“Cling to the hope, Fou-tan,” he told her; “and when we are separated, know always that my every thought will be centered 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 center 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 facades of the great buildings, the splendor 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 coloring 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 demeanor 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 city was conducted through long corridors toward the center 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 somber 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 honor of the King, with the apsaras for whom he was dispatched and a strange warrior whom he took prisoner.”
“Fou-tan of Pnom Dhek,” demanded Lodivarman, “why did you seek to escape the honor 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 honor of the favor 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 fee
t into the breast of the tiger as the great beast charged. He is a marvelous 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-by, 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 handpicked 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 centers 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 ulterior 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 Varna’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.
7. 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 labor, 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 utilized 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 and he speculated upon her fate and chafed and fretted because of his inability to succor her.
And one day as he sat meditating thus he saw a strange figure approaching across the barracks yard. “Ye gods!” he exclaimed, almost audibly; “one by one my dreams are coming true! If it isn’t the old bird with the red umbrella that I saw just before Che and Kangrey rescued me, I’ll eat my shirt.”
King had had considerable difficulty in differentiating between the fantastic figures of his fever-induced hallucinations and the realities of his weird experiences in the jungle, so that though Che and Kangrey had insisted that there had been an old man with a long yellow robe and a red umbrella and although King had believed them, yet it was with somewhat of a shock that he recognized the reality. As Vay Thon passed among the soldiers, they arose to their feet and bowed low before him, evincing the awe and reverence in which they held him. He passed them with nodding head and mumbled benediction, gazing intently at each face as though he sought some particular warrior.
Seeing that the others rose and bowed before the high priest, King did likewise; and when Vay Thon’s eyes fell upon him they lighted with recognition. “It is you, my son,” he said. “Do you recall me?”
“You ate Vay Thon, the high priest of Siva,” replied the American.
“He whom you saved from My Lord the Tiger,” replied the priest.
“An obligation which you fully discharged when you commanded Che and Kangrey to nurse me back to life.”
“An obligation that I may never fully discharge,” replied Vay Thon; “and because of this I came to search for you, that I may offer you proof of my undying gratitude.”
“How did you know that I was here?” asked King.
“I have talked with Fou-tan,” replied Vay Thon, “and when she had described the warrior who had rescued her, I knew at once that it must be you.”
“You have seen Fou-t
an and talked with her?” asked King.
The high priest nodded.
“And she is well — and safe?” demanded King.
“Her body is well, but her heart is sick,” replied the high priest; “but she is safe — those who find favor in the eyes of the King are always safe, while the King’s favor lasts.”
“Has she — has he—”
“I understand what you would ask, my son,” said Vay Thon. “Lodivarman has not yet sent for her.”
“But he will,” cried King.
“tonight, I think,” said Vay Thon.
The anguish in the young man’s eyes would have been apparent to one of far less intelligence and discernment than Vay Thon. He laid his hand in compassion upon the shoulder of the American. “If I could help you, my son, I would,” he said; “but in such matters kings may not be crossed even by gods.”
“Where is she?” asked King.
“She is in the King’s house,” replied Vay Thon, pointing toward a wing of the palace that was visible from where they stood.
For a long moment the eyes of the American, lighted by determination and by a complexity of other fires that burned within him, remained riveted upon the house of the King.
Vay Thon, the high priest of Siva, was old and wise and shrewd. “I read your heart, my son,” he said, “and my heart goes out in sympathy to yours, but what you plan is impossible of execution; it would but lead to torture and to death.”
“In what room is she in the house of the King?” demanded the American.
Vay Thon shook his head sadly. “Forget this madness,” he said. “It can lead but to the grave. I am your friend and I would help you, but I would be no friend were I to encourage you in the mad venture that I can only too well guess is forming in your mind. I owe you my life; and always shall I stand ready to aid you in any way that lies within my power, except in this. And now, farewell; and may the gods cause you to forget your sorrow.”
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 469
