
even if these tribes had not already been warned by messengers from
Nalig-Nad to capture us if we came their way. So when we reached the
villages we shot by them like a flash, and the sensation we created was
laughable.
Men, women and children--even the dogs--rushed from the path of the
dreadful flying monster in a panic of fear, and we heard their screams
and wild cries long after the houses had been left far behind. These
tribes may be just as brave as the ones farther north, but their
natures are not so stolid and self-possessed.
The ocean came into view suddenly, and we found the banks so high above
the beach that we were obliged to turn north until we reached a small
river, the water of which was deep enough to float us out to sea.
Here we bade farewell, with much regret, to our arrow-maker, and Duncan
generously presented him with such wrenches and other tools as could be
spared from his outfit. These presents gave the dwarf much delight, and
for my part I was so grateful for his assistance that I gave him my
silver watch, and showed him how to tell the time of day by following
the movements of its hands. He understood it very quickly and I knew
that he would obtain much pleasure from its possession.
It was little enough, indeed, for the transfer of the diamonds, which
were worth a fortune; but the gems were valueless to him, even had he
been able to own them without the risk of forfeiting his life.
We left the arrow-maker earnestly watching us from the bank as we
paddled swiftly down the stream; but soon our attention was directed to
other matters and we forgot him.
When we reached the ocean we headed out boldly, but the long waves
rolled pretty high for us, we soon found. It was not at all a rough
sea, yet Moit was forced to acknowledge that his invention was not
intended for ocean travel. After we had tossed about for a time we went
ashore, finding to our joy that the beach was broad and sandy, and the
tide was out.
This was the best luck that could possibly have happened to us, and we
sped along the sands at a fine rate of speed, resolved to make the most
of our opportunities.
Just before we reached the northern forest, however, we found that king
Nalig-Nad had been thoughtful enough to anticipate the possibility of
our coming this way and had sent a large force to oppose us. They were
crowded thickly upon the beach and we were given the choice of meeting
them or driving into the ocean again.
I rather favored the latter course, but Duncan’s face was set and
stern, and I saw that he was intent on running them down.
He increased our rate of speed until we were fairly flying, and a
moment more we bumped into the solid ranks of the Indians and sent them
tumbling in every direction--not so much on account of the machine’s
weight as its velocity.
Those who were not knocked over made haste to get out of our way, and
in a few seconds they were all behind us and we could slacken our
terrible pace with safety.
We had passed the mouths of several streams on our way, and circled
some remarkably broad and pretty bays, so now we began to look for
the river in which our wrecked ship was stranded. One broad inlet we
paddled up for a way, but it led straight into the wood; so we backed
out again, and the next time were more successful; for soon we were
able to discern the _Gladys H._ lying on her side, and knew we were
near our journey’s end.
Ilalah told us that small ships sometimes came to this river to trade
with her people for skins and tortoise-shell; but none had been there
for several months.
At first I thought that our wreck was entirely deserted, but after a
time Uncle Naboth’s pudgy form appeared at the stern, waving his red
handkerchief in frantic greeting; a moment later our sailors flocked to
his side, and then a lusty cheer of welcome saluted our grateful ears.