There are circumstances in which even the bravest of men experience a
hopelessness of utter despair. Such was King's state of mind when he
realised that he had wandered in an aimless circle since noon and was
back again at his starting-point. Weakened by physical exhaustion and
hunger, he contemplated the future with nothing but pessimism. He had
had his chance to escape from the jungle, and he had failed. There was
no reason to believe that another day might bring greater opportunity.
Rest might recoup his strength slightly, but what he needed was food,
and on the morrow he would set forth not with a canteen full of water,
but with only a few drops with which to moisten his parched throat.
He had stumbled through plenty of mud-holes during the day, but he
knew that it would doubtless prove fatal to drink from such wells of
pollution.
As he stood there with bowed head, searching his mind for some solution
of his problem, his eyes gradually returned to focus, and as they did
so he saw on the surface of the soft ground beneath his gaze something
that, for the moment, drove thoughts of hunger and thirst and fatigue
from his mind--it was the pug of a tiger, fresh made in the soft earth.
"Why worry about to-morrow?" murmured King. "If half what that
Cambodian told me about this place at night is true, I'll be in luck if
I see another to-morrow."
He had read somewhere that tigers started to hunt late in the
afternoon, and he knew that they seldom climbed trees; but he was also
aware of the fact that leopards and panthers do and that the latter,
especially, on account of their size and inherent viciousness, were
fully as much to be dreaded as My Lord the Tiger himself. Realising
that he must find some sort of shelter as quickly as possible and
recalling the ruins that he had seen through the screen of foliage
behind the rock before which he stood, he parted the leafy screen ahead
of him and forced his way through.
Here the vegetation was less dense, as though the lesser growth of the
jungle had halted in fearful reverence before this awe-inspiring work
of man. Majestic even in its ruin was the great rectangular pile that
loomed clearly now before the eyes of the American. But not all of the
jungle had feared to encroach upon its sanctity. Great trees had taken
root upon its terraced walls, among its columns and its arches, and by
the slow and resistless pressure of their growth had forced aside the
supporting foundation and brought much of the edifice into complete
ruin.
Just before him rose a tower that seemed better to have withstood the
ravages of time than other portions of the building. It rose some sixty
feet above the ground, and near the summit was carved in heroic size
the face of a god that King suspected was Siva, the Destroyer. A few
feet above the rectangular doorway was a crumbling ledge and just above
that a smaller opening that might have been a window. Behind it all was
dark, but it carried to King's mind the suggestion of a hiding-place--a
sanctuary in the very bosom of Siva.
The face of the weather-worn tower offered sufficient foothold for
an agile climber, and the way was made easier by the corbelled
construction that supported a series of bas-reliefs rising one above
another from the ground level to the edge above the doorway. It was
not, however, without considerable difficulty that King, already almost
exhausted, finally reached the ledge, where he sat down for a moment's
rest. Just above him was the opening which he wished to investigate. As
he let his thoughts precede him in that investigation of this possible
refuge, they discovered, as thoughts are prone to do, enough unpleasant
possibilities to cast a pall of gloom over him. Doubtless it was the
den of a panther. What more secluded spot could this horrid beast
discover in which to lie up after feeding or in which to bear and rear
its young?
The suggestion forced him to immediate action. He did not believe that
there was any panther there, but he could not endure the suspense of
doubt. Cocking his rifle, he arose and approached the opening, the
lower sill of which was just about level with his breast as he stood
upon the ledge above the doorway. Within all was black and silent.
He listened intently. If there were anything hiding there, he should
hear it breathe; but no sound broke the utter silence of the tomb-like
vault. Pushing his rifle ahead of him, King climbed to the sill, where
he remained in silence for a moment until his eyes became accustomed
to the gloom of the interior, which was slightly relieved by light
filtering in through a crack at one side. A few feet below him was a
stone floor, and he could see dimly now that the chamber extended the
full breadth and width of the tower. In the centre of the apartment
rose something, the nature of which he could not distinguish; but he
was sure that it was inanimate.
Stepping down to the floor and advancing cautiously, his rifle ready,
King made a complete circuit of the walls. There was no panther there,
nor any signs that one ever had been there. Apparently the place had
never been entered by any creature since that day of mystery, centuries
gone, when the priests and temple girls had departed never to return.
Turning toward the object in the centre of the room, King quickly
identified it as the symbol of Siva and realised that he was doubtless
in the Holy of Holies.
Walking back to the window, he seated himself upon the sill, took a
small swallow from his scant store of water and lighted a cigarette;
and as the sudden night fell upon the jungle, he heard the crisp fall
of padded feet upon dry leaves in the courtyard of the temple beneath
him.
His position, well above the floor of the jungle, imparted a feeling
of security; and the quiet enjoyment of a cigarette soothed his nerves
and, temporarily at least, allayed the gnawing pangs of hunger. He
derived a form of mild enjoyment by speculating upon the surprise
and consternation of his friends could they visualise his present
situation. Perhaps uttermost in his thoughts was Susan Anne Prentice,
and he knew that he would be in for a good scolding could she be aware
of the predicament into which his silly and ill-advised adventure had
placed him.
He recalled their parting and the motherly advice she had given him.
What a peach of a girl Susan Anne was! It seemed strange to him that
she had never married, for there were certainly enough eligible
fellows always hanging around her. He was rather glad that she had
not, for he realised that he should feel lost without the promise of
her companionship when he returned home. He had known Susan Anne as
far back as he could remember, and they had always been pals. In the
city of their birth their fathers' grounds adjoined and there was no
fence between; at the little lake where they spent their summers they
were next-door neighbours. Susan Anne had been as much a part of Gordon
King's life as had his father or his mother, for each was an only child
and they had been as close to one another as brother and sister.
He remembered telling her, the night before he had left home for this
trip, that she would doubtless be married by the time he returned. "No
chance," she had said with an odd little smile.
"I do not see why not," he had argued. "I know at least half a dozen
men who are wild about you."
"Not the right one," she had replied.
"So there is someone?"
"Perhaps."
He wondered who the fellow could be and decided that he must be an
awful chump not to appreciate the wonderful qualities of Susan Anne.
In so far as looks were concerned, she had it on all the girls of his
acquaintance, in addition whereto she had a good head on her shoulders
and was a regular fellow in every other respect. Together they had
often bemoaned the fact that she was not a man, that they might have
palled around on his wanderings together.
His reveries were blasted by a series of low, coughing roars down
there somewhere in the darkness at a little distance from the ruins.
They were followed by a crashing sound, as of a large body dashing
through underbrush. Then there was a scream and a thud, followed by low
growls and silence. King felt his scalp tingle. What tragedy of the
jungle night had been enacted in that black, mysterious void?
The sudden and rather terrifying noise and its equally abrupt cessation
but tended to impress upon the man and to accentuate the normal,
mysterious silence of the jungle. He knew that the jungle teemed with
life; yet, for the most part, it moved as silently as might the ghosts
of the priests and the temple girls with which imagination might easily
people this crumbling ruin of the temple of the Destroyer. Often from
below him and from the surrounding jungle came the suggestion of
noises--furtive, stealthy sounds that might have been the ghosts of
long-dead noises. Sometimes he could interpret these sounds as the
cracking of a twig or the rustling of leaves beneath a padded paw,
but more often there was just the sense of things below him--grim and
terrible creatures that lived by death alone.
And thus the night wore on, until at last day came. He had dozed
intermittently, sitting upon the window ledge with his back against
its ancient stone frame, his rifle across his lap. He did not feel
much refreshed, but when the full light of the day had enveloped the
jungle he clambered swiftly down the ruins to the ground and set out
once again toward the south, filled with a determination to push on
regardless of hunger and fatigue until he had escaped the hideous
clutches of this dismal forest, which now seemed to him to have assumed
a malignant personality that was endeavouring to foil his efforts and
retain him for ever for some sinister purpose of its own. He had come
to hate the jungle; he wanted to shout aloud against it the curses that
were in his heart. He was impelled to discharge his rifle against it as
though it were some creature barring his way to liberty. But he held
himself in leash, submerging everything to the desire for escape.
He found that he moved more slowly than he had upon the preceding day.
Obstacles were more difficult to surmount, and he was forced to stop
more often to rest. These delays galled him; but when he tried to push
on more rapidly he often stumbled and fell, and each time he found it
more difficult to arise. Then there dawned upon him the realisation
that he might not have sufficient strength to reach the edge of the
jungle, and for the first time unquestioned fear assailed him.
He sat down upon the ground and, leaning his back against a tree,
argued the matter out thoroughly in his own mind. At last his strength
of will overcame his fears, so that realisation of the fact that he
might not get out that day no longer induced an emotional panic.
"If not to-day, to-morrow," he thought; "if not to-morrow, then the day
after. Am I a weakling that I cannot carry on for a few days? Am I to
die of starvation in a country abounding in game?"
Physical stamina being so considerably influenced as it is by the
condition of the mind, it was with a sense of renewed power that
King arose and continued on his way, but imbued now not solely with
the desire to escape immediately from the jungle but to wrest from
it sustenance and strength that it might be forced to aid him in his
escape even though the consummation of his hope might be deferred
indefinitely. The psychological effect of this new mental attitude
wrought a sudden metamorphosis. He was no longer a hunted fugitive
fleeing for his life; he had become in fact a jungle dweller hunting
for food and for water. The increasing heat of the advancing day had
necessitated inroads upon his scant supply of the latter, yet he still
had a few drops left; and these he was determined not to use until he
could no longer withstand the tortures of thirst.
He had by now worked out a new and definite plan of procedure; he would
work constantly downhill, keeping a sharp look out for game, knowing
that eventually he must come to some of the numerous small streams
that would ultimately lead him to the Mekong, the large central river
that bisects Cambodia on its way to the China Sea; or perchance he
might hit upon one of those streams that ran south and emptied into the
Tonlé-Sap.
He found it much easier going downhill, and he was glad on this account
that he had adopted his present plan. The nature of the country changed
a little, too; open spaces were more numerous. Sometimes these flats
were marshy, requiring wide detours, and usually they were covered
with elephant grass that resembled the cat tails with which he had
been familiar as a boy during this summer vacations in the country. He
did not like these spaces because they appeared too much the natural
habitat of snakes, and he recalled having read somewhere that in a
single year there had been sixteen thousand recorded deaths from snake
bites in British India alone. This recollection came to him while he
was in the centre of a large patch of elephant grass, and consequently
he moved very slowly, examining the ground ahead of him carefully at
each step. This, of course, necessitated pushing the reeds apart, a
slow and laborious procedure; but it also resulted in his moving more
quietly; so that when he emerged from the reeds a sight met his eyes
that doubtless he would not have seen had he crashed through noisily.
Directly in front of him and maybe fifty paces distant under a great
spreading banyan tree lay several wild pigs, all of them comfortably
asleep except one old boar, which seemed to be on guard. That King's
approach had not been entirely noiseless was evidenced by the fact that
the great beast was standing head-on and alert, his ears up-pricked,
looking straight at the point at which the man emerged from the
elephant grass.
For an instant man and beast stood silently eyeing one another. King
saw lying near the boar a half-grown pig, that would make better eating
than the tough old tusker. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and
fired at the sleeping pig, expecting the remainder of the herd to turn
and flee into the jungle; but he had not taken into consideration the
violent disposition of the boar. The rest of the herd, awakened with
startling suddenness by the unaccustomed report of the rifle, leaped to
their feet, stood for an instant in bewilderment, and then turned and
disappeared among the undergrowth. Not so the boar. At the crack of the
rifle he charged.
There is something rather awe-inspiring in the charge of a wild boar,
especially if one happens to be in the path of it, as King was. Perhaps
because of his unfamiliarity with the habits of wild boars, the charge
was entirely unexpected; and in the brief instant that he had in which
to defend himself, he realised that he did not know what was the most
vulnerable spot in a boar's anatomy. All that he sensed in that all too
short interval were a pair of great flashing tusks, huge jowls, two
red-rimmed wicked little eyes, and a stiffly upright tail bearing down
upon him with all the velocity and apparently quite the weight of a
steam locomotive.
There seemed to be nothing to shoot at but a face. His first shot
struck the boar squarely between the eyes and dropped him, but only
for an instant. Then he was up again and coming. Giving thanks for
a magazine rifle, King pumped three more bullets straight into that
terrifying countenance, and to the last one the great beast rolled over
against King's feet. None too sure that he had more than stunned him,
the man quickly put a bullet through the savage heart.
It had been a close call, and he trembled a little to think what his
fate might have been had he been seriously wounded and left there dying
in the jungle. Assured that the boar was dead, he went quickly to the
pig that had been killed instantly by his first shot. As his knife sank
into the flesh, he became suddenly conscious of a change within him. He
was moved by urgings that he had never sensed before. He was impelled
to bury his teeth in the raw flesh and gorge himself. He realised that
this was partially the result of gnawing hunger; but yet it seemed
deeper, something primitive and bestial that always had been a part
of him but that never before had had occasion to come to the surface.
He knew in that brief instant the feeling of the wild beast for its
kill. He looked quickly and furtively about to see if there might be
any creature bold enough to contest his possession of the fruit of his
prowess. He felt the snarling muscles of his upper lip tense and he
sensed within him the rumblings of a growl, though no sound passed his
lips.
It required a determined effort of will-power to refrain from eating
the flesh raw, so hungry was he; but he managed to conquer the urge
and set about building a fire, though the meal that he finally
produced was scarcely more than a compromise, the meat being charred
upon the outside and raw within. After he had eaten he felt renewed
strength, but now the tortures of thirst assailed him more poignantly
than before. His canteen was empty; and though he had passed by
stagnant pools of water during the day, he had been able to resist the
temptation to drink, realising, as he did, the germs of terrible fever
that lurked in these slimy pools.
The next few days constituted a long nightmare of suffering and
disappointment. He found his path toward the Mekong barred by
impassable swamps that forced him northward over a broken terrain of
ravines and ridges that taxed his rapidly waning strength. For some
time after leaving the marshes he had seen no water, but upon the
third day he came to a pool in the bottom of a ravine. That it was
the drinking-hole of wild beasts was evidenced by the multitude of
tracks in the muddy bank. The liquid was green and thick, but not for
an instant did the man hesitate. Throwing himself upon his belly, he
plunged his hands and face into the foul mess and drank. Neither fever
nor death could be worse than the pangs of thirst.
Later that day he shot a monkey and, cooking some of the flesh,
appeased his hunger; and thus for several days he wandered, shooting
an occasional monkey for food and drinking water wherever he found it.
He was always conscious of the presence of the great cats, though only
upon one or two occasions did he catch fleeting glimpses of them; but
at night he heard them moving softly beneath some tree in which he had
found precarious sanctuary, where he crouched nursing the hope that no
leopard or panther would discover him. Occasionally he saw small herds
of wild elephants, and these he always gave a wide berth. He had long
given up all hope of escaping from the jungle, and he could not but
wonder at man's tenacity in clinging to life in the face of suffering
and hardship when he knew that at best he was but prolonging his agony
and only temporarily delaying the inevitable.
Seven days and seven nights he had spent in the jungle, and the
last night had been the worst of all. He had dozed intermittently.
The jungle had been full of noises, and he had seen strange, dim
figures passing beneath him. When the eighth morning broke, he was
shivering with cold. His chattering teeth reminded him of castanets.
He looked about him for dancers and was surprised that he saw none.
Something moved through the foliage of the jungle beneath him. It was
yellowish-brown with dark stripes. He called to it and it disappeared.
Quite remarkably he ceased to be cold, and instead his body burned as
though consumed by internal fires. The tree in which he sat swayed
dizzily, and then with an effort he pulled himself together and slipped
to the ground. He found that he was very tired and that he was forced
to stop to rest every few minutes, and sometimes he shook with cold and
again he burned with heat.
It was about noon; the sun was high and the heat terrific. King lay
shivering where he had fallen at the foot of a silk-cotton tree,
against the bole of which he leaned for support. Far down a jungle
aisle he saw an elephant. It was not alone; there were other things
preceding it--things that could not be in this deserted primeval
jungle. He closed his eyes and shook his head. It was only an
hallucination brought on by a touch of fever, of that he was certain.
But when he opened his eyes again the elephant was still there, and he
recognised the creatures that preceded it as warriors clothed in brass.
They were coming closer. King crawled back into the concealing verdure
of the underbrush. His head ached terribly. There was a buzzing hum
in his ears that drowned all other sounds. The caravan passed within
fifty feet of him, but he heard no sound. There were archers and spear
men--brown men with cuirasses of burnished brass--and then came the
elephant trapped in regal splendour, and in a gorgeous howdah upon
its back rode a girl. He saw her profile first, and then as something
attracted her attention she turned her face full toward him. It was a
face of exquisite and exotic beauty, but a sad face with frightened
eyes. Her trappings were more gorgeous than the trappings of the
elephant. Behind her marched other warriors, but presently all were
gone down the aisles of the jungle in spectral silence.
"Weeping queens on misty elephants!" He had read the phrase somewhere
in a book. "Gad!" he exclaimed. "What weird tricks fever plays upon
one's brain. I could have sworn that what I saw was real."
Slowly he staggered to his feet and pushed on, whither or in what
direction he had no idea. It was a blind urge of self-preservation that
goaded him forward; to what goal, he did not know; all that he knew was
that if he remained where he was he must inevitably perish. Perhaps he
would perish anyway, but if he went on, there was a chance. Figures,
strange and familiar, passed in jumbled and fantastic procession along
the corridors of his mind. Susan Anne Prentice clothed in brass rode
upon the back of an elephant. A weeping queen with painted cheeks and
rouged lips came and knelt beside him offering him a draft of cold,
crystal-clear water from a golden goblet, but when he lifted it to his
lips the goblet became a battered canteen from which oozed a slimy
green liquid that burned his mouth and nauseated him. Then he saw
soldiers in brass who held platters containing steaming sirloin steaks
and French-fried potatoes, which changed magically to sherbert, iced
tea, and waffles with maple syrup.
"This will never do," thought King. "I am going absolutely daffy. I
wonder how long the fever lasts, or how long it takes to finish a
fellow."
He was lying upon the ground at the edge of a little clearing partially
hid by the tall grass into which he had sunk. Suddenly everything
seemed to whirl around in circles, and then the world went black and he
lost consciousness. It was very late in the afternoon when he came to;
but the fever seemed to have left him, temporarily at least, and his
mind was clear.
"This can't go on much longer," he soliloquised. "If I don't find some
place pretty soon where I can lie in safety until after the fever has
passed entirely, it will be just too bad. I wonder what it feels like
to be mauled by a tiger."
But when he attempted to rise he discovered to his horror that he had
not sufficient strength to get to his feet. He still clung to his
rifle. He had long since made up his mind that in it lay his principal
hope of salvation. Without it, he must go hungry and fall prey to the
first beast that attacked him. He knew that if he discarded it and his
heavy belt of ammunition he might stagger on a short distance and then,
when he fell again, he would be helpless.
As he lay there looking out into the little clearing, speculating upon
his fate and trying to estimate the number of hours of life that might
remain to him, he saw a strange figure enter the clearing. It was an
old man with a straggly white beard growing sparsely upon his chin and
upper lip. He wore a long, yellow cloak and a fantastic headdress,
above which he carried a red umbrella. He moved slowly, his eyes bent
upon the ground.
"Damned fever," muttered King, and shut his eyes.
He kept them closed for a minute or two, but when he opened them the
old man was still in sight, though by this time he had almost crossed
the clearing, and now there was another figure in the picture. From
out of the foliage beyond the clearing appeared a savage, snarling
face--a great, vicious, yellow-fanged face; yellowish-white and tan
with broken markings of dark brown stripes that looked almost black--a
hideous head, and yet, at the same time, a gorgeously majestic head.
Slowly, silently the great tiger emerged into the clearing, its gaunt,
flat-sided body moving sinuously, its yellow-green eyes blazing
terribly at the back of the unconscious old man.
"God, how real!" breathed King. "I could swear that I really saw them
both. Only the impossible figure of that old man with the red parasol
could convince me that they are both made of the same material as the
spectral elephant, the weeping queen, and the brass-bound soldiers."
The tiger was creeping rapidly toward the old man. His speed gradually
accelerated.
"I can't stand it," cried King, raising his rifle to his shoulder.
"They may be only an hallucination--"
There was a short coughing roar as the tiger charged, and at the same
instant King squeezed the trigger of his rifle and fainted.