The Great White Queen: A Tale of Treasure and Treason

by William Le Queux

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS.

  "THERE is a strange story connected with this place known to us asZomara's Wrath," Omar said, when together we turned away and mounted ourhorses to ride back to the camp.

  "Relate it to me," I urged eagerly.

  "To-night. After we have eaten at sundown I will tell you about it," heanswered, and spurring our horses we galloped quickly forward.

  When we had eaten that evening and were seated aside together, I remindedhim of his promise.

  "It is a story of my ancestors, and it occurred more than a thousandyears ago," he said. "Ruler of the great kingdom of Mo, King Lobenba hadno children. The three queens observed fasts, kept vows, made offeringsto the fetish, all to no effect. By a lucky chance a great hermit madehis appearance in our capital. The King and queens received the visitorat the palace, and treated him with the most generous and sincerehospitality. The guest was very pleased; by a prompting of the fetish heknew what they wanted, and gave them three peppercorns, one for eachqueen. In due time three sons were born, Karmos, Matrugna, and Fausalya,who when they reached a suitable age married by the ceremony of 'choice,'daughters of a branch of the royal family. When the brides arrived attheir husbands' family and were disciplined in their wifely duties, KingLobenba, who was growing old, thought the time had arrived for him tomake over the royal burden to younger shoulders, and to adopt a hermit'slife preliminary to death. So in consultation with the royal fetish-man,a day was appointed for the coronation of Prince Karmos, who had marrieda beautiful girl named Naya. But the fates had willed it otherwise. Longbefore the children were born, when King Lobenba, in his younger days,was subduing a revolt in this region where we now are he once fell fromhis chariot while aiming an arrow, and got his arm crushed under thewheel. The three queens had accompanied their royal husband to thebattlefield to soften for him the hardships of his camp life, and duringthe long illness that followed the wound, Queen Zulnam, who afterwardsbecame mother of Fausalya, nursed him with all the devotion of a wife'sfirst young love. 'Ask me anything and thou shalt have it,' said themonarch during his convalescence. 'I have to ask only two favours, mylord,' she answered. 'I grant them beforehand. Name them,' he cried. Butshe said she wished for nothing at that time, but would make her requestin due course. She waited twenty years. Then she repaired to her husbandon the morning of Karmos' coronation and boldly requested that the princeshould absent himself for fourteen years, and that her son Fausalyashould be crowned instead."

  "She was artful," I observed, laughing.

  "Yes," he went on. "The words fell like a thunder-bolt upon the king, thelight faded from his eyes and he fainted. Nevertheless, Zulnam's wish wasgranted, and Karmos' departure was heartrending. To soften theausterities of forest life, Prince Matrugna tore himself from hisnewly-married bride to accompany Karmos. But the hardest was to be thelatter's wrench from his devoted Naya. The change from a most exuberantgirlish gaiety to quivering grief, and the offer of thedelicately-nurtured wife to share with her lord the severities of anexile's life are often told by every wise man in Mo. Fourteen long yearsKarmos spent in exile with his beautiful wife as companion, until at lastthey were free to return. The home-coming was one long triumph. Thepeople were mad with delight to welcome their hero Karmos and theirbeloved Naya. Karmos was crowned, and then began that government whosemorality and justice and love and purity have passed into the proverbs ofmy race. There was, however, one blemish upon it. Poor Naya's evil geniushad not yet exhausted his malevolence. A rumour was spread by eviltongues that she was plotting to possess the crown, and Karmos,sacrificing the husband's love, the father's joy, to his kingly duty,while standing on that spot we have visited to-day--then his summerpalace surrounded by lovely gardens--pronounced sentence of exile uponher. But in an instant, swift as the lightning from above, the terriblecurse of Zomara fell upon him, striking him dead, his magnificent palacewas swept away and swallowed up by a mighty earthquake, and from thebarren hole, once the fairest spot in the land, there have ever sincebelched forth fumes that poison every living thing. It is Zomara'sWrath."

  "And what became of Naya, the queen?" I asked, struck with the remarkablestory that seemed more than a mere legend.

  "She reigned in his stead," he answered. "Whenever we speak of the Nayaswe sum up all that is noble and mighty and queenly in government, itstact, its talent, its love and its beneficence, for every queen who hassince sat on the Great Emerald Throne of Mo has been named after her,and I am her lineal descendant, the last of her line."

  That night we rested on soft cushions spread for us in our tent, andmarching again early next morning, spent the two following days incrossing a great swamp, which, rather than a miasmatic death-hole, was anaturalist's paradise. As our horses trod the soft, spongy ground, amajestic canopy of stately cypress, mangrove and maple trees protected usfrom the burning sun, and the sweet-scented flowers of the magnolias,azaleas and wild grapes added fragrance and beauty to the scene. Flies,snakes and frogs were very numerous, but gave us little trouble,nevertheless, I was not sorry when at dawn on the third day after passingthe strange natural phenomenon we saw across the level pasture-likeplain, high up, spectral and half hidden in the grey haze, the giganticwalls and high embattlements of the mysterious city.

  "Lo!" cried Omar, who was riding at my side. "See! At last we are withinsight of the goal towards which we have so long striven. Yonder is Mo,sometimes called the City in the Clouds!"

  "But for your courage we must have failed long ago," I observed, my eyesturned to where the horizon closed the long perspective of the sky. Awaythere was the sweetest light. Elsewhere colour marred the simplicity oflight; but there colour was effaced, not as men efface it, by a blur ordarkness, but by mere light. And against it rose, high and faintlyoutlined, the defences of the great unknown city standing on the summitof what appeared to be a gigantic rock. "Magnificent!" I exclaimed,entranced by the view. "Superb!"

  "It is, as you see, built high upon the rock known as the Throne of theNaya," Omar explained. "Although founded a thousand years ago by thegood queen about whom I told you, no stranger has ever yet set footwithin its gates. From time to time our monarchs have sent their trustyagents among civilized nations, gathered from them their inventions, andintroduced to us the results of their progress. Isolated as we are fromthe world, we are nevertheless enlightened, as you will shortly see."

  I was prompted to make some observation regarding his paganism, but heldmy peace, knowing that any reference to it wounded his susceptibilities.In everything except his belief in the fetish and his trust in thejustice of the Crocodile-god, he was my equal; and I knew that, on morethan one occasion, he had been ashamed to practise his savage rites in mypresence. Therefore I hesitated, and, as we rode along, the outline ofthe great city, perched high upon the rock, growing every moment moreformidable and distinct, I listened to the many interesting facts herelated.

  Kona, who followed us, listened with strained ears, and our Dagombas wereone and all laughing and keeping up a Babel-like chatter that showed theintense excitement caused among them by the sight of the mysteriouscapital of the Great White Queen.

  We had struck a broad well-made road, and now, as with hastening steps weapproached it, we could distinguish quite plainly the inaccessiblecharacter of the high rock that rose abruptly a thousand feet above theplain crowned by the frowning walls of immense thickness that enclosedthe place. Beyond, rose many lofty towers and several gilded domes which,Omar told me, were the audience-halls of the great palace, andimmediately before us we could see in the walls, flanked on either sideby great strong watch-towers, a closed gate.

  From where we stood we could distinguish no means of approach to theimpregnable fortress, but on coming at last to the base of the rock wefound a long flight of narrow steps mounting zig-zag up its dark,moss-grown face. When the cavalcade halted before them our trumpetersblew thrice shrill blasts upon their big ivory horns, and like magic theponderous iron gate far above instantly sw
ung open, and the wallsliterally swarmed with men, whose bright arms glittered in the sun.Above, where all had been silent a moment before, everything was nowbustle and excitement as Babila sprang from his horse and commenced tomount the long flight of steps, followed by myself and my companion.

  So steep were these stairs cut in the rock that an iron chain had beenplaced beside them by which to steady one's-self.

  "Are there again a thousand steps?" I asked Omar.

  "Yes," he said. "Naya, wife of Karmos, had them cut under her personalsupervision. There are exactly a thousand--the number of generationswhich, she declared, should flourish and die ere Mo be conquered."

  Then without further words we eagerly continued our upward climb to themystic City in the Clouds.