David welcomed Sajipona with genuine pleasure, with an eagerness suggesting that he had been awaiting her coming impatiently. Heedless of his greeting, however, and regarding him earnestly, she asked if he remembered the visitor who had been with him a short time before.

“Yes! Yes!” he exclaimed. Then he went on, betraying a certain degree of anxiety in tone and manner, explaining how this visitor’s face had haunted him as if it belonged to one he had seen in his dreams, one upon whom he had unwittingly inflicted pain. Of course, that could not be, he said, since there was no reality in dreams. After all, a fancied wrong was nothing—and yet, this dim memory of the woman who had been with them a moment before was confusing. Where was she now? he asked. Was she offended because he failed to recognize her? He should have known better—but dreams are troublesome things! He would like to see her again—although it might be painful in a way—and then, perhaps, he would recall more distinctly what now was merely a dim sort of shadow in the back of his brain.

They talked together in the darkened chamber overlooking the portico. The couch from which he rose to greet Sajipona screened, with its regal hangings, Raoul from him. When the queen pointed out this new visitor to him, the result was similar to that following his encounter with Una.

“More dream-people,” muttered David, passing his hand slowly across his eyes. “I know this man, but I can’t exactly place him. It will come back to me in a minute.”

Raoul watched him with the intent, impersonal interest a scientist gives an experiment that is nearing the climax for which everything has been prepared beforehand.

“I think I can help you,” he assured him.

Then, turning to Sajipona; “I must warn you,” he said in a low voice. “There will be a complete change. Why not leave things as they are?”

The queen held her head up proudly.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Raoul shrugged his shoulders, regarding her, and then David, with a gleam of malice in his restless eyes.

“I mean just this: David will remember vividly what is now only a vague dream, and he may forget everything else. Therefore, I say, if you are satisfied with him as he is, don’t disturb his present mood.”

“I am not satisfied.”

“Ah! you are not satisfied. You want to try one more experiment. But, just think!” he went on, a hint of mockery in his voice; “all that legend of your people, about a stranger who would appear from a far-off land and restore the Chibcha Empire—why spoil so pretty a picture? And the chances are, you will spoil it. I warn you——”

A flash of anger checked his words.

“I have pledged myself for your safety,” she reminded him; “keep out of danger! I don’t care for your warnings. Help this man in the way that I have asked, and as you say you can. You’ve tried often enough to injure him. The consequences to me from what you do now—leave all that for me to choose. Oh, never fear! I will repay your service.”

David understood little of what was said, although he strove to piece out a meaning. He perceived he was the subject of their talk. From Sajipona’s angry tone, moreover, he knew that she was offended. The consequent resentment that he felt in her behalf was strengthened by an instinctive feeling of suspicion and dislike toward Raoul. Checking a movement of repulsion, he appealed to Sajipona.

“Let me throw him out of here,” he demanded abruptly.

“Oh, on the contrary!” smiled the queen, not unpleased at his attitude. “He is here because I have asked him to come—and you will help me if you do what he tells you.”

“Do what he tells me? No! Why, Sajipona, what new whim have you got in that beautiful head of yours? Something’s wrong. It must be that I’ve offended you.”

He took her hand, stroking it caressingly, while his eyes sought hers in unrestrained admiration.

“This is hard,” he went on, in a low tone, half laughter, half reproach. “You are always so good, gracious as a queen should be. Now you tell me to do what an enemy of yours commands. As your enemy means mine, that is unreasonable. I fear,” he added playfully, touching her hands with his lips, “I will have to disobey you, just this once, even if you are a great queen. When I am king, and we rule our jolly cave together, as you said we would, it won’t be so bad, I suppose. Men like this, certainly, won’t be around to bother us. How did he get here? I thought one law of this kingdom—and a very good law it is, too—was to keep people out.”

“But you got in.”

“I suppose I did,” he assented dreamily. “But I’m not sure how it happened.”

“That’s just it. This man will tell you. His name is Raoul Arthur.”

David looked at him blankly, repeating the name. Raoul moved out of the shadow of the bed hangings, his eyes fixed on David’s. His lips parted as if to speak, but the words were checked by an imperative gesture from the man before him.

“I’m not sure that I want to listen,” said David. “I know this man, I’m certain that I do—but I can’t tell you when it was that I first met him. It’s all very vague, like the haze that sometimes covers the living pictures in the great pool of light in there. This memory comes like something evil, something that brings ruin. Surely, you don’t want to bring ruin upon us, Sajipona! Why not blot it out altogether?”

She shook her head sadly, looking wistfully into his face. They clasped each other’s hands, oblivious, for the moment, of Raoul’s presence.

“If you are king there must be no forgetting, no dread of a memory that has been lost. You must know! The Land of the Condor is a land of dreams compared with the rest of the world. You have been out there, David, but you have forgotten. Now you must remember.”

“No, not exactly forgotten,” he said uneasily. “It’s all in my head, a lot of things jumbled together—like the haze in there. I have no wish to straighten it out, either. There is such a thing as knowing too much sometimes. We are happier this way—don’t let’s run any risks changing what we already have. Soon there will be that feast, you said—and then, if you are queen, perhaps you will want me to be king. How proud I shall be! You are very beautiful, Sajipona; noble and great, like the daughter of real kings of the earth. You are my dream-queen, you know, the first love to touch my soul with a knowledge of beauty. Such a woman men die for! Sometimes, when you sing to me, or tease old Narva; or when I would hold you and you kind of ripple away laughing, like the little brook at the bottom of the garden—yes, that is the woman men die loving.”

“I wonder if you will always think that!”

“You mean, I may forget?”

“No, you will remember.”

“‘Remember!’ You mean, those other things wrapped in the haze—the things that we wait to see come out in the pool of light. That’s just it! No, I don’t want them; they spoil the first picture. To worship beauty like yours, to live forever in the spell of your eyes, the fragrance of your whole perfect being—that is happiness. I want nothing else. Why lose our dream-loves; why snatch from us, even before it is ours, the first pure flower that touches the lips of youth? Don’t rob me of mine, my queen!”

His appeal thrilled with a dreamy earnestness that would have moved a sterner woman than Sajipona. Nor could there be doubt that the joy he thus kindled in her revived a hope that Una’s coming had almost destroyed. Nevertheless, in spite of this response of her own deep passion to his, her purpose remained unaltered. The very eagerness with which she drank in David’s words—feeling the temptation to let things keep the happy course they had already taken—strengthened her resolve to lose no time, to risk everything now. That such a change as she had feared could be wrought in David after all this, seemed inconceivable. The witchcraft, if witchcraft it was, that drew him to her was something real, real as life, that exorcism could not dissolve. Sure of her triumph, she sought to put him to the test herself.

“David, before you came to me, was there no other woman that you knew?”

“Oh, yes, I think so, surely!” he laughed. “There might have been any number of them. But—why bother about them? Just who they were, or where I knew them, I have forgotten. I hope you don’t think it necessary to remember every woman I have known! Anyway, I can’t. Why, I don’t even remember their names.”

“I mean, one woman only. Perhaps there was one you loved, you know, among all those you have forgotten. Some one who was beautiful—is still beautiful—and who loves you. It might be the woman you saw here a short time ago. She is called Una. Surely, you remember.”

He wrung her hands, kissed them, listened eagerly to what she was saying, at the same time that he longed to seal his ears from hearing. Under his breath he muttered Una’s name, its iteration, apparently, increasing his agitation. Distressed by Sajipona’s questions, he tried to parry them, without revealing too much of his own mental confusion. He did remember Una, he said, but the memory was vague. She might be one of those dream-women, for all he knew, who get mixed up with one’s ideas of reality. He would like to have it straightened out, to know who she was and why the thought of her troubled him. But, after all, it was not particularly important—not important, that is, compared with his love for Sajipona, his certainty that in their union lay a future happiness, not for them only, but for all this wonderful kingdom she ruled over.

“Keep in this mind, if you will,” said Sajipona, the hope that she secretly cherished greatly strengthened by the sincerity and fervor of his protestations; “but first be sure you know dreams from waking.”

Again she expressed her desire to have Raoul brought into the matter, promising David that, through his knowledge and experience, the puzzles and contradictions of the past would be set right. Yielding reluctantly, he turned to Raoul.

The latter had withdrawn to the far side of David’s couch, whence he had watched, with alternate amusement and contempt, all that took place between these two. He now advanced, with the air of one who has the mastery of a difficult situation, and again proffered his services. There was mockery in his voice; before he addressed himself to his task he repeated his warning to Sajipona, reminding her that it might be better not to revive too suddenly a past filled, possibly, with disagreeable surprises. His warning waved impatiently aside, Raoul turned swiftly upon David, his restless, irritating eyes fixed in a steady glare that, bit by bit, broke down the latter’s opposition. Forcing his victim to be seated upon the side of the couch, he stood over him, for a short space, in silence. There was nothing in all this of the gesture and mummery traditionally accompanying certain spectacular manifestations of hypnotism; neither were the two men at any time in physical contact with each other. An onlooker would say that the younger man was unconsciously brought into a passive condition by the exertion upon him of a stronger will, intensified by facial peculiarities that were well calculated to hold the attention. Eyes like Raoul’s, although exciting repugnance, at the same time arouse curiosity. Once absorbed in probing their baffling depths, the object of their regard yields to a sort of baleful fascination hard to shake off. In former years David had been used by Raoul in various psychological experiments, and was thus accustomed, on such occasions, to surrender himself to the other’s compelling influence. This habit was now unconsciously revived. The old grooves of thought and conduct were reopened, as it were, by the resumption of a parallel outward condition. As a result, David fell into a state of complete mental inertia.

To this influence Raoul now added the force of direct suggestion, or, rather, verbal command. The subtle arts of apparent submission, or, at the least, mild expostulation which he usually employed in gaining his ends with an intractable opponent, were cast aside. His attack was concentrated, he spoke scornfully, without compromise in utterance or meaning, so that his hypnotized subject was forced either to resist or to be carried along by him. Through this direct, positive method, he took David back, step by step, over events in the immediate past that had become obscured in his memory.

“On the road from Honda,” he told him, “you were traveling with another man. You were both going to Bogota. You stopped on the road, and at this man’s suggestion you drank several toasts. The liquor confused you. You began to lose track of things. Suddenly, you and your companion met a ragged army of volunteers marching, as they said, to avenge their country on the Americans at Panama. This encounter, bringing you into direct contact with Colombian hostility to your countrymen, intensified your abnormal condition. In the confusion caused by meeting the volunteers, you were separated from your companion. His name—don’t forget!—was General Herran. He also had been mixed up in the Panama troubles. By this time—that is, after you had lost Herran—owing to these various causes, you had fallen into one of those states of forgetfulness that you had experienced before. In this state you forgot what had just happened and remembered instead your experience here three years ago, when your brain had been stunned by an explosion of dynamite. Living again in this memory, you met two cavemen. They spoke to you. You knew them. Immediately, it seemed to you that you were on your way with them to meet Sajipona in this cave where you had been three years before. All that had passed between then and now faded from your mind. But, of course you know that is preposterous! Nothing fades from the mind. The memory of that period that you think you have forgotten is really in your brain, waiting for you to call it to life. And now, you will call it to life.”

The emphasis, the force in what Raoul was saying was due more to his manner, the intensity with which he regarded David, than in the actual words themselves. It was, in a measure, a contest of wills; but, either through long habit of yielding to Raoul in these experiments, or else through a desire to carry out what was evidently Sajipona’s wish, there was no doubt from the first of the result. And when this result came, it was decisive. After the first sentence David’s instinctive opposition was weakened. The desire to allay the anxiety obscurely felt in his own mind helped to bring him under Raoul’s influence. The unexpected sight of Una had disturbed him. Ever since their meeting he had been aware that something in him was lacking, some clew lost between his past and his present. Sajipona, deeply conscious though he was of her majestic beauty, began to take on the vagueness of outline belonging to those persons whose relationship to ourselves is so doubtfully circumstanced that we momentarily expect to lose sight of them altogether. She was literally becoming the dream-woman, the intangible, lovely ideal of youth that he had playfully called her, while Una was becoming correspondingly more real, less elusive. For this very reason, this fear that fate was about to take from him one so desirable as Sajipona, he had felt an excess of joy upon seeing her now. His greeting had been more than usually demonstrative because her coming had reassured him, silenced doubts that were disquieting. Then, on the heels of this, he was aware of Raoul, with all that he meant of uncertainty and restlessness. And yet, in spite of his distaste for anything that threatened the peaceful course his life seemed to be taking, a secret feeling of relief tempered the repulsion aroused by the sudden appearance of his long forgotten friend. Raoul’s words and manner completely possessed him. The scene that he recalled of his meeting with the cavemen on the Honda road was etched on his mind as vividly as if it had just been experienced. And now, with this starting point fixed, Raoul took him backward, step by step.

Again he saw himself with General Herran, stopping on the Honda road to exchange those fatal civilities, and immediately after, the noise and confusion of the marching volunteers, with their threats of vengeance against the Yankees. Back of this came the quiet march with Herran. He recalled their talk, something of their friendly disputes. The effort to do this bewildered him. It seemed as if he were stepping from one world into another. Everything was merged into one gigantic figure of Raoul, a Raoul towering above him, concentrating himself upon him, dominating him until all else faded away and he was lost in a dreamless sleep, filled only with that word of command—“remember!”

How long he remained in this state of unconsciousness—for it was that rather than sleep—he did not know. It might have been years, it might have been a mere moment of time. When the spell was finally broken by Raoul the scene that met his awakened senses puzzled him. He was in Sajipona’s palace, in the room where Raoul had confronted and subdued him. But it was all unfamiliar. His mind was filled with his mission to Bogota. His parting with Una in the sunny courtyard of the inn came back to him, irradiating a dreamy happiness. He had been through some strange experiences since then, he knew. The sight of the bed hangings under which he was reclining, the great spaces of the room, the softened light of the cave, kept alive the memory of many a novel, fantastic adventure. Shaking off his drowsiness, he sprang to his feet. Sajipona and Raoul advanced to meet him. Sajipona! Yes, he remembered her. She was the beautiful Indian queen he was to marry in his dream—it must have been a dream, because Una was not there; except that, at the very last, he remembered, Una had stepped in for just a moment—and he had not known her! How amazed, angry, she must have been! And then—what else could have been expected?—she had gone away. He was anxious now for her safety, although how she could possibly be in this cave, how she could have found her way here, was a hopeless puzzle. The first word he uttered was a cry to Sajipona:

“Where is Una?”

Raoul would have answered, but Sajipona checked him. She realized the full significance of David’s question, although outwardly she showed nothing of her emotion.

“You are yourself again—I am glad,” she said.

“But Una——?”

“She is safe. She reached Bogota after you left Honda.”

David’s relief was evident, although his eyes showed the perplexity arising from his strange awakening.

“I thought she had found her way here,” he said. Then he turned again to Sajipona, this time with an impulsive gesture of gratitude. “I remember everything now. You saved my life. Every moment with you has been filled with happiness. How can I ever be grateful enough for the kindness you have shown me?”

He knelt before her, kissing her hand. She smiled; her other hand rested upon his shoulder.

“Grateful!” she exclaimed playfully. “Have we not a lifetime together before us? You have forgotten the festival that awaits us on the top of the mountain.”

“No, I have not forgotten.”

“Do you want it to take place?”

He arose to his feet, clasping his hands over his eyes as if to fix an uncertain impression. When he bared his face before her again, there was quiet determination in his glance. Again he took her hand in his, pressing it to his lips. Then, with eyes fixed full upon hers, he answered her question:

“Yes.”