The Land of Mystery by Edward Sylvester Ellis (reading rainbow books .TXT) 📕

What in all the world so sweet as young love's dream? It is the old, old story, and yet it is as new and fresh and blissful to the soul as it will be to the end of time, or until these natures of ours are changed by the same Hand that framed them.

What more bewitching romance could cast its halo about the divine passion than that which enshrined the affection of Fred Ashman for the wonderful Ariel, the only child of the grim Haffgo, king of the Murhapas?

He had met and chatted and exchanged glances with the beauties of his own clime, and yet his heart remained unscathed. He reverenced the sex to which his adored mother and sister belonged, and yet never had he felt the thrill that stirred his nature to the profoundest depths, when his eyes met those of the barbarian princess and the two smiled without either uttering a word.

"What care I for the gold and the diamonds and the precious stones of the Matto Grosso?" the ardent lover asked himself; "is not she the Koh-i-noor of them all?—the one gem whose preciousness is worth more than all the world?"

He was willing that the Professor and Jared Long should risk their lives in searching for the enchanted lake, and the burning mountain where such priceless wealth existed. Thousands of their kind had done it before, and countless thousands would follow in their footsteps through the generations to come.

But as for him, a new mission had broken upon his consciousness; he had a sacred duty to perform. Somewhere, in this broad world, a human soul is always waiting for its mate. Perchance it never comes, and the weary one may be joined to that which heaven never intended it to be joined, or it repines and goes to the grave unloved.

Fred Ashman was as sure as if he heard a voice from the stars, telling him that Ariel, the daughter of Haffgo, was his other self. He could never rest, he could not really live until it should be his lot to carry her from this lonely wilderness to his own home thousands of miles away.

To the young lover, aglow and happy in his new passion, all things are possible. It is he who can appreciate even the days of chivalry, when the valiant knight went forth, with lance and buckler to win his lady against all comers, counting it his highest happiness to face the perils of flood and field if perchance he could but win her smile.

And yet, amid all the roseate dreams which fairly lifted Fred Ashman from the gross earth, he could not entirely lose sight of his peculiar situation and the formidable difficulties which environed his path. He would not admit they were insurmountable, but they were hard to climb.

To come down to facts, he felt that the first, and, indeed, the indispensable step was to secure a meeting with the princess that had taken such complete possession of his heart.

Guarded as she was by her father, who was sure to resent with instant death any such presumption on his part, he might well shrink from the appalling attempt; but love has many ways of picking the locks that may be fastened to keep hearts apart.

"Ziffak!"

That was the name which came to his tongue again and again, with the question whether his friendship could not be enlisted on the side of the youth, who had come so strangely to the Murhapa village. He was a shrewd fellow who must suspect the truth of those stolen glances. He had shown a sudden and strong affection for the explorers, and especially for Ashman to whom he surrendered. Was what friendship strong enough to lead him to a step that would insure a rupture with his royal brother and probably bring about war in his little kingdom?

"I wonder what revelation he was on the point of making when he sat down with us in his mother's home," Ashman muttered, as he slowly walked along the bank of the Upper Xingu, unmindful of the creeping shadow behind him.

That it bore upon that interview and related to the angry quarrel he did not doubt, but he could only conjecture its nature which was not encouraging when he recalled that Ziffak had told him and his friends, without protest on his part, that they were likely to be compelled to leave the village that night.

Ashman ceased in his walk, for he saw, in spite of his absorbing reverie, that he had passed above the uppermost house of the village. The condition under which he was allowed to stay in peace, even for a brief time, was that he should not wander beyond the limits of the town.

It was useless to excite resentment without reason, and he was about to turn and retrace his steps, when a slight rustling of the undergrowth, which marked the boundary of the forest on the south caused him to turn his head, stop, and hold his rifle ready for danger.