# Drome/Chapter 39

Chapter 39
The Golden City
Our stay in that place was marred by no other untoward incident; but right glad was I when, on the following morning, we were in our boat and going down the stream once more.
"We ought to be safe out here," I remarked at last.
"I don't know about that, Bill," smiled Milton. "The stream is not a wide one, certainly, and those bushes and trees that line the bank offer—look at that!"
But a hundred feet or so before us, a boat was gliding out from the concealment of a mass of foliage. There were three men in it, and the looks which they fixed upon us were lowering and sinister.
​"Look at that fellow!" said Rhodes, drawing his revolver. "If that isn't the chap who broke through with the amicable intention of carving me, all I have to say is that it is his twin brother."
This man was thin almost to emaciation, but his companions were burly fellows, every lineament of them bespeaking the ruffian.
They held their craft stationary or nearly so. In a few moments, therefore, we were drawing near to them. Drorathusa had arisen, and she spoke to the occupants of the strange boat in a rather sharp, imperious manner. Her presence, or her words, seemed to awe them; and I was thanking our lucky stars that, after all, there was not going to be any trouble, when of a sudden, just as the drift of our boat brought Rhodes and me alongside, their bridled passions burst forth in a storm of snarls, cries and fierce gestures of menace. There was a moment when I thought that they were actually going to attempt to board us. But they then drew off, though there was no diminution in that storm of abuse, execrations and threats that was hurled upon us. All three were armed, but no motion toward their weapons was made. The. reason for that, I suppose, was the sight of Narkus and Thumbra standing there each with an arrow to the string. Certainly the fellows did not in any way fear our weapons.
Some minutes passed, during which the two boats continued to drift side by side and that hideous clamor filled the air. At last, in an attempt to put an end to it, Rhodes raised his revolver and took careful aim. Drorathusa gave a cry and then addressed some fierce words to the trio. In all likelihood, she did not know what Rhodes was going to do. He fired. As he was standing and as but a few yards separated the boats, the bullet, which struck just above the water-line, went out through the bottom. The change was magical. You should have seen those fellows! Whether it was the report of the weapon or whether it was that hole through which the water came spouting in, I do not know; but the taming of those wild men was swift and complete. As soon as they had recovered their wits, round flew the bow of their boat and away they went toward the shore. Our Dromans burst into laughter, even Drorathusa. And that was the last that we saw of those three fanatics.
But why had they done it? Wherefore were Rhodes and I the objects of a hatred so fierce and insensate?
Nor were we permitted to forget that fact. Intelligence of our arrival had spread almost as quickly as though it had been broadcast by radio, and along the banks the people were waiting, in twos and threes, in scores and in hundreds, to see the men from the mysterious and fearful World above—harbingers, in their minds, of calamities and nameless things. Goodness only knows how many fists were shaken at Rhodes and me during the day, how many were the maledictions that they hurled upon us. Happily, however, there was no act of hostility.
"You know, Bill," Milton smiled, "I am beginning to wish that we were back there among those gogrugrons and tree-octopuses."
This day's voyage brought us to the City of Dranocrad. There a change was made that certainly did not displease me—from our little craft to none other than one of the queen's own, a long beautiful vessel with oarsmen and guards.
The next day we passed a large tributary flowing in from our left from out a yawning cavern there. This was by no means, however, the first eave we had seen entering the main one. As one moves through some valley in the mountains, smaller ​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.