ones are seen coming in on either hand; and so it was in this great cavern of Drome, save that the valleys were caves. In that place, the great cavern itself has a width of two miles or more, and it is four or five thousand feet up to the vaulted roof.
"One wonders," said I, "why the roof doesn't cave in."
"Pooh, Bill!" said Rhodes. "One doesn't marvel that natural bridges don't collapse or that the roof of the Mammoth Cave doesn't come crashing down."
The two days succeeding this
brought us into the very heart of
Drome, and on the third we reached
the Golden City itself.
This, the capital of the Droman nation, is situated at the lower end of a lake, a most picturesque sheet of water some fifteen miles in length. Where the river flows into it and for a distance of about a league down, the lake extends from one wall of the great cavern clean to the other. The walls go straight down and to what depth no man knows.
It was about midafternoon when our boat, followed by a fleet of smaller craft, glided out onto this lovely expanse of water. At a point about half-way down the lake, we had our first view of the Golden City. I say view, but it was in reality little more than a glimpse that we obtained. For, almost at that very moment, a dense gloom fell upon water and landscape. Fierce and dreadful were the flickerings along the roof a mile or more above us. So sudden and awful was the change that even the Dromans seemed astonished. There was a blinding flash overhead, and then utter blackness everywhere.
Rhodes and I flashed on our lights. For a time the Dromans waited, as though expecting the light to come at any moment; but it did not come. Along the shore on either side and in the distant city, lights were gleaming out. A sudden voice came, mystic and wonderful; Rhodes and I turned, and there was Drorathusa standing with arms extended upward in invocation, as we had seen her in that first eclipse. Minutes passed. But the light did not come. At last the oars were put in motion again. Dark and agitated, however, were the looks of the Dromans, and more than one pair of eyes fixed themselves on Rhodes and me in a manner that plainly marked us as objects of some superstitious dread—if, indeed, it was not something worse.
Steadily, however, our boat glided forward through the black and awful scene.
"What is that?" I at length asked. "Can it be a floating palace?"
"A palace it must be," Rhodes answered, "but not a floating one. See that low black mass under it; that is an island."
At this moment Drorathusa moved to our side, and, indicating the great building in question, the windows of which were a perfect blaze of light, she said: "Lathendra Lepraylya."
Her eyes lingered on Rhodes' face, and her look, I saw, was somber and troubled.
So that was the queen's palace? Soon we would be in the presence of this Lathendra (Queen) Lepraylya. What manner of woman was this sovereign of the Dromans? What awaited us there?
I remembered that look of Drorathusa's, and I confess that my thoughts were soon troubled and somber.
Chapter 40
Before Lepraylya
One by one, in twos and threes and then in a body, the small craft had dropped behind, and now we were alone on the black waters.
