Truly intrepid Torres was for the time—intrepid because of the ancient drink that burned in his blood and brain, and because he was master of the situation. Also, like a true Latin-American, he loved a scene wherein he could strut and elocute.
Yet she startled him by emitting a hiss similar to the Latin way of calling a servitor. He regarded her suspiciously, glanced at the doorway to the sleeping chamber, then returned his gaze to her.
Like a ghost, seeing it only vaguely out of the corner of his eye, the great white hound erupted through the doorway. Startled again, Torres involuntarily stepped to the side. But his foot failed to come to rest on the emptiness of air it encountered, and the weight of his body toppled him down off the platform into the water. Even as he fell and screamed his despair, he saw the hound in mid-air leaping after him.
Swimmer that he was, Torres was like a straw in the grip of the current; and the Lady Who Dreams, gazing down upon him fascinated from the edge of the platform, saw him disappear, and the hound after him, into the heart of the whirlpool from which there was no return.
CHAPTER XX
Long the Lady Who Dreams gazed down at the playing waters. At last, with a sighed “My poor dog,” she arose. The passing of Torres had meant nothing to her. Accustomed from girlhood to exercise the high powers of life and death over her semi-savage and degenerate people, human life, per se, had no sacredness to her. If life were good and lovely, then, naturally, it was the right thing to let it live. But if life were evil, ugly, and dangerous to other lives, then the thing was to let it die or make it die. Thus, to her, Torres had been an episode——unpleasant, but quickly over. But it was too bad about the dog.
Clapping her hands loudly as she entered her chamber, to summon one of her women, she made sure that the lid of the jewel chest was raised. To the woman she gave a command, and herself returned to the platform, from where she could look into the room unobserved.
A few minutes later, guided by the woman, Francis entered the chamber and was left alone. He was not in a happy mood. Fine as had been his giving up of Leoncia, he got no pleasure from the deed. Nor was there any pleasure in looking forward to marrying the strange lady who ruled over the Lost Souls and resided in this weird lake-dwelling. Unlike Torres, however, she did not arouse in him fear or animosity. Quite to the contrary, Francis’ feeling toward her was largely that of pity. He could not help but be impressed by the tragic pathos of the ripe and lovely woman desperately seeking love and a mate, despite her imperious and cavalier methods.
At a glance he recognized the room for what it was, and idly wondered if he were already considered the bridegroom, sans discussion, sans acquiescence, sans ceremony. In his brown study, the chest scarcely caught his attention. The Queen, watching, saw him evidently waiting for her, and, after a few minutes, walk over to the chest. He gathered up a handful of the gems, dropped them one by one carelessly back as if they had been so many marbles, and turned and strolled over to examine the leopard skins on her couch. Next, he sat down upon it, oblivious equally of couch or treasure. All of which was provocative of such delight to the Queen that she could no longer with-strain herself to mere spying. Entering the room and greeting him, she laughed:
“Was Senor Torres a liar?”
“Was?” Francis queried, for the need of saying something, as he arose before her.
“He no longer is,” she assured him. “Which is neither here nor there,” she hastened on as Francis began to betray interest in the matter of Torres’ end. “He is gone, and it is well that he is gone, for he can never come back. But he did lie, didn’t he?”
“Undoubtedly,” Francis replied. “He is a confounded liar.”
He could not help noticing the way her face fell when he so heartily agreed with her concerning Torres’ veracity.
“What did he say?” Francis questioned.
“That he was the one selected to marry me.”
“A liar,” Francis commented dryly.
“Next he said that you were the selected one—which was also a lie,” her voice trailed off.
Francis shook his head.
The involuntary cry of joy the Queen uttered touched his heart to such tenderness of pity that almost did he put his arms around her to soothe her. She waited for him to speak.
“I am the one to marry you,” he went on steadily. “You are very beautiful. When shall we be married?”
The wild joy in her face was such that he swore to himself that never would he willingly mar that face with marks of sorrow. She might be ruler over the Lost Souls, with the wealth of Ind and with supernatural powers of mirror-gazing; but most poignantly she appealed to him as a lonely and naïve woman, overspilling of love and totally unversed in love.
“And I shall tell you of another lie this Torres animal told to me,” she burst forth exultantly. “He told me that you were rich, and that, before you married me, you desired to know what wealth was mine. He told me you had sent him to inquire into what riches I possessed. This I know was a lie. You are not marrying me for that!”—with a scornful gesture at the jewel chest.
Francis shook his head.
“You are marrying me for myself,” she rushed on in triumph.
“For yourself,” Francis could not help but lie.
And then he beheld an amazing thing. The Queen, this Queen who was the sheerest autocrat, who said come here and go there, who dismissed the death of Torres with its mere announcement, and who selected her royal spouse without so much as consulting his prenuptial wishes, this Queen began to blush. Up her neck, flooding her face to her ears and forehead, welled the pink tide of maidenly modesty and embarrassment. And such sight of faltering made Francis likewise falter. He knew not what to do, and felt a warmth of blood rising under the sun-tan of his own face. Never, he thought, had there been a man-and-woman situation like it in all the history of men and women. The mutual embarrassment of the pair of them was appalling, and to save his life he could not have summoned a jot of initiative. Thus, the Queen was compelled to speak first.
“And now,” she said, blushing still more furiously, “you must make love to me.”
Francis strove to speak, but his lips were so dry that he licked them and succeeded only in stammering incoherently.
“I never have been loved,” the Queen continued bravely. “The affairs of my people are not love. My people are animals without reason. But we, you and I, are man and woman. There must be wooing, and tenderness——that much I have learned from my Mirror of the World. But I am unskilled. I know not how. But you, from out of the great world, must surely know. I wait. You must love me.”
She sank down upon the couch, drawing Francis beside her, and true to her word, proceeded to wait. While he, bidden to love at command, was paralyzed by the preposterous impossibility of so obeying.
“Am I not beautiful?” the Queen queried after another pause. “Are not your arms as mad to be about me as I am mad to have them about me? Never have a man’s lips touched my lips. What is a kiss like——on the lips, I mean? Your lips on my hand were ecstasy. You kissed then, not alone my hand, but my soul. My heart was there, throbbing against the press of your lips. Did you not feel it?”
“And so,” she was saying, half an hour later, as they sat on the couch hand in hand, “I have told you the little I know of myself. I do not know the past, except what I have been told of it. The present I see clearly in my Mirror of the World. The future I can likewise see, but vaguely; nor can I always understand what I see. I was born here. So was my mother, and her mother. How it chanced is that always into the life of each queen came a lover. Sometimes, as you, they came here. My mother’s mother, so it was told me, left the valley to find her lover and was gone a long time——for years. So did my mother go forth. The secret way is known to me, where the long dead conquistadores guard the Maya mysteries, and where Da Vasco himself stands whose helmet this Torres animal had the impudence to steal and claim for his own. Had you not come, I should have been compelled to go forth and find you, for you were my appointed one and had to be.”
A woman entered, followed by a spearman, and Francis could scarce make his way through the quaint antiquated Spanish of the conversation that ensued. In commingled anger and joy, the Queen epitomized it to him.
“We are to depart now to the Long House for our wedding. The Priest of the Sun is stubborn, I know not why, save that he has been balked of the blood of all of you on his altar. He is very blood-thirsty. He is the Sun Priest, but he is possessed of little reason. I have report that he is striving to turn the people against our wedding——the dog!” She clinched her hands, her face set, and her eyes blazed with royal fury. “He shall marry us, by the ancient custom, before the Long House, at the Altar of the Sun.”
“It’s not too late, Francis, to change your mind,” Henry urged. “Besides, it is not fair. The short straw was mine. Am I not right, Leoncia?”
Leoncia could not reply. They stood in a group, at the forefront of the assembled Lost Souls, before the altar. Inside the Long House the Queen and the Sun Priest were closeted.
“You wouldn’t want to see Henry marry her, would you, Leoncia?” Francis argued.
“Nor you, either,” Leoncia countered. “Torres is the only one I’d like to have seen marry her. I don’t like her. I would not care to see any friend of mine her husband.”
“You’re almost jealous,” commented Henry. “Just the same, Francis doesn’t seem so very cast down over his fate.”
“She’s not at all bad,” Francis retorted. “And I can accept my fate with dignity, if not with equanimity. And I’ll tell you something else, Henry, now that you are harping on this strain: she wouldn’t marry you if you asked her.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Henry began.
“Then ask her,” was the challenge. “Here she comes now. Look at her eyes. There’s trouble brewing. And the priest’s black as thunder. You just propose to her and see what chance you’ve got while I’m around.”
Henry nodded his head stubbornly.
“I will——but not to show you what kind of a woman-conqueror I am, but for the sake of fair play. I wasn’t playing the game when I accepted your sacrifice of yourself, but I am going to play the game now.”
Before they could prevent him, he had thrust his way to the Queen, shouldered in between her and the priest, and began to speak earnestly. And the Queen laughed as she listened. But her laughter was not for Henry. With shining triumph she laughed across at Leoncia.
Not many moments were required to say no to Henry’s persuasions, whereupon the Queen joined Leoncia and Francis, the priest tagging at her heels, and Henry, following more slowly, trying to conceal the gladness that was his at being rejected.
“What do you think,” the Queen addressed Leoncia directly. “Good Henry has just asked me to marry him, which makes the fourth this day. Am I not well loved? Have you ever had four lovers, all desiring to marry you on your wedding day?”
“Four!” Francis exclaimed.
The Queen looked at him tenderly.
