CHAPTER XVI
We were eighteen days travelling to Riolama, on the last two makinglittle progress, on account of continuous rain, which made us miserablebeyond description. Fortunately the dogs had found, and Nuflo hadsucceeded in killing, a great ant-eater, so that we were well suppliedwith excellent, strength-giving flesh. We were among the Riolamamountains at last, and Rima kept with us, apparently expecting greatthings. I expected nothing, for reasons to be stated by and by. Mybelief was that the only important thing that could happen to us wouldbe starvation.
The afternoon of the last day was spent in skirting the foot of a verylong mountain, crowned at its southern extremity with a huge, rocky massresembling the head of a stone sphinx above its long, couchant body, andat its highest part about a thousand feet above the surrounding level.It was late in the day, raining fast again, yet the old man still toiledon, contrary to his usual practice, which was to spend the last daylighthours in gathering firewood and in constructing a shelter. At length,when we were nearly under the peak, he began to ascend. The rise in thisplace was gentle, and the vegetation, chiefly composed of dwarf thorntrees rooted in the clefts of the rock, scarcely impeded our progress;yet Nuflo moved obliquely, as if he found the ascent difficult, pausingfrequently to take breath and look round him. Then we came to a deep,ravine-like cleft in the side of the mountain, which became deeper andnarrower above us, but below it broadened out to a valley; its steepsides as we looked down were clothed with dense, thorny vegetation, andfrom the bottom rose to our ears the dull sound of a hidden torrent.Along the border of this ravine Nuflo began toiling upwards, and finallybrought us out upon a stony plateau on the mountain-side. Here he pausedand, turning and regarding us with a look as of satisfied malice in hiseyes, remarked that we were at our journey's end, and he trusted thesight of that barren mountain-side would compensate us for all thediscomforts we had suffered during the last eighteen days.
I heard him with indifference. I had already recognized the place fromhis own exact description of it, and I now saw all that I had looked tosee--a big, barren hill. But Rima, what had she expected that her facewore that blank look of surprise and pain? "Is this the place wheremother appeared to you?" she suddenly cried. "The very place--this!This!" Then she added: "The cave where you tended her--where is it?"
"Over there," he said, pointing across the plateau, which was partiallyovergrown with dwarf trees and bushes, and ended at a wall of rock,almost vertical and about forty feet high.
Going to this precipice, we saw no cave until Nuflo had cut away two orthree tangled bushes, revealing an opening behind, about half as highand twice as wide as the door of an ordinary dwelling-house.
The next thing was to make a torch, and aided by its light we groped ourway in and explored the interior. The cave, we found, was about fiftyfeet long, narrowing to a mere hole at the extremity; but the anteriorportion formed an oblong chamber, very lofty, with a dry floor. Leavingour torch burning, we set to work cutting bushes to supply ourselveswith wood enough to last us all night. Nuflo, poor old man, loved a bigfire dearly; a big fire and fat meat to eat (the ranker its flavour, thebetter he liked it) were to him the greatest blessings that man couldwish for. In me also the prospect of a cheerful blaze put a new heart,and I worked with a will in the rain, which increased in the end to ablinding downpour.
By the time I dragged my last load in, Nuflo had got his fire wellalight, and was heaping on wood in a most lavish way. "No fear ofburning our house down tonight," he remarked, with a chuckle--the firstsound of that description he had emitted for a long time.
After we had satisfied our hunger, and had smoked one or two cigarettes,the unaccustomed warmth, and dryness, and the firelight affected us withdrowsiness, and I had probably been nodding for some time; but startingat last and opening my eyes, I missed Rima. The old man appeared to beasleep, although still in a sitting posture close to the fire. I roseand hurried out, drawing my cloak close around me to protect me from therain; but what was my surprise on emerging from the cave to feel a dry,bracing wind in my face and to see the desert spread out for leaguesbefore me in the brilliant white light of a full moon! The rain hadapparently long ceased, and only a few thin white clouds appeared movingswiftly over the wide blue expanse of heaven. It was a welcome change,but the shock of surprise and pleasure was instantly succeeded bythe maddening fear that Rima was lost to me. She was nowhere in sightbeneath, and running to the end of the little plateau to get free ofthe thorn trees, I turned my eyes towards the summit, and there, at somedistance above me, caught sight of her standing motionless and gazingupwards. I quickly made my way to her side, calling to her as Iapproached; but she only half turned to cast a look at me and did notreply.
"Rima," I said, "why have you come here? Are you actually thinking ofclimbing the mountain at this hour of the night?" "Yes--why not?" shereturned, moving one or two steps from me.
"Rima--sweet Rima, will you listen to me?"
"Now? Oh, no--why do you ask that? Did I not listen to you in the woodbefore we started, and you also promised to do what I wished? See, therain is over and the moon shines brightly. Why should I wait? Perhapsfrom the summit I shall see my people's country. Are we not near itnow?"
"Oh, Rima, what do you expect to see? Listen--you must listen, for Iknow best. From that summit you would see nothing but a vast dim desert,mountain and forest, mountain and forest, where you might wander foryears, or until you perished of hunger or fever, or were slain by somebeast of prey or by savage men; but oh, Rima, never, never, never wouldyou find your people, for they exist not. You have seen the false waterof the mirage on the savannah, when the sun shines bright and hot; andif one were to follow it one would at last fall down and perish,with never a cool drop to moisten one's parched lips. And your hope,Rima--this hope to find your people which has brought you all the way toRiolama--is a mirage, a delusion, which will lead to destruction if youwill not abandon it."
She turned to face me with flashing eyes. "You know best!" sheexclaimed. "You know best and tell me that! Never until this moment haveyou spoken falsely. Oh, why have you said such things to me--named afterthis place, Riolama? Am I also like that false water you speak of--nodivine Rima, no sweet Rima? My mother, had she no mother, no mother'smother? I remember her, at Voa, before she died, and this hand seemsreal--like yours; you have asked to hold it. But it is not he thatspeaks to me--not one that showed me the whole world on Ytaioa. Ah, youhave wrapped yourself in a stolen cloak, only you have left your oldgrey beard behind! Go back to the cave and look for it, and leave me toseek my people alone!"
Once more, as on that day in the forest when she prevented me fromkilling the serpent, and as on the occasion of her meeting with Nufloafter we had been together on Ytaioa, she appeared transformed andinstinct with intense resentment--a beautiful human wasp, and every worda sting.
"Rima," I cried, "you are cruelly unjust to say such words to me. If youknow that I have never deceived you before, give me a little credit now.You are no delusion--no mirage, but Rima, like no other being on earth.So perfectly truthful and pure I cannot be, but rather than mislead youwith falsehoods I would drop down and die on this rock, and lose you andthe sweet light that shines on us for ever."
As she listened to my words, spoken with passion, she grew pale andclasped her hands. "What have I said? What have I said?" She spoke in alow voice charged with pain, and all at once she came nearer, and witha low, sobbing cry sank down at my feet, uttering, as on the occasion offinding me lost at night in the forest near her home, tender, sorrowfulexpressions in her own mysterious language. But before I could take herin my arms she rose again quickly to her feet and moved away a littlespace from me.
"Oh no, no, it cannot be that you know best!" she began again. "ButI know that you have never sought to deceive me. And now, because Ifalsely accused you, I cannot go there without you"--pointing to thesummit--"but must stand still and listen to all you have to say."
"You know, Rima, that your grandfather has
now told me your history--howhe found your mother at this place, and took her to Voa, where you wereborn; but of your mother's people he knows nothing, and therefore he cannow take you no further."
"Ah, you think that! He says that now; but he deceived me all theseyears, and if he lied to me in the past, can he not still lie, affirmingthat he knows nothing of my people, even as he affirmed that he knew notRiolama?"
"He tells lies and he tells truth, Rima, and one can be distinguishedfrom the other. He spoke truthfully at last, and brought us to thisplace, beyond which he cannot lead you."
"You are right; I must go alone."
"Not so, Rima, for where you go, there we must go; only you will leadand we follow, believing only that our quest will end in disappointment,if not in death."
"Believe that and yet follow! Oh no! Why did he consent to lead me sofar for nothing?"
"Do you forget that you compelled him? You know what he believes; and heis old and looks with fear at death, remembering his evil deeds, and isconvinced that only through your intercession and your mother's he canescape from perdition. Consider, Rima, he could not refuse, to make youmore angry and so deprive himself of his only hope."
My words seemed to trouble her, but very soon she spoke again withrenewed animation. "If my people exist, why must it be disappointmentand perhaps death? He does not know; but she came to him here--did shenot? The others are not here, but perhaps not far off. Come, let us goto the summit together to see from it the desert beneath us--mountainand forest, mountain and forest. Somewhere there! You said that I hadknowledge of distant things. And shall I not know which mountain--whichforest?"
"Alas! no, Rima; there is a limit to your far-seeing; and even if thatfaculty were as great as you imagine, it would avail you nothing, forthere is no mountain, no forest, in whose shadow your people dwell."
For a while she was silent, but her eyes and clasping fingers wererestless and showed her agitation. She seemed to be searching in thedepths of her mind for some argument to oppose to my assertions. Thenin a low, almost despondent voice, with something of reproach in it, shesaid: "Have we come so far to go back again? You were not Nuflo to needmy intercession, yet you came too."
"Where you are, there I must be--you have said it yourself. Besides,when we started I had some hope of finding your people. Now I knowbetter, having heard Nuflo's story. Now I know that your hope is a vainone."
"Why? Why? Was she not found here--mother? Where, then, are the others?"
"Yes, she was found here, alone. You must remember all the thingsshe spoke to you before she died. Did she ever speak to you of herpeople--speak of them as if they existed, and would be glad to receiveyou among them some day?"
"No. Why did she not speak of that? Do you know--can you tell me?"
"I can guess the reason, Rima. It is very sad--so sad that it is hard totell it. When Nuflo tended her in the cave and was ready to worshipher and do everything she wished, and conversed with her by signs, sheshowed no wish to return to her people. And when he offered her, in away she understood, to take her to a distant place, where she would beamong strange beings, among others like Nuflo, she readily consented,and painfully performed that long journey to Voa. Would you, Rima, haveacted thus--would you have gone so far away from your beloved people,never to return, never to hear of them or speak to them again? Oh no,you could not; nor would she if her people had been in existence. Butshe knew that she had survived them, that some great calamity hadfallen upon and destroyed them. They were few in number, perhaps, andsurrounded on every side by hostile tribes, and had no weapons, and madeno war. They had been preserved because they inhabited a place apart,some deep valley perhaps, guarded on all sides by lofty mountains andimpenetrable forests and marshes; but at last the cruel savages brokeinto this retreat and hunted them down, destroying all except a fewfugitives, who escaped singly like your mother, and fled away to hide insome distant solitude."
The anxious expression on her face deepened as she listened to one ofanguish and despair; and then, almost before I concluded, she suddenlylifted her hands to her head, uttering a low, sobbing cry, and wouldhave fallen on the rock had I not caught her quickly in my arms. Oncemore in my arms--against my breast, her proper place! But now all thatbright life seemed gone out of her; her head fell on my shoulder, andthere was no motion in her except at intervals a slight shudder in herframe accompanied by a low, gasping sob. In a little while the sobsceased, the eyes were closed, the face still and deathly white, and witha terrible anxiety in my heart I carried her down to the cave.