As King's strength returned rapidly, he insisted more and more upon getting out into the open. He was anxious to accompany Che upon his hunting trips, but the native insisted that he was not yet sufficiently strong. So the American had to content himself with remaining with Kangrey and Uda at home, where he practised using the weapons that Che had made for him, which consisted of a bow and arrow and a short, heavy javelin-like spear. Thanks to the training of his college days, King was proficient in the use of the latter; and he practised assiduously with his bow and arrows until his marksmanship aroused the admiring applause of even Kangrey, who considered Che the best bowman in the world, to whose expert proficiency no other mortal might hope to attain.
The dwelling of Che and Kangrey and Uda was in an ancient Khmer ruin and consisted of a small room which had withstood the march of the centuries—a room that was peculiarly suited to the requirements of the little jungle family since it had but a single entrance, a small aperture that could be effectually blocked at night with a flat slab of stone against the depredations of marauding cats.
Their existence was as simple and primitive as might have been that of the first man; yet there was inherent in it an undeniable charm that King felt in spite of the monotony and his anxiety to escape from the jungle.
Che knew nothing but the jungle and the fabulous city of Lodidhapura. It is difficult for us to conceive of an endless infinity of space, but Che could imagine an endless jungle. The question of limitation did not enter his mind and, therefore, did not confuse him. To him, the world was a jungle. When King realised this, he knew, too, that it was hopeless to expect Che to attempt to lead him out of a jungle that he believed had no end.
For some time King had been making short excursions into the jungle in search of game while he repeatedly sought to impress upon Che that he was strong enough to accompany the native upon his hunts; but he was met with so many excuses that he at last awoke to the fact that Che did not want him along; and so the American determined to set out by himself upon a prolonged and determined effort to prove his efficiency. He left one morning after Che had departed, turning his steps in a different direction from that taken by the native. He was determined to bring back something to demonstrate his prowess to Che, but though he moved silently through the jungle, keeping the sharpest look out, he saw no sign of game of any description; and having had past experience of the ease with which one might become lost in the jungle, he turned back at last empty-handed.
During his long convalescence King had had an opportunity to consider many things, and one of them had been his humiliating lack of jungle craft. He knew, therefore, that he must mark the trail in some way if he were to hope to return to the dwelling of Che and Kangrey. He could not blaze the trees with his knife on a hunting excursion since the noise would unquestionably frighten away the game, and so he invented several other ways of marking the trail—sticking twigs in the rough bark of trees that he passed, scraping the ground with the sharp point of his javelin, and placing three twigs in the form of an arrow, pointing backward along the trail over which he had come. Accordingly he had little difficulty to-day in back-tracking along the way to the home of Che.
Practising jungle craft necessitated moving as noiselessly as possible, and so it was that he came as silently as might a hunting cat to the edge of the ruin where lay the dwelling of his friend. As King came within sight of the familiar entrance, a scene met his eyes that froze his blood and brought his heart into his throat. In the small clearing that Che had made, little Uda was at play. He was digging with a sharp stick in the leafy mould of the ground, while watching him at the edge of the clearing crouched a great panther.
King saw the beast gradually drawing its hind feet well beneath its body as it prepared to charge.
IV
FOU-TAN
Returning early from a successful hunt, Che approached the clearing. He, too, moved silently, for thus he always moved through the jungle. Along a forest aisle he could see the clearing before he reached it. He saw Uda digging among the dry leaves, which made a rustling sound that would have drowned the noise of the approach of even a less careful jungle animal than Che. The father smiled as his eyes rested upon his first-born, but in the same instant the smile froze to an expression of horror as he saw a panther leap into the clearing.
Kangrey, emerging at that moment from their gloomy dwelling, saw it too, and screamed as she rushed forward barehanded, impelled by the mother instinct to protect its young. And then, all in the same brief instant, Che saw a heavy javelin streak lightning-like from the jungle. He saw the panther crumple in its charge, and as he ran forward he saw the pale one leap into the clearing and snatch Uda into his arms.
Che, realising, as had King, the fury of a wounded panther, rushed upon the scene with ready spear as the pale one tossed Uda to Kangrey and turned again to face the great cat. But there was no necessity for the vicious thrust with which Che drove his spear into the carcass of the beast, for the panther was already dead.
For a moment they stood in silence, looking down upon the kill—four primitive jungle people, naked but for sampots. It was King's first experience of a thrill of the primitive hunter. He trembled a little, but that was reaction to the fear that he had felt for the life of little Uda.
"It is a large panther," said Che simply.
"Only a strong man could have slain it thus," said Kangrey. "Only Che could thus have slain with a single cast so great a panther."
"It was not the spear of Che. It was the spear of the pale one that laid low the prince of darkness," said Che.
Kangrey looked her astonishment and would not be convinced until she had examined the spear that protruded from beneath the left shoulder of the great cat. "This, then, is the reward that Vay Thon said would be ours if we befriended the pale one," she declared.
Uda said nothing, but, squirming from his mother's arms, he ran to the side of the dead panther and belaboured it with his little stick.
The next day Che invited King to accompany him upon his hunt. When after a hard day they returned empty-handed, King was convinced that in the search for small game a lone hunter would have greater chances for success. In the morning, therefore, he announced that he would hunt alone in another part of the jungle, and Che agreed with him that this plan would be better.
Marking his trail as he had before, King hunted an unfamiliar territory. The forest appeared more open. There was less underbrush; and he had discovered what appeared to be a broad elephant trail, along which he moved with far greater speed than he had ever been able to attain before in his wanderings through this empire of trees and underbrush.
He had no luck in his hunting; and when he had about determined that it was time to turn back, his ears caught an unfamiliar sound. What it was he did not know. There was a peculiar metallic ring and other sounds that might have been human voices at a distance.
"Perhaps," soliloquised King, "I am about to see the Nagas or the Yeacks."
The sound was steadily approaching; and as he had learned enough from his intercourse with Che and Kangrey to know that no friendly creatures might be encountered in the jungle, he drew to one side of the elephant trail and concealed himself behind some shrubbery.
He had not waited long when he saw the authors of the sounds approaching. Suddenly he felt his head. It did not seem over-hot. As he had upon other similar occasions, he closed his eyes tightly and then opened them again, but still the vision persisted—a vision of brown-skinned soldiers in burnished brass cuirasses over leather jerkins that fell midway between their hips and their knees, with heavy sandals on their feet, strange helmets on their heads, and armed with swords and spears and bows and arrows.
They came on talking among themselves, and as they passed close to King he discovered that they spoke the same language that he had learned from Che and Kangrey. Evidently the men were arguing with their leader, who wanted to go on, while the majority of his followers seemed in favour of turning back.
"We shall have to spend the night in the jungle as it is," said one. "If we go on much farther, we shall have to spend two nights in the jungle. Only a fool would choose to lair with My Lord the Tiger."
They had stopped now almost opposite King, so that he could clearly overhear all that passed between them. The man in charge appeared to be a petty officer with little real authority, for instead of issuing orders he argued and pleaded.
"It is well enough for you to insist upon turning back," he said, "since if we return to the city without the apsaras you expect that I alone shall be punished; but let me tell you that, if you force me to turn back, the entire truth will be made known and you will share in any punishment that may be inflicted upon me."
"If we cannot find her, we cannot find her," grumbled one of the men. "Are we to remain in the jungle the rest of our lives searching for a runaway apsaras?"
"I would as lief face My Lord the Tiger in the jungle for the rest of my life," replied the petty officer, "as face Lodivarman if we return without the girl."
"What Vama says is true," said another. "Lodivarman, the King, will not be interested in our reason for returning empty-handed. Should we return to the city to-morrow without the girl and Vama charged that we had forced him to turn back, Lodivarman, if he were in ill-humour, as he usually is, would have us all put to death; but if we remain away for many days and then return with a story of many hardships and dangers he will know that we did all that might be expected of brave warriors, and thus the anger of Lodivarman might be assuaged."
"At last," commented Vama, "you are commencing to talk like intelligent and civilised men. Come, now, and let us resume the search."
As they moved away King heard one of the men suggest that they find a safe and comfortable camp site where they might remain for a sufficient length of time to impress upon the King the verity of the story that they would relate to him. He waited only until they were out of sight before he arose from his place of concealment, for he was much concerned with the fact that they were proceeding in the general direction of the dwelling of Che and Kangrey. King was much mystified by what he had seen. He knew that these soldiers were no children of a fevered brain. They were flesh and blood warriors and for that reason a far greater mystery than any of the creatures he had seen in his delirium, since they could not be accounted for by any process of intelligent reasoning. His judgment told him that there were no warriors in this uninhabited jungle and certainly none with the archaic accoutrements and weapons that he had seen. It might be reasonable to expect to meet such types in an extravaganza of the stage or screen; and, doubtless, centuries ago warriors such as these patrolled this very spot which the jungle and the tiger and the elephant had long since reclaimed.
He recalled the stories that his guide had told him of the ghosts of the ancient Khmers, which roamed through the sombre aisles of the forest. He remembered the other soldiers that he had seen and the girl with the frightened eyes that rode upon the great elephant, and the final result was a questioning of his own sanity. Since he knew that a fever, such as the one through which he had passed, might easily affect one's brain either temporarily or permanently, he was troubled and not a little frightened as he made his way in the direction of the dwelling of Che and Kangrey. But the fact that he took a circuitous route that he might avoid the warriors indicated that either he was quite crazy or, at least, that he was temporising with his madness.
"'Weeping queens on misty elephants!'" he soliloquised. "'Warriors in brass.' 'A mystery of the Orient.' Perhaps after all there are ghosts. There has been enough evidence accumulated during historic times to prove that the materialisation of disembodied spirits may have occurred upon countless occasions. That I never saw a ghost is not necessarily conclusive evidence that they do not exist. There are many strange things in the Orient that the western mind cannot grasp. Perhaps, after all, I have seen ghosts; but if so, they certainly were thoroughly materialised, even to the dirt on their legs and the sweat on their faces. I suppose I shall have to admit that they are ghosts, since I know that no soldiers like them exist in the flesh anywhere in the world."
As King moved silently through the jungle, he presented an even more anachronistic figure than had the soldiers in brass; for they, at least, personified an era of civilisation and advancement, while King, to all outward appearances, was almost at the dawn of human evolution—a primitive hunter, naked but for a sampot of leopard skin and rude sandals fashioned by Kangrey because the soles of his feet, innocent of the callouses that shod hers and Che's, had rendered him almost helpless in the jungle without this protection. His skin was brown from exposure to the sun, and his hair had grown thick and shaggy. That he was smooth-shaven was the result of chance. He had always made it a habit, since he had taken up the study of medicine and surgery, to carry a safety razor blade with him, for what possible emergency he could not himself have explained. It was merely an idiosyncrasy, and it had so chanced that among several other things that the monkeys had dropped from his pockets and scattered in the jungle the razor blade had been recovered by little Uda along with a silver pencil and a handful of French francs.
He moved through the jungle with all the assurance of a man who has known no other life, so quickly does humankind adapt itself to environment. Already his ears and his nostrils had become inured to their surroundings to such an extent, at least, as to permit them to identify and classify easily and quickly the more familiar sounds and odors of the jungle. Familiarity had induced increasing self-assurance, which had now reached a point that made him feel he might soon safely set out in search of civilization. However, to-day his mind was not on this thing; it was still engaged in an endeavor to solve the puzzle of the brass-bound warriors. But presently the baffling contemplation of this matter was rudely interrupted by a patch of buff coat and black stripes of which he caught a momentary, fleeting glimpse between the boles of two trees ahead of him.
A species of unreasoning terror that had formerly seized him each time that he had glimpsed the terrifying lord of the jungle had gradually passed away as he had come to recognize the fact that every tiger that he saw was not bent upon his destruction and that nine times out of ten it would try to get out of his way. Of course, it is the tenth tiger that one must always reckon with; but where trees are numerous and a man's eyes and ears and nose are alert, even the tenth tiger may usually be circumvented.
So now King did not alter his course, though he had seen the tiger directly ahead of him. It would be time enough to think of retreat when he found that the temper and intentions of the tiger warranted it, and, further, it was better to keep the brute in sight than to feel that perhaps he had circled and was creeping up behind one. It was, therefore, because of this that King pushed on a little more rapidly; and soon he was rewarded by another glimpse of the great carnivore and of something else, which presented a tableau that froze his blood.
Beyond the tiger and facing it stood a girl. Her wide eyes were glassy with terror. She stood as one in a trance, frozen to the spot, while toward her the great cat crept. She was a slender girl, garbed as fantastically as had been the soldiers that had passed him in the jungle shortly before; but her gorgeous garments were soiled and torn, and even at a distance King could see that her face and arms were scratched and bleeding. In the instant that his eyes alighted upon her he sensed something strangely familiar about her. It was a sudden, wholly unaccountable impression that somewhere he had seen this girl before; but it was only a passing impression, for his whole mind now was occupied with her terrifying predicament.
To save her from the terrible death creeping slowly upon her seemed beyond the realms of possibility, and yet King knew that he must make the attempt. He recognized instantly that his only hope lay in distracting the attention of the tiger. If he could center the interest of the brute upon himself, perhaps the girl might escape.
He shouted, and the tiger wheeled about. "Run!" he cried to the girl. "Quick! Make for a tree!"
As he spoke, King was running forward. His heavy spear was ready in his hand, but yet it was a mad chance to take. Perhaps he forgot himself and his own danger, thinking only of the girl. The tiger glanced back at the girl, who, obeying King's direction, had run quickly to a nearby tree into which she was trying to scramble, badly hampered by the long skirt that enveloped her.
For only an instant did the tiger hesitate. His short and ugly temper was fully aroused now in the face of this rude interruption of his plan. With a savage snarl and then the short coughing roars with which King was all too familiar, he wheeled and sprang toward the man in long, easy bounds. Twelve to fifteen feet he covered in a single leap. Flight was futile. There was nothing that King could do but stand his ground and pit his puny spear against this awful engine of destruction.
In that brief instant there was pictured upon the screen of his memory a tree-girt athletic field. He saw young men in shirts and shorts throwing javelins. He saw himself among them. It was his turn now. His arm went back. He recalled how he had put every ounce of muscle, weight, and science into that throw. He recalled the friendly congratulations that followed it, for every one knew without waiting for the official verdict that he had broken a world's record.
Again his arm flew back. To-day there was more at stake than a world's record, but the man did not lose his nerve. Timed to the fraction of an instant, backed by the last ounce of his weight and his skill and his great strength, the spear met the tiger in mid-leap; full in the chest it struck him. King leaped to one side and ran for a tree, his single, frail hope lying in the possibility that the great beast might be even momentarily disabled.
He did not waste the energy or the time even to glance behind him. If the tiger were able to overtake him, it must be totally a matter of indifference to King whether the great brute seized him from behind or in front—he had led his ace and he did not have another.
No fangs or talons rent his flesh as King scrambled to the safety of the nearest tree. It was not without a sense of considerable surprise that he found himself safely ensconced in his leafy sanctuary, for from the instant that the tiger had turned upon him in its venomous charge he had counted himself already as good as dead.
Now that he had an opportunity to look about him, he saw the tiger struggling in its death throes upon the very spot where it had anticipated wreaking its vengeance upon the rash man-thing that had dared to question its right to the possession of its intended prey; and a little to the right of the dying beast the American saw the girl crouching in the branches of a tree. Together they watched the death throes of the great cat; and when at last the man was convinced that the beast was dead, he leaped lightly to the ground and approached the tree among the branches of which the girl had sought safety.
That she was still filled with terror was apparent in the strained and frightened expression upon her face. "Go away!" she cried. "The soldiers of Lodivarman, the King, are here; and if you harm me they will kill you."
King smiled. "You are inconsistent," he said, "in invoking the protection of the soldiers from whom you are trying to escape; but you need not fear me. I shall not harm you."
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I am a hunter who dwells in the jungle," replied King. "I am the protector of high priests and weeping queens, or so, at least, I seem to be."
"High priests? Weeping queens? What do you mean?"
"I have saved Vay Thon, the high priest, from My Lord the Tiger," replied King; "and now I have saved you."
"But I am no queen and I am not weeping," replied the girl.
"Do not disillusion me," insisted King. "I contend that you are a queen, whether you weep or smile. I should not be surprised to learn that you are the queen of the Nagas. Nothing would surprise me in this jungle of anachronism, hallucination, and impossibility."
"Help me down from the tree," said the girl. "Perhaps you are mad, but you seem quite harmless."
"Be assured, your majesty, that I shall not harm you," replied King, "for presently I am sure there will emerge from nowhere ten thousand elephants and a hundred thousand warriors in shining brass to succour and defend you. Nothing seems impossible after what I have witnessed; but come, let me touch you; let me assure myself that I am not again the victim of a pernicious fever."
"May Siva, who protected me from My Lord the Tiger a moment ago, protect me also from this madman!"
"Pardon me," said King, "I did not catch what you said."
"I am afraid," said the girl.
"You need not be afraid of me," King assured her; "and if you want your soldiers I believe that I can find them for you; but if I am not mistaken, I believe that you are more afraid of them than you are of me."
"What do you know of that?" demanded she.
"I overheard their conversation while they halted near me," replied the American, "and I learned that they are hunting for you to take you back to someone from whom you escaped. Come, I will help you down. You may trust me."
He raised his hand toward her, and after a moment's hesitation she slipped into his arms and he lowered her to the ground.
"I must trust you," she said. "There is no other way, for I could not remain for ever in the tree; and then, too, even though you seem mad there is something about you that makes me feel that I am safe with you."
As he felt her soft, lithe body momentarily in his arms, King knew that this was no tenuous spirit of a dream. For an instant her small hand touched his shoulder, her warm breath fanned his cheek, and her firm, young breasts were pressed against his naked body. Then she stepped back and surveyed him.
"What manner of man are you?" she demanded. "You are neither Khmer nor slave. Your colour is not the colour of any man that I have ever seen, nor are your features those of the people of my race. Perhaps you are a reincarnation of one of those ancients of whom our legends tell us; or perhaps you are a Naga who has taken the form of man for some dire purpose of your own."
"Perhaps I am a Yeack," suggested King.
"No," she said quite seriously, "I am sure you are not a Yeack, for it is reported that they are most hideous, while you, though not like any man I have ever seen, are handsome."
"I am neither Yeack nor Naga," replied King.
"Then perhaps you are from Lodidhapura—one of the creatures of Lodivarman."
"No," replied the man. "I have never been to Lodidhapura. I have never seen the King, Lodivarman, and, as a matter of fact, I have always doubted their existence."
The girl's dark eyes regarded him steadily. "I cannot believe that," she said, "for it is unconceivable that there should be anyone in the world who has not heard of Lodidhapura and Lodivarman."
"I come from a far country," explained King, "where there are millions of people who never heard of the Khmers."
"Impossible!" she cried.
"But nevertheless quite true," he insisted.
"From what country do you come?" she asked.
"From America."
"I never heard of such a country."
"Then you should be able to understand that I may never have heard of Lodidhapura," said the man.
For a moment the girl was silent, evidently pondering the logic of his statement. "Perhaps you are right," she said finally. "It may be that there are other cities within the jungle of which we have never heard. But tell me—you risked your life to save mine—why did you do that?"
"What else might I have done?" he asked.
"You might have run away and saved yourself."
King smiled, but he made no reply. He was wondering if there existed any man who could have run away and left one so beautiful and so helpless to the mercies of My Lord the Tiger.
"You are very brave," she continued presently. "What is your name?"
"Gordon King."
"Gordon King," she repeated in a soft, caressing voice. "That is a nice name, but it is not like any name that I have heard before."
"And what is your name?" asked King.
"I am called Fou-tan," she said, and she eyed him intently, as though she would note if the name made any impression upon him.
King thought Fou-Tan a pretty name, but it seemed banal to say so. He was appraising her small, delicate features, her beautiful eyes and her soft brown skin. They recalled to him the weeping queen upon the misty elephant that he had seen in his delirium, and once again there arose within him doubts as to his sanity. "Tell me," he said suddenly. "Did you ever ride through the jungle on a great elephant escorted by soldiers in brass?"
"Yes," she said.
"And you say that you are from Lodidhapura?" he continued.
"I have just come from there," she replied.
"Did you ever hear of a priest called Vay Thon?"
"He is the high priest of Siva in the city of Lodidhapura," she replied.
King shook his head in perplexity. "It is hard to know," he murmured, "where dreams end and reality begins."
"I do not understand you," she said, her brows knit in perplexity.
"Perhaps I do not understand myself," he admitted.
"You are a strange man," said Fou-tan. "I do not know whether to fear you or trust you. You are not like any other man I have ever known. What do you intend to do with me?"
"Perhaps I had better take you back to the dwelling of Che and Kangrey," he said, "and then to-morrow Che can guide you back to Lodidhapura."
"But I do not wish to return to Lodidhapura," said the girl.
"Why not?" demanded King.
"Listen, Gordon King, and I shall tell you," said Fou-tan.
V
THE CAPTURE
"Let us sit down upon this fallen tree," said Fou-tan, "and I shall tell you why I do not wish to return to Lodidhapura."
As they seated themselves, King became acutely conscious of the marked physical attraction that this girl of a forgotten age exercised over him. Every movement of her lithe body, every gesture of her graceful arms and hands, each changing expression of her beautiful face and eyes were provocative. She radiated magnetism. He sensed it in the reaction of his skin, his eyes, his nostrils. It was as though ages of careful selection had produced her for the purpose of arousing in man the desire of possession, and yet there enveloped her a divine halo of chastity that aroused within his breast the protective instinct that governs the attitude of a normal man toward a woman that Fate has thrown into his keeping. Never in his life had King been similarly attracted to any woman.
"Why do you look at me so?" she inquired suddenly.
"Forgive me," said King simply. "Go on with your story."
"I am from Pnom Dhek," said Fou-tan, "where Beng Kher is king. Pnom Dhek is a greater city than Lodidhapura; Beng Kher is a mightier king than Lodivarman.
"Bharata Rahon desired me. He wished to take me to wife. I pleaded with my father the—I pleaded with my father not to give me in marriage to Bharata Rahon; but he told me that I did not know my own mind, that I only thought that I did not like Bharata Rahon, that he would make me a good husband, and that after we were married I should be happy.
"I knew that I must do something to convince my father that my mind and soul sincerely revolted at the thought of mating with Bharata Rahon, and so I conceived the idea of running away and going out into the jungle that I might prove that I preferred death to the man my father had chosen for me.
"I did not want to die. I wanted them to come and find me very quickly, and when night came I was terrified. I climbed into a tree where I crouched in terror. I heard My Lord the Tiger pass beneath in the darkness of the night, and my fear was so great that I thought that I should faint and fall into his clutches; yet when day came again I was still convinced that I would rather lie in the arms of My Lord the Tiger than in those of Bharata Rahon, who is a loathsome man whose very name I detest.
"Yet I moved back in the direction of Pnom Dhek, or rather I thought that I did, though now I am certain that I went in the opposite direction. I hoped that searchers sent out by my father would find me, for I did not wish to return of my own volition to Pnom Dhek.
"The day dragged on and I met no searchers, and once again I became terrified, for I knew that I was lost in the jungle. Then I heard the heavy tread of an elephant and the clank of arms and men's voices, and I was filled with relief and gratitude, for I thought at last that the searchers were about to find me.
"But when the warriors came within view, I saw that they wore the armour of Lodivarman. I was terrified and tried to escape them, but they had seen me and they pursued me. Easily they overtook me, and great was their joy when they looked upon me.
"'Lodivarman will reward us handsomely,' they cried, 'when he sees that which we have brought to him from Pnom Dhek.'
"So they placed me in the howdah upon the elephant's back and took me through the jungle to Lodidhapura, where I was immediately taken into the presence of Lodivarman.
"Oh, Gordon King, that was a terrible moment. I was terrified when I found myself so close to the leper king of Lodidhapura. He is covered with great sores, where leprosy is devouring him. That day he was ugly and indifferent. He scarcely looked at me, but ordered that I should be taken to the quarters of the apsarases, and so I became a dancing girl at the court of the leper king.
"Not in a thousand years, Gordon King, could I explain to you what I suffered each time that we came before Lodivarman to dance. Each sore upon his repulsive body seemed to reach out to seize and contaminate me. It was with the utmost difficulty that, half fainting, I went through the ritual of the dance.
"I tried to hide my face from him, for I knew that I was beautiful and I knew the fate of beautiful women in the court of Lodivarman.
"But at last, one day, I realised that he had noticed me. I saw his dead eyes following me about. We were dancing in the great hall where he holds his court. Lodivarman was seated upon his throne. The lead-covered walls of the great apartment were gorgeous with paintings and with hangings. Beneath our feet were the polished flagstones of the floor, but they seemed softer to me than the heart of Lodivarman.
"At last the dance was done, and we were permitted to retire to our apartments. Presently there came to me a captain of the King's household, resplendent in his gorgeous trappings.
"'The King has looked upon you,' said he, 'and would honour you as befits your beauty.'
"'It is sufficient honour,' I replied, 'to dance in the palace of Lodivarman.'
"'You are about to receive a more signal manifestation of the King's honour,' he replied.
"'I am satisfied as I am,' I said.
"'It is not for you to choose, Fou-tan,' replied the messenger. 'The King has chosen you as his newest concubine. Rejoice, therefore, in the knowledge that some day you may become queen.'
"I could have fainted at the very horror of the suggestion. What could I do? I must gain time. I thought of suicide, but I am young, and I do not wish to die. 'When must I come?' I asked.
"'You will be given time to prepare yourself,' replied the messenger. 'For three days the women will bathe and anoint your body, and upon the fourth day you will be conducted to the King.'
"Four days! In four days I must find some way in which to escape the horrid fate to which my beauty had condemned me. 'Go!' I said. 'Leave me in peace for the four days that remain to me of even a semblance of happiness in life.'
"The messenger, grinning, withdrew, and I threw myself upon my pallet and burst into tears. That night the apsarases were to dance in the moonlight in the courtyard before the temple of Siva; and though they would have insisted that my preparation for the honour that was to be bestowed upon me should commence at once, I begged that I might once more, and for the last time, join with my companions in honouring Siva, the Destroyer.
"It was a dark night. The flares that illumined the courtyard cast a wavering light in which exaggerated shadows of the apsarases danced grotesquely. In the dance I wore a mask, and my position was at the extreme left of the last line of apsarases. I was close to the line of spectators that encircled the courtyard, and in some of the movements of the dance I came quite close enough to touch them. This was what I had hoped for.
"All the time that I was dancing I was perfecting in my mind the details of a plan that had occurred to me earlier in the day. The intricate series of postures and steps, with which I had been familiar since childhood, required of me but little mental concentration. I went through them mechanically, my thoughts wholly centred upon the mad scheme that I had conceived. I knew that at one point in the dance the attention of all the spectators would be focused upon a single apsaras, whose position was in the centre of the first line, and when this moment arrived I stepped quickly into the line of spectators.
"Those in my immediate vicinity noticed me, but to these I explained that I was ill and was making my way back to the temple. A little awed by my close presence, they let me pass unmolested, for in the estimation of the people the persons of the apsarases are almost holy.
"Behind the last line of the audience rose a low wall that surrounds the temple courtyard. Surmounting it at intervals rise the beautifully carved stone figures of the seven-headed cobra—emblem of the Royal Nagas. Deep were the shadows between them; and while all eyes were fixed upon the leading apsaras, I clambered quickly to the top of the low wall, where for a moment I hid in the shadow of a great Naga. Below me, black, mysterious, terrifying, lay the dark waters of the moat, beneath the surface of which lived the crocodiles placed there by the King to guard the Holy of Holies. Upon the opposite side the level of the water was but a few inches below the surface of the broad avenue that leads to the stables where the King's elephants are kept. The avenues were deserted, for all who dwelt within the walls of the royal enclosure were watching the dance of the apsarases.
"To Brahma, to Vishnu, and to Siva I breathed a prayer, and then I slid as quietly as possible down into the terrifying waters of the moat. Quickly I struck out for the opposite side, every instant expecting to feel the hideous jaws of a crocodile close upon me; but my prayers had been heard, and I reached the avenue in safety.
"I was forced to climb two more walls before I could escape from the royal enclosure and from the city. My wet and bedraggled costume was torn, and my hands and face were scratched and bleeding before I succeeded.
"At last I was in the jungle, confronted by danger more deadly, yet far less horrible, than that from which I had escaped. How I survived that night and this day I do not know. And now the end would have come but for you, Gordon King."
As King gazed at the sensitive face and delicately moulded figure of the girl beside him, he marvelled at the courage and strength of will, seemingly so out of proportion to the frail temple that housed them, that had sustained her in the conception and execution of an adventure that might have taxed the courage and stamina of a warrior. "You are a brave girl, Fou-tan," he said.
"The daughter of my father could not be less," she replied simply.
"You are a daughter of whom any father might be proud," said King, "but if we are to save you for him we had better be thinking about getting to the dwelling of Che and Kangrey before night falls."
"Who are these people?" asked Fou-tan. "Perhaps they will return me to Lodidhapura for the reward that Lodivarman will pay."
"You need have no fear on that score," replied King. "They are honest people, runaway slaves from Lodidhapura. They have been kind to me, and they will be kind to you."
"And if they are not, you will protect me," said Fou-tan with a tone of finality that evidenced the confidence which she already felt in the dependability and integrity of her new-found friend.
As they set out in the direction of Che's dwelling, it became apparent to King immediately that Fou-tan was tired almost to the point of exhaustion. Will-power and nerve had sustained her so far; but now, with the discovery of someone to whom she might transfer the responsibility of her safety, the reaction had come; and he often found it necessary to assist and support her over the rough places of the trail. She was small and light, and where the going was exceptionally bad he lifted her in his arms and carried her as he might have a child.
"You are strong, Gordon King," she said once as he carried her thus. Her soft arms were around his neck, her lips were very close to his.
"I must need be strong," he said. But if she sensed his meaning she gave no evidence of it. Her eyes closed wearily and her little head dropped to his shoulder. He carried her thus for a long way, though the trail beneath his feet was smooth and hard.
Vama and his warriors had halted in a little glade where there was water. While two of them hunted in the forest for meat for their supper, the others lay stretched out upon the ground in that silence which is induced by hunger and fatigue. Presently Vama sat up alert. His ears had caught the sound of the approach of something through the jungle.
"Kau and Tchek are returning from the hunt," whispered one of the warriors who lay near him and who, also, had heard the noise.
"They did not go in that direction," replied Vama in a low tone. Then signalling his warriors to silence, he ordered them to conceal themselves from view.
The sound, already close when they had first heard it, approached steadily; and they did not have long to wait ere a warrior, naked but for a sampot, stepped into view, and in his arms was the runaway apsaras whom they sought. Elated, Vama leaped from his place of concealment, calling to his men to follow him.
At sight of them King turned to escape, but he knew that he could make no speed while burdened with the girl. She, however, had seen the soldiers and slipped quickly from his arms. "We are lost!" she cried.
"Run!" cried King as he snatched a handful of arrows from his quiver and fitted one to his bow. "Stand back!" he cried to the warriors. But they only moved steadily forward. His bow-string twanged, and one of Lodivarman's brass-bound warriors sank to earth, an arrow through his throat. The others hesitated. They did not dare to cast their spears or loose their bolts for fear of injuring the girl.
Slowly King, with Fou-tan behind him, backed away into the jungle from which he had appeared. At the last instant he sped another arrow, which rattled harmlessly from the cuirass of Vama. Then, knowing that he could not fire upon them from the foliage, the soldiers rushed forward, while King continued to fall back slowly with Fou-tan, another arrow fitted to his bow.
Kau and Tchek had made a great circle in their hunting. With their arrows they had brought down three monkeys, and now they were returning to camp. They had almost arrived when they heard voices and the twang of a bow-string, and then they saw, directly ahead of them, a man and a girl crashing through the foliage of the jungle toward them. Instantly, by her dishevelled costume, they recognised the apsaras and guessed from the attitude of the two that they were backing away from Vama and his fellows.
Kau was a powerful, a courageous, and a resourceful man. Instantly he grasped the situation and instantly he acted. Leaping forward, he threw both his sinewy arms around Gordon King, pinning the other's arms to his body; while Tchek, following the example of his companion, seized Fou-tan. Almost immediately Vama and the others were upon the scene. An instant later Gordon King was disarmed, and his wrists were bound behind him; then the soldiers of Lodivarman dragged the captives back to their camping place.
Vama was tremendously elated. Now he would not have to make up any lies to appease the wrath of his king but could return to Lodidhapura in triumph, bearing not only the apsaras for whom he had been despatched, but another prisoner as well.
King thought that they might make quick work of him in revenge for the soldier he had killed, but they did not appear to hold that against him at all. They questioned him at some length while they cooked their supper of monkey meat over a number of tiny fires; but as what he told them of another country far beyond their jungle was quite beyond their grasp, they naturally believed that he lied and insisted that he came from Pnom Dhek and that he was a runaway slave.
They were all quite content with the happy outcome of their assignment; and so, looking forward to their return to Lodidhapura on the morrow, they were inclined to be generous in their treatment of their prisoners, giving them meat to eat and water to drink. Their attitude toward Fou-tan was one of respectful awe. They knew that she was destined to become one of the King's favourites, and it might prove ill for them, indeed, should they offer her any hurt or affront. Since their treatment of Gordon King, however, was not dictated by any such consideration, it was fortunate, indeed, for him that they were in a good humour.
Regardless, however, of the respectful attention shown her, Fou-tan was immersed in melancholy. A few moments before, she had foreseen escape and counted return to her native city almost an accomplished fact; now, once again, she was in the clutches of the soldiers of Lodivarman, while simultaneously she had brought disaster and, doubtless, death to the man who had befriended her.
"Oh, Gordon King," she said, "my heart is unstrung; my soul is filled with terror and consumed by horror, for not only must I return to the hideous fate from which I had escaped, but you must go to Lodidhapura to slavery or to death."
"We are not in Lodidhapura yet," whispered King. "Perhaps we shall escape."
The girl shook her head. "There is no hope," she said. "I shall go to the arms of Lodivarman, and you—"
"And I?" he asked.
"Slaves fight with other slaves and with wild beasts for the entertainment of Lodivarman and his court," she replied.
"We must escape then," said King. "Perhaps we shall die in the attempt, but in any event death awaits me and worse than death awaits you."
"What you command I shall do, Gordon King," replied Fou-tan.
But it did not appear that there was to be much opportunity for escape that night. After King had eaten they bound his wrists behind his back again and also bound his ankles together securely, while two warriors remained constantly with the girl; the others, their simple meal completed, stripped the armour and weapons from their fallen comrade and laid him upon a thick bed of dry wood that they had gathered. Upon him, then, they piled a great quantity of limbs and branches, of twigs and dry grasses; and when night fell they lighted their weird funeral pyre, which was to answer its other dual purpose as a beast fire to protect them from the prowling carnivores. To King it was a gruesome sight, but neither Fou-tan nor the other Khmers seemed to be affected by it. The men gathered much wood and placed it near at hand that the fire might be kept burning during the night.
The flames leaped high, lighting the boles of the trees about them and the foliage arching above. The shadows rose and fell and twisted and writhed. Beyond the limits of the firelight was utter darkness, silence, mystery. King felt himself in an inverted cauldron of flame in which a human body was being consumed.
The warriors lay about, laughing and talking. Their reminiscences were brutal and cruel. Their jokes and stories were broad and obscene. But there was an under-current of rough kindness and loyalty to one another that they appeared to be endeavouring to conceal as though they were ashamed of such soft emotion. They were soldiers. Transplanted to the camps of modern Europe, given a modern uniform and a modern language, their campfire conversation would have been the same. Soldiers do not change. One played upon a little musical instrument that resembled a Jew's harp. Two were gambling with what appeared to be very similar to modern dice, and all that they said was so interlarded with strange and terrible oaths that the American could scarcely follow the thread of their thought. Soldiers do not change.
Vama came presently and squatted down near King and Fou-tan. "Do all the men in this far country of which you tell me go naked?" he demanded.
"No," replied the American. "When I had become lost in the jungle I was stricken with fever, and while I was sick the monkeys came and stole my clothing and my weapons."
"You live alone in the jungle?" asked Vama.
King thought quickly; he thought of Che and Kangrey and their fear of the soldiers in brass. "Yes," he said.
"Are you not afraid of My Lord the Tiger?" inquired Vama.
"I am watchful and I avoid him," replied the American.
"You do well to do so," said Vama, "for even with spear and arrows no lone man is a match for the great beast."
"But Gordon King is," said Fou-tan proudly.
Vama smiled. "The apsaras has been in the jungle but a night and a day," he reminded her. "How can she know so much about this man unless, as I suspect, he is, indeed, from Pnom Dhek?"
"He is not from Pnom Dhek," retorted Fou-tan. "And I know that he is a match for My Lord the Tiger because this day I saw him slay the beast with a single spear-cast."
Vama looked questioningly at King.
"It was only a matter of good fortune," said King.
"But you did it nevertheless," insisted Fou-tan.
"You killed a tiger with a single cast of your spear?" demanded Vama.
"As the beast charged him," said Fou-tan.
"That is, indeed, a marvellous feat," said Vama, with a soldier's ungrudging admiration for the bravery or prowess of another. "Lodivarman shall hear of this. A hunter of such spirit shall not go unrecognised in Lodidhapura. I can also bear witness that you are no mean bowman," added Vama, nodding toward the blazing funeral pyre. Then he arose and walked to the spot where King's weapons had been deposited. Picking up the spear he examined it closely. "By Siva!" he ejaculated. "The blood is scarcely dry upon it. Such a cast! You drove it a full two feet into the carcass of My Lord the Tiger."
"Straight through the heart," said Fou-tan.
The other soldiers had been listening to the conversation. It was noticeable immediately that their attitude toward King changed instantly, and thereafter they treated him with friendliness tinged by respect. However, they did not abate their watchfulness over him, but rather were increasingly careful to see that he was given no opportunity to escape, nor to have his hands free for any length of time.
Early the next morning, after a meagre breakfast, Vama set out with his detachment and his prisoners in the direction of Lodidhapura, leaving the funeral fire still blazing as it eagerly licked at a new supply of fuel.
The route they selected to Lodidhapura passed, by chance, close to the spot where King had slain the tiger; and here, in the partially devoured carcass of the great beast, the soldiers of Lodivarman found concrete substantiation of Fou-tan's story.
VI
THE LEPER KING
It was late in the afternoon when the party emerged suddenly from the jungle at the edge of a great clearing. King voiced an involuntary exclamation of astonishment as he saw at a distance the walls and towers of a splendid city.
"Lodidhapura," said Fou-tan; "accursed city!" There was fear in her voice, and she trembled as she pressed closer to the American.
While King had long since become convinced that Lodidhapura had an actual existence of greater reality than legend or fever-wrought hallucination, yet he had been in no way prepared for the reality. A collection of nippa-thatched huts had comprised the extent of his mental picture of Lodidhapura, and now, as the reality burst suddenly upon him, he was dumbfounded.
Temples and palaces of stone reared their solid masses against the sky. Mighty towers, elaborately carved, rose in stately grandeur high over all. There were nippa-thatched huts as well, but these clustered close against the city's wall and were so overshadowed by the majestic mass of masonry beyond them that they affected the picture as slightly as might the bushes growing at its foot determine the grandeur of a mountain.
In the foreground were level fields in which laboured men and women, naked mostly, but for sampots—the nippa-thatched huts were their dwellings. They were the labourers, the descendants of slaves—Chams and Annamese—that the ancient, warlike Khmers had brought back from many a victory in the days when their power and their civilisation were the greatest upon earth.
From the edge of the jungle, at the point where the party had emerged, a broad avenue led toward one of the gates of the city, toward which Vama was conducting them. To his right, at a distance, King could see what appeared to be another avenue leading to another gate—an avenue which seemed to be more heavily travelled than that upon which they had entered. There were many people on foot, some approaching the city, others leaving it. At a distance they looked small, but he could distinguish them and also what appeared to be bullock-carts moving slowly among the pedestrians.
Presently, at the far end of this distant avenue, he saw the great bulks of elephants; in a long column they entered the highway from the jungle and approached the city. They seemed to move in an endless procession, two abreast, hundreds of them, he thought. Never before had King seen so many elephants.
"Look!" he cried to Fou-tan. "There must be a circus coming to town."
"The King's elephants," explained Fou-tan, unimpressed.
"Why does he have so many?" asked King.
"A king without elephants would be no king," replied the girl. "They proclaim to all men the king's wealth and power. When he makes war, his soldiers go into battle upon them and fight from their backs, for those are the war elephants of Lodivarman."
"There must be hundreds of them," commented the American.
"There are thousands," said Fou-tan.
"And against whom does Lodivarman make war?"
"Against Pnom Dhek."
"Only against Pnom Dhek?" inquired King.
"Yes, only against Pnom Dhek."
"Why does he not make war elsewhere? Has he no other enemies?"
"Against whom else might he make war?" demanded Fou-tan. "There are only Pnom Dhek and Lodidhapura in all the world."
"Well, that does rather restrict him now, doesn't it?" admitted King.
For a moment they were silent. Then the girl spoke. "Gordon King," she said in that soft, caressing voice that the man found so agreeable, that often he had sought for means to lure her into conversation. "Gordon King, soon we shall see one another no more."
The American frowned. He did not like to think of that. He had tried to put it out of his mind and to imagine that by some chance they would be allowed to be together after they reached Lodidhapura, for he had found Fou-tan a cheery and pleasant companion even when her hour was darkest. Why, she was the only friend he had! Certainly they would not deny him the right to see her. From what he had gleaned during his conversation with Vama and the other warriors, King had become hopeful that Lodivarman would not treat him entirely as a prisoner or an enemy, but might give him the opportunity to serve the King as a soldier. Fou-tan had rather encouraged this hope too, for she knew that it was not at all improbable of realisation.
"Why do you say that?" demanded King. "Why shall we not see one another again?"
"Would you be sad, Gordon King, if you did not see Fou-tan any more?" she asked.
The man hesitated before he replied, as though weighing in his mind a problem that he had never before been called upon to consider; and as he hesitated a strange, hurt look came into the eyes of the girl.
"It is unthinkable, Fou-tan," he said at last, and the great brown eyes of the little apsaras softened and tears rose in them. "We have been such good friends," he added.
"Yes," she said. "We have known each other but a very short time, and yet we seem such good friends that it is almost as though we had known each other always."
"But why should we not see one another again?" he demanded once more.
"Lodivarman may punish me for running away, and there is only one punishment that would satisfy his pride in such an event and that is death; but if he forgives me, as he doubtless will, because of my youth and my great beauty and his desire for me, then I shall be taken into the King's palace and no more then might you see me than if I were dead. So you see, either way, the result is the same."
"I shall see you again, Fou-tan," said the man.
She shook her head. "I like to hear you say it, even though I know that it cannot be."
"You shall see, Fou-tan. If we both live I shall find a way to see you; and, too, I shall find a way to take you out of the palace of the King and back to Pnom Dhek."
She looked up at him with earnest eyes, full of confidence and admiration. "When I hear you say it," she said, "the impossible seems almost possible."
"Cling to the hope, Fou-tan," he told her; "and when we are separated, know always that my every thought will be centred upon the means to reach you and take you away."
"That will help me to cling to life until the last horrible minute, beyond which there can be no hope and beyond which I will not go."
"What do you mean, Fou-tan?" There had been that in her voice which frightened him.
"I can live in the palace of the King with hope until again the King sends for me, and then—"
"And then?"
"And then—death."
"No, Fou-tan, you must not say that. You must not think it."
"What else could there be—after?" she demanded. "He is a leper!" The utter horror in her voice and expression, as her lips formed the word, aroused to its fullest the protective instinct of the man. He wanted to throw an arm about her, to soothe and reassure her; but his wrists were bound together behind him, and he could only move on dumbly at her side toward the great, carved gate of Lodidhapura.
The sentry at the gate halted Vama and his party, though his greeting, following his formal challenge, indicated that he was well aware of the identity of all but King, a fact which impressed the American as indicative of the excellent military discipline that obtained in this remote domain of the leper king.
Summoned by the sentry, the captain of the gate came from his quarters within the massive towers that flanked the gateway to Lodidhapura. He was a young man, resplendent in trappings of gold and blue and yellow. His burnished cuirass and his helmet were of the precious metal, but his weapons were stern and lethal.
"Who comes?" he demanded.
"Vama of the King's guard, with the apsaras from Pnom Dhek, who ran away into the jungle, and a warrior from a far country whom we took prisoner," replied the leader of the detachment.
"You have done well, Vama," said the officer, as his eyes quickly appraised the two captives. "Enter and go at once to the palace of the King, for such were his orders in the event that you returned successful from your quest."
The streets of Lodidhapura, beyond the gate, were filled with citizens and slaves. Tiny shops with wide awnings lined the street through which Vama's captives were conducted. Merchants in long robes and ornate headdresses presided over booths where were displayed a bewildering variety of merchandise, including pottery, silver and gold ornaments, rugs, stuffs, incense, weapons, and armour.
Men and women of high rank, beneath gorgeous parasols borne by almost naked slaves, bartered at the booths for the wares displayed; high-hatted priests moved slowly through the throng, while burly soldiers elbowed their way roughly along the avenue. Many turned to note the escort and its prisoners, and the sight of Fou-tan elicited a wealth of ejaculation and many queries; but to all such Vama, fully aware of his importance, turned a deaf ear.
As they approached the centre of Lodidhapura, King was amazed by the evident wealth of the city, by the goods displayed in the innumerable shops, and by the grandeur of the architecture. The ornate carvings that covered the façades of the great buildings, the splendour of the buildings themselves, filled him with awe; and when at last the party halted before the palace of Lodivarman, the American was staggered by the magnificence which confronted him.
They had been conducted through a great park that lay below, and to the east of the stately temple of Siva, which dominated the entire city of Lodidhapura. Great trees and gorgeous shrubbery shadowed winding avenues that were flanked by statues and columns of magnificent, though sometimes barbaric, design; and then the palace of the King had burst suddenly upon his astonished gaze—a splendid building embellished from foundation to loftiest tower with tile of the most brilliant colouring and fanciful design.
Before the entrance to the palace of Lodivarman stood a guard of fifty warriors. No brass-bound soldiers these, resplendent in shining cuirasses of burnished gold, whose haughty demeanour bespoke their exalted position and the high responsibility that devolved upon them.
Gordon King had difficulty in convincing himself of the reality of the scene. Again and again his sane Yankee head assured him that no such things might exist in the jungles of Cambodia and that he still was the victim of the hallucinations of high fever; but when the officer at the gate had interrogated Vama and presently commands were received to conduct the entire party to the presence of Lodivarman, and still the hallucination persisted in all its conclusiveness, he resigned himself to the actualities that confronted him and would have accepted as real whatever grotesque or impossible occurrences or figures might have impinged themselves upon his perceptive faculties.
Escorted by a detachment of the golden warriors of Lodivarman, the entire party was conducted through long corridors toward the centre of the palace and at last, after a wait before massive doors, was ushered into a great hall, at the far end of which a number of people were seated upon a raised dais. Upon the floor of the chamber were many men in gorgeous raiment—priests, courtiers, and soldiers. One of the latter, resplendent in rich trappings, received them and conducted them toward the far end of the chamber, where they were halted before the dais.
King saw seated upon a great throne an emaciated man, upon every exposed portion of whose body were ugly and repulsive sores. To his right and below him were sombre men in rich garb, and to his left a score of sad-eyed girls and women. This, then, was Lodivarman, the Leper King of Lodidhapura! The American felt an inward revulsion at the mere sight of this repulsive creature and simultaneously understood the horror that Fou-tan had evinced at the thought of personal contact with the leper into whose clutches fate had delivered her.
Before Lodivarman knelt a slave, bearing a great salver of food, into which the King continually dipped with his long-nailed fingers. He ate almost constantly during the audience, and as King was brought nearer he saw that the delicacies intended to tempt the palate of a king were naught but lowly mushrooms.
"Who are these?" demanded Lodivarman, his dead eyes resting coldly on the prisoners.
"Vama, the commander of ten," replied the officer addressed, "who has returned from his mission, to the honour of the King, with the apsaras for whom he was despatched and a strange warrior whom he took prisoner."
"Fou-tan of Pnom Dhek," demanded Lodivarman, "why did you seek to escape the honour for which I had destined you?"
"Great King," replied the girl, "my heart is still in the land of my sire. I would have returned to Pnom Dhek, for I longed for the father and the friends whom I love and who love me."
"A pardonable desire," commented Lodivarman, "and this time thy transgression shall be overlooked, but beware a repetition. You are destined to the high honour of the favour of Lodivarman. See that hereafter, until death, thou dost merit it."
Fou-tan, trembling, curtsied low; and Lodivarman turned his cold, fishy eyes upon Gordon King. "And what manner of man bringeth you before the King now?" he asked.
"A strange warrior from some far country, Glorious King," replied Vama.
"A runaway slave from Pnom Dhek more likely," commented Lodivarman.
"Even as I thought, Resplendent Son of Heaven," answered Vama; "but his deeds are such as to leave no belief that he be either a slave or the son of slaves."
"What deeds?" demanded the King.
"He faced my detachment single-handed, and with a lone shaft he slew one of the best of the King's bowmen."
"Is that all?" asked Lodivarman. "A mere freak of Fate may account for that."
"No, Brother of the Gods," replied Vama, "there is more."
"And what is it? Hasten, I cannot spend the whole evening in idle audience over a slave."
"With a single spear-cast he slew My Lord the Tiger," cried Vama.
"And you saw this?"
"Fou-tan saw it, and all of us saw the carcass of the tiger the following morning. O King, he drove his spear a full two feet into the breast of the tiger as the great beast charged. He is a marvellous warrior, and Vama is proud to have brought such a one to serve in the ranks of the army of Lodivarman."
For a while Lodivarman was silent, his dead eyes upon King, while he helped himself from time to time to the tender-cooked mushrooms with which the slave tempted him.
"With a single cast he slew My Lord the Tiger?" demanded Lodivarman of Fou-tan.
"It is even so, Great King," replied the girl.
"How came he to do it? Surely no sane man would tempt the great beast unless in dire predicament."
"He did it to save me, upon whom the tiger was preparing to spring."
"So I am doubly indebted to this stranger," said Lodivarman. "And what gift would suit your appetite for reward?" demanded the King.
"I desire no reward," replied the American, "only that you will permit Fou-tan to return to her beloved Pnom Dhek."
"You do not ask much!" cried Lodivarman. "I like your ways. You shall not be destroyed, but instead you shall serve me in the palace guards; such a spear-man should prove worth his weight in gold. As for your request, remember that Fou-tan belongs to Lodivarman, the King, and so may no longer be the subject of any conversation, upon pain of death. Take him to the quarters of the guard!" he directed one of his officers, nodding at King, "and see that he is well cared for, trained and armed."
"Yes, most magnificent of kings," replied the man addressed.
"Take the girl to the quarters of the women and look to it that she does not again escape," commanded Lodivarman, with a gesture that dismissed them all.
As he was escorted from the audience chamber through one exit, King saw Fou-tan led away toward another. Her eyes were turned back toward him, and in them was a haunting suggestion of grief and hopelessness that cut him to the heart.
"Good-bye, Gordon King!" she called to him.
"Until we meet again, Fou-tan," he replied.
"You will not meet again," said the officer who was escorting him, as he hustled the American from the chamber.
The barracks to which King was assigned stood a considerable distance in the rear of the palace, not far from the stables in which were housed the King's elephants, yet, like the latter, within the grounds of the royal enclosure. The long, low buildings that housed the soldiers of Lodivarman's royal guard were plastered inside and out with mud and thatched with palm fronds. Along either wall upon the hard-packed dirt floors were pallets of straw, where the common soldiers were bedded down like horses. A space of some four feet in width by seven in length was allotted to each man, and into the wall above his pallet pegs had been driven upon which he might hang his weapons and his clothing, a cooking-pot, and a vessel for water. Along the centres of the buildings was a clear space about eight feet wide, forming an aisle in which soldiers might be formed for inspection. Just beneath the eaves was an open space running the full length of both walls, giving ample ventilation but very little light to the interior of the barracks. The doors were at either end of the buildings.
The building to which King was escorted was about two hundred feet long and housed a hundred men. It was but one of a number of similar structures, which he later learned were placed at strategic positions just inside the wall of the royal enclosure, where five thousand men-at-arms were constantly maintained.
At Vama's request King was assigned to his unit of ten to replace the soldier that he had slain in the jungle, and thus the American took up his life in the unit of ten, with Kau and Tchek and Vama and the others with whom he was already acquainted as his companions.
From a naked jungle hunter to a soldier of a Khmer king, he had crossed in a single step long ages of evolution, and yet he was still a thousand years from the era into which he had been born.
VII
A SOLDIER OF THE GUARD
The lives of private soldiers of the royal guard of a Khmer king were far from thrilling. Their most important assignment was to guard duty, which fell to the lot of each soldier once in every four days. There were drills daily, both upon foot and upon elephants, and there were numerous parades and ceremonies.
Aside from the care of their own weapons they were called upon for no manual labour, such work being attended to by slaves. Once a week the straw which formed their pallets was hauled away upon bullock-carts to the elephants' stables, where it was used to bed down the great pachyderms, and fresh straw was brought to the barracks.
Their leisure, of which they usually had a little at various times during the day, the soldiers utilised in gossiping or gambling, or listening to the story-tellers, certain of whom were freely admitted to the royal grounds. Many were the stories to which King listened—stories of ancient power and stories of kings who owned a million slaves and a hundred thousand elephants; stories of Kambu, the mythical founder of the Khmer race; of Yacovarman, the king of glory; and of Jayavarman VIII., the last of the great kings. Interwoven throughout all the fabric of these hoary tales were the Nagas and the Yeacks, those ever-recurring mythological figures that he had met in the folk-lore of the people beyond the jungle, in the dark dwelling of Che and Kangrey, and now in the shadow of the palace of the great King, Lodivarman.
Or when there were no story-tellers, or he tired of listening to the idle gossip of his fellows, or became bored by their endless games of chance, King would sit in silence, meditating upon the past and seeking an answer to the riddle of the future. Recollection of his distant home and friends always raised a vision of Susan Anne Prentice—home and friends and Susan Anne—they were all one; they constituted his past and beckoned him into the future. It seemed difficult to think of life without home and friends and Susan Anne when he thought of them, but always the same little figure rose in front of them, clear and distinct, as they faded slowly out of the picture: sad eyes in which there yet dwelt a wealth of inherent happiness and mirth, a piquant face, and gleaming teeth behind red lips. Always his thoughts, no matter how far they roamed, returned to this dainty flower of girlhood, and then his brows would contract and his jaws clench as he speculated upon her fate and chafed and fretted because of his inability to succour her.