"Ago told me that many generations before his time the forest was irrigated by changing the course of the streams which carried the spring water to the city but that when the trees had sent their roots down to the natural moisture of the soil and required no further irrigation, the course of the stream was changed and other trees were planted. And so the forest grew until today it covers almost the entire floor of the valley except for the open space where the city stands. I do not know that this is true. It may be that the forest has always been here, but it is one of their legends and it is borne out by the fact that there is not sufficient rainfall here to support vegeta-tion.
"They are peculiar people in many respects, not only in their form of worship and religious rites but also in that they breed lions as other people breed cattle. You have seen how they use some of these lions but the majority of them they fatten and eat. At first, I imagine, they ate lion meat as a part of their religious ceremony but after many generations they came to crave it so that now it is practically the only flesh they eat. They would, of course, rather die than eat the flesh of a bird, nor will they eat monkey's meat, while the herbivorous animals they raise only for milk, hides, and flesh for the lions.
Upon the south side of the city are the corrals and pastures where the herbivorous animals are raised. Boar, deer, and an-telope are used principally for the lions, while goats are kept for milk for the human inhabitants of the city.""And you have lived here all these years," exclaimed the girl, "without ever seeing one of your own kind?"The old woman nodded affirmatively.
"For sixty years you have lived here," continued Bertha Kircher, "and they have not harmed you!""I did not say they had not harmed me," said the old wom-an, "they did not kill me, that is all."
"What" -- the girl hesitated -- "what," she continued at last, "was your position among them? Pardon me," she added quickly, "I think I know but I should like to hear from your own lips, for whatever your position was, mine will doubtless be the same."The old woman nodded. "Yes," she said, "doubtless; if they can keep you away from the women.""What do you mean?" asked the girl.
"For sixty years I have never been allowed near a woman.
They would kill me, even now, if they could reach me. The men are frightful, God knows they are frightful! But heaven keep you from the women!""You mean," asked the girl, "that the men will not harm me?""Ago XXV made me his queen," said the old woman. "But he had many other queens, nor were they all human. He was not murdered for ten years after I came here. Then the next king took me, and so it has been always. I am the oldest queen now. Very few of their women live to a great age. Not only are they constantly liable to assassination but, owing to their subnormal mentalities, they are subject to periods of de-pression during which they are very likely to destroy them-selves."
She turned suddenly and pointed to the barred windows.
"You see this room," she said, "with the black eunuch out-side? Wherever you see these you will know that there are women, for with very few exceptions they are never allowed out of captivity. They are considered and really are more vio-lent than the men."
For several minutes the two sat in silence, and then the younger woman turned to the older.
"Is there no way to escape?" she asked.
The old woman pointed again to the barred windows and then to the door, saying: "And there is the armed eunuch.
And if you should pass him, how could you reach the street?
And if you reached the street, how could you pass through the city to the outer wall? And even if, by some miracle, you should gain the outer wall, and, by another miracle, you should be permitted to pass through the gate, could you ever hope to traverse the forest where the great black lions roam and feed upon men? No!" she exclaimed, answering her own ques-tion, "there is no escape, for after one had escaped from the palace and the city and the forest it would be but to invite death in the frightful desert land beyond.
"In sixty years you are the first to find this buried city. In a thousand no denizen of this valley has ever left it, and within the memory of man, or even in their legends, none had found them prior to my coming other than a single warlike giant, the story of whom has been handed down from father to son.
"I think from the description that he must have been a Spaniard, a giant of a man in buckler and helmet, who fought his way through the terrible forest to the city gate, who fell upon those who were sent out to capture him and slew them with his mighty sword. And when he had eaten of the vege-tables from the gardens, and the fruit from the trees and drank of the water from the stream, he turned about and fought his way back through the forest to the mouth of the gorge. But though he escaped the city and the forest he did not escape the desert. For a legend runs that the king, fearful that he would bring others to attack them, sent a party after him to slay him.
