A man who is revelling in the first dream of love is not the one to pay close attention to his surroundings. He is so apt to be rapt in his own sweet meditations, that he fails in the most ordinary observation.

Reaching the bottom of the slope, Ashman glanced behind and on his right. He caught glimpses of several figures moving about like shadows, but so far as he could judge, none of them was interested in him. Dismissing them from his mind, he moved on.

He had walked less than one-third of the length of the village front, when the form of a man slipped softly down the incline, following in his footsteps and moving as silently as a Murhapa warrior tracking his foe through the forest.

He was dressed similarly to the American, having the same style of Panama hat, shirt and boots, and he carried a rifle in his hand. Being of the same race, he ought to have been a friend, but when the bright moonlight fell upon his face, it showed the countenance of a demon.

He was Burkhardt, an escaped convict, who had lived for five years among the Murhapas, and he was seeking the life of Fred Ashman, who, in his enchanting visions of love, never dreamed of the awful shadow stealing upon him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

YOUNG LOVE'S DREAM.

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 pa.s.sion 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 s.e.x 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 pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sed 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.

His old habit of caution came back the instant peril seemed to threaten.

While he debated whether to advance and force the stranger to reveal himself, the outlines of a form were distinguished and a slight figure stepped forth in the moonlight.

Ashman's heart seemed to stop beating and life itself hang in suspense, when he recognized the very being that had taken such full possession of his thoughts.

Ay, Ariel, daughter of King Haffgo, stood before him.

For a moment, neither spoke or moved. It was not strange perhaps that she was the first to recover the power of utterance.

Advancing timidly, she said in a tremulous voice and with an accent just broken enough to make it all the sweeter:

"You are in danger and I could not help coming to tell you."

"Heaven bless you!" he exclaimed, taking a step toward her, but still observing a respectful distance. "You have braved danger yourself to give me the warning."

"I left my home and waited for a chance to speak to you; I dared not go to the door of Ziffak's house for I would have been seen. Then, while I was wondering what to do, I saw you come forth and walk toward the river. I thought you would go to the end of the village, so I hurried on and hid among the bushes until I could speak to you without any one seeing me."

Ashman's head was in a swirl. He was trembling in every limb, while she seemed to be devoid of any agitation whatever.

"Your father King Haffgo was angry this afternoon, because I looked at you; but," added the lover, "I could not have helped doing it, if I knew my life would have paid for the act. Ziffak told me about you, so you see I did not feel that you were a stranger, even though I then saw you for the first time and never heard the music of your voice until now."

"The king is angry," said she, withdrawing a little as the happy fellow took another step; "he says you shall be killed, but Ziffak persuaded him to say your life should be spared if you went away to-night."

Ashman felt another delicious thrill as he reflected that if such were the understanding, there would seem to be no cause for the lovely Ariel to come thus far out of her way to repeat what Ziffak was sure to explain before the departure of the explorers.

Ah, it must have been because of her interest in him that she had sought this perilous stolen interview.

"Well, then," said he mournfully, "I must depart and never see you again. Death would be preferable to _that_!"

"But you may come back some time," said she in such a tremulous, hesitating voice, that he impulsively sprang forward and caught her dainty hand before she could escape him.

"O don't!" she plead like a timid bird, striving to withdraw the imprisoned fingers which he still held fast.

"Nay, but you must, if I am never to see you again," he exclaimed vehemently; "O, Ariel, I had hoped that I might stay here until I could see and talk with you and tell you that I can never, never leave you; that if I go, you must go with me; I will take you to my home which is many many long miles away, but I will be your slave; I will love you; I will make you happy; you shall never sigh for the land and the people you leave behind you----"

There is no saying when the impetuous lover would have stopped his wooing in this cyclone-like fashion hut for an alarming interruption.

He had been smitten profoundly, and the urgency of the case impelled him to an ardor which could not have found expression under any other conditions; but, all the time the frightened maiden was striving to free her imprisoned hand, and the lover felt he ought to release it but could not.

Suddenly she ceased her efforts and looked beyond him with a gasp and such a startled expression, that he knew some unusual cause had produced it.

CHAPTER XXV.

ZIFFAK'S BLOW.