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 odours 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 civilisation. However, to-day his mind was not on this thing; it was still engaged in an endeavour 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 recognise 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 recognised instantly that his only hope lay in distracting the attention of the tiger. If he could centre 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 hands 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.