“Why?” she demanded.
“Before I answer you,” he replied, “there is one question that I have not asked but that you must answer before we make our plans for the future.”
“What is that?” she asked.
“Will you be my wife, Fou-tan?”
“Oh, Gordon King, I have answered that already, for I have told you that I love you. Fou-tan would not tell any man that whom she could not or would not take as her husband; but what has that to do with our returning to Pnom Dhek?”
“It was everything to do with it,” replied King, “because I will not take the woman who is to be my wife back into slavery.”
She looked up into his face, her eyes alight with a new happiness and understanding. “Now I may never doubt that you love me, Gordon King,” she said.
He looked at her questioningly. “I do not understand what you mean,” he said.
“Though you thought that I was born a slave, you asked me to be your wife,” she said.
“You told me from the first that you were a slave girl,” he reminded her.
“I was a slave girl in Lodidhapura,” she explained, “but in Pnom Dhek I am no slave. I must return there to my father’s house. It is my duty. When the King learns what a great warrior you are, he will give you a place in his guard. Then you will be able to take a wife, and, perhaps, my father will not object.”
“And if he does?” asked King.
“Let us not think of that,” replied Fou-tan.
As the night wore on, a slow rain commenced to fall, herald of the coming rainy season. King kept the fire replenished, and its heat warmed them as they sat and talked of their future, or spoke in half-awed whispers of the transcendent happiness that had come into their lives.
Before dawn the rain ceased and the skies cleared, and when the sun rose he looked upon a steaming jungle, where strange odors, long imprisoned by drought, filled the air as they wandered through the forest.
King rose and stretched himself. Near him the carcass of the great beast he had slain aroused within him regret that he must leave such a trophy to the carrion creatures or to decay.
From the tiger’s back protruded the feathered shaft of an arrow. King was puzzled. He tugged upon the missile and withdrew it. It was a crude thing - much more primitive than those made by Che. It created a mystery that appeared little likely of solution. The best that he could do was guess that the tiger had carried it for some time before he attacked them. Then, for the time, he forgot the matter, which later was to be recalled in poignant grief.
Across the gorge the brute bestirred himself. He had lain quietly throughout the rain, keeping the spot beneath him dry. Physical discomfort meant little to him; he was accustomed to it. He arose, and, like King, stretched himself. Then he crept to the edge of the gorge and looked down at the man and the woman.
Fou-tan, who had been dozing, awoke now and rose to her feet. With the undulating grace of youth and health and physical perfection she came and stood beside King. She leaned close against the man, who put an arm about her and, bending, kissed her upturned mouth. The brute moistened his thick lips with a red tongue.
“And now,” said King, “I am going up into the forest to get some more fruit. It will be a light breakfast, but better than none; and I do not dare build up the fire again by daylight.”
“While you are gone I shall bathe myself in the stream,” said Fou-tan; “it will refresh me.”
“I am afraid to leave you here alone,” said King.
“There is no danger,” replied Fou-tan. “The beasts are not hunting now, and there is little likelihood that the soldiers who are searching for us have broken camp so early. No, I shall remain here. Let me have my bath, Gordon King, and do not return too quickly.”
As King walked down the gorge to the place where he could ascend into the forest, the brute upon the opposite side watched his every move and then proceeded quickly up the farther bank of the gorge in the opposite direction from that taken by King. There was no trail in the jungle that the brute did not know, so that he was aware of a place where he might easily descend into the gorge a short distance above the spot where Fou-tan bathed.
The girl wore only two garments beside her sandals — a silken sampot and the makeshift sarong — so that scarcely was King out of sight before she was splashing in the cold waters of the stream. The temperature of the water that came down from the high hills, coupled with her fear that King might return too soon, prompted her to haste. Having no towel, she used one end of the sarong to dry herself, adjusted her sampot and wound the sarong about her lithe body. Then she stood looking down the gorge in the direction from which King would return. Her heart was filled with her new happiness, so that it was with difficulty that she restrained her lips from song.
From up the gorge, behind her, crept the brute. Even if he had approached noisily, the rushing waters would have drowned the sound, but it was not the way of the brute to move noisily. Like the other carnivores, stealth was habitual to him. The brute was the personification of the cunning and malignity of the tiger; but there the parallel ceased, for the tiger was beautiful and the brute was hideous.
It is remarkable that there should be so many more beautiful creatures in the world than man, which suggests a doubt of man’s boast that he is made in the image of God. There are those who believe that the image of God must transcend in its beauty the finite conceptions of man. If that be true and God chose to create any animal in His own likeness, man must have trailed at the far end of that celestial beauty contest.
The brute crept stealthily down upon the unsuspecting girl. He rounded the corner of a cliff and saw her standing with her back toward him. He moved swiftly now, crouched like a charging tiger, yet his naked feet gave forth no sound; while Fou-tan, with half-closed eyes and smiling lips, dreamed of the future that love held in store.
The brute sprang close behind her. A filthy, calloused paw was clapped across her mouth. A rough and powerful arm encircled her waist. She was whirled from her feet, her cries stifled in her throat, as the brute wheeled and ran swiftly up the gorge, bearing his prize.
King quickly found the fruit he sought, but he loitered in returning to give Fou-tan an opportunity to complete her toilet. As he idled slowly back to the gorge, his mind was occupied with plans for the future. He was considering the advisability of remaining in hiding where they were for several days on the chance that the soldiers of Lodivarman might in the meantime give up the search and return to Lodidhapura. He determined that they might explore the gorge further in the hope of finding a safer and more comfortable retreat, where they might be less at the mercy of night prowlers and even more securely hidden from searchers than they were at present. He was also moved by the prospect of a few idyllic days during which there would be no one in the world but himself and Fou-tan.
Filled with enthusiasm for his heaven-sent plan, King descended into the gorge and approached the now hallowed precincts of his greatest happiness; but as he rounded the last bend he saw that Fou-tan was not there. Perhaps she had gone farther up the stream to bathe. He called her name aloud, but there was no reply. Again he called, raising his voice, but still there was only silence. Now he became alarmed and, running quickly forward, searched about for some sign or clue to her whereabouts; nor had he long to search. In the soft earth, damp from the recent rain, he saw the imprints of a huge foot- the great bare foot of a man. He saw where the prints had stopped and turned, and it was easy to follow them up the gorge. Casting aside the fruit that he had gathered, he hastened along the well-marked trail, his mind a fiery furnace of fear and rage, his heart a cold clod in his leaden breast.
Now, quite suddenly, he recalled the arrow he had found embedded behind the shoulders of the tiger that he had killed. He recalled the beast’s sudden scream of rage and pain as it had charged so unexpectedly toward him, and quite accurately he reconstructed the whole scene — the man had been spying upon them from the top of the gorge; he had seen
the tiger and had shot it to save his quarry to himself; then he had waited until King had left Fou-tan alone; the rest was plainly discernible in the footprints that he followed. He was confident that this was no soldier of Lodivarman; the crude arrow refuted that idea, as did the imprints of the great bare feet. But what sort of man was it and why had he stolen Fou-tan? The answer to that question goaded King to greater speed.
A short distance up the gorge King discovered where the tracks turned to the right, up the bed of a dry wash and thus to the level of the forest above. He gave thanks now for the providential ram that rendered the spoor easily followed. He knew that the abductor could not be far ahead, and he was sure that he could overtake him before harm could befall Fou-tan. However, as he hastened on, he was chilled by the thought that no matter how plain the spoor, the necessity for keeping it always in sight could but retard his speed; and his fear was that the slight delay might permit the man to outdistance him; and then he came to a patch of rocky ground where the trail, becoming immediately faint, suddenly disappeared entirely. Sick with apprehension, the American was forced to stop and search for a continuation of the tracks, and when, at last, he found them he knew that his quarry had gamed greatly upon him during this enforced delay.
Again he sped along as rapidly as he could through a forest unusually devoid of underbrush. As he advanced he presently became aware of a new sound mingling with the subdued daylight noises of the jungle. It was a sound that he could not identify, but there was something ominous about it; and then, quite suddenly, he came upon the authors of it — great grey bulks looming among the boles of the trees directly in his path.
Under other circumstances he would have halted or, at least, changed his route; and had he reflected even for an instant, his better judgment now would have prompted him to do the latter; but uppermost in his mind and entirely dominating him was the great fear that he felt for Fou-tan’s safety; and when he saw this obstacle looming menacingly before him, his one thought was to override it by sheer effrontery that it might not even delay him, much less thwart him in the pursuit of his object.
Had he been vouchsafed from his insanity even a single brief moment of lucidity, he would have avoided those ominous bulks moving restlessly to and fro among the boles of the giant trees, for even at the best wild elephants are nervous and short-tempered; and these, obviously disconcerted and suspicious by reason of some recent occurrences, were in a particularly hysterical and ugly mood. There were young calves among them and, therefore, watchful and irritable mothers; while the great bulls, aroused and on guard, were in no mood to be further provoked.
A huge bull, his ears outspread, his tail erect, wheeled toward the advancing man. The forest trembled to his mad trumpeting, and in that instant King realized for the first time the deadly peril of his position and knew that it would serve Fou-tan nothing were he to rush headlong into that inevitable death.
11. WARRIORS FROM PNOM DHEK
As the hideous creature bore her on, Fou-tan struggled to release herself; but she was utterly helpless in the Herculean grasp of her gigantic captor. She tried to wrench the creature’s hand from her mouth that she might scream a warning to King, but even in this she was doomed to failure.
The creature had at first been carrying her under one arm, with her face down; but after he reached the floor of the forest he swung her lightly up in front of him, carrying her so that she had a clear view of his face; and at sight of it her heart sank within her. It was a hideous face, with thick lips and protruding teeth, great ears that flapped as the creature ran, and a low, receding forehead hidden by filthy, tangled hair that almost met the bushy, protruding eyebrows, beneath which gleamed wicked, bloodshot eyes.
It did not require a second look to convince Fou-tan that she had fallen into the hands of one of the dread Yeacks. Notwithstanding the fact that she had never before seen one of these ogre people, nor had known anyone who had, she was nevertheless as positive in her identification as though she had come in daily contact with them all her life, so strongly implanted in the mind of man are the superstitions of childhood. What else, indeed, could this creature be but a Yeack?
The horror of her situation was augmented by its contrast to the happy state from which it had snatched her. Had her Gordon King been there she would have been sure of rescue, so absolute was her conviction of his prowess. But how was he to know what had become of her? Being city-bred, it did not immediately occur to her that King might follow the tracks of her abductor, and so she was borne on more deeply into the somber forest without even the slightly alleviating reassurance of faint hope. She was lost! Of that Fou-tan was convinced; for was it not well known that the Yeacks fed upon human flesh?
The brute, sensing muddily that he would be pursued, and having witnessed something of the prowess of King, did not pause in his flight but hastened steadily on toward a rocky fastness which he knew, where one might hide for days or, if discovered, find a cave, the mouth of which might be easily defended.
As he strode steadily through the forest his keen ears were presently attracted by a familiar sound, a sound which experience told him was a warning to change his course. A moment later he saw the elephants moving slowly across his path toward his left. He had no wish to dispute the right-of-way with them; so he veered to the right with the intention of passing behind them. They did not see him, but they caught his scent spoor, and an old bull left the herd and came ponderously down toward the point where the brute had first sighted them. The rest of the herd halted and then followed the old bull. The scent spoor of the man grated upon the nerves of the pachyderms. They became restless and irritable, more so because they could not locate the authors of this disturbing scent.
As the brute moved quickly to the right to circle to the rear of the herd and resume his interrupted course toward the wild sanctuary that was his objective, he kept his eyes turned to the left upon the members of the herd, lest, by chance, one of them might discover him and charge. A remote possibility, perhaps, but it is by guarding against remote possibilities that the fittest of primitive creatures survive. So, because of the fact that his attention was riveted in one direction, he did not see the danger approaching from another.
A score of soldiers, their brass cuirasses dulled and tarnished by the rain and dirt of jungle marches, halted at the sight of the brute and the burden he bore. A young officer in charge whispered a few low words of command. The soldiers crept forward, forming a half-circle as they went, to intercept the brute and his captive. One of the soldiers stumbled over a branch that had fallen from the tree above. Instantly the brute wheeled toward them. He saw twenty well-armed men advancing, their spears menacingly ready; and responding to the urge of Nature’s first law, the brute cast the girl roughly to the ground and, wheeling, broke for freedom. A shower of arrows followed him and some of the soldiers would have pursued, but the officer called them back.
“We have the girl,” he said; “let that thing go. We were not sent out for him. He is not the man who abducted the apsaras from the palace of Lodivarman.”
At the moment that the brute had seen the soldiers, so had Fou-tan; and now she scrambled quickly to her feet, from where he had hurled her to the ground, and turned in flight back toward the gorge where she had last seen King.
“After her!” cried the officer; “but do not harm her.”
Fou-tan ran fleetly and perhaps would have gotten away from them had not she tripped and fallen; as she scrambled to her feet, they were upon her. Rough hands seized her, but they did not harm her, nor did they offer her insult; for she who was to have been the favorite of Lodivarman might yet be, and it is not well to incur the displeasure of a king’s favorite.
“Where is the man?” asked the officer, addressing Fou-tan.
The girl thought very quickly in that instant, and there was apparently no hesitation as she nodded her head in the direction that the fleeing brute had taken. “You know as well as I do,” she said. “Why did you not capture him?�
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“Not that man,” said the officer. “I refer to the soldier of the guard who abducted you from the palace of Lodivarman.”
“It was no soldier of the guard who abducted me,” replied the girl. “This creature stole into the palace and seized me.
A soldier of the guard followed us into the jungle and tried to rescue me, but he failed.”
“Lodivarman sent word that it was the strange warrior, Gordon King, who stole you from the palace,” said the officer.
“You saw the creature that stole me,” said Fou-tan. “Did it look like a soldier of Lodivarman?”
“No,” admitted the officer, “but where is this Gordon King? He has disappeared from Lodidhapura.”
“I told you that he tried to rescue me,” explained Fou-tan. “He followed us into the jungle. What became of him I do not know. Perhaps the Yeacks wrought a magic spell that killed him.”
“Yeacks!” exclaimed the officer. “What do you mean?”
“Did you not recognize my captor as a Yeack?” asked Fou-tan. “Do you not know a Yeack when you see one?”
Exclamations arose from the soldiers gathered about them. “By the gods, it was a Yeack,” said one. “Perhaps there are others about,” suggested another. The man looked about them fearfully.
Fou-tan thought that she saw in their superstitious terror, which she fully shared herself, a possibility of escape. “The Yeacks will be angry with you for having taken me from one of their number,” she said. “Doubtless he has gone to summon his fellows. You had best escape while you can. If you do not take me with you, they will not follow you.”
“By Siva, she is right!” exclaimed a warrior.
“I am not afraid of the Yeacks,” said the officer bravely; “but we have the apsaras and there is no reason why we should remain here longer. Come!” He took Fou-tan gently by the arm.
“If you take me they will follow you,” she said. “You had better leave me here.”
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 474
