Vay Thon, high priest of the temple of Siva in the city of Lodidhapura,
was the source of much anxiety on the part of the lesser priests, who
felt responsible to Siva and the King for the well-being of Vay Thon.
But how might one cope with the vagaries of a weakness so holy and,
at the same time, so erratic as that which occasionally claimed the
amnesic Vay Thon? They tried to watch over him at all times, but it
is difficult to maintain constant espionage over one so holy, whose
offices or whose meditations may not lightly be broken in upon by
lesser mortals, even though they be priests of the great god, Siva.
All was well when Vay Thon confined himself in his meditations to the
innermost sanctum of the Holy of Holies; here, in the safe-keeping of
his god, he was isolated from mankind and safe from danger. But the
meditations of Vay Thon were not always thus securely cloistered. Often
he strolled along the broad terrace beside the mighty temple, where
wrapped in utter forgetfulness of himself and of the world he walked in
silent communion with his god.
With his long, yellow cloak and his red parasol he was also a familiar
figure upon the streets of Lodidhapura. Here he was often accompanied
by lesser priests, who walked in cuirasses of polished brass, who
marched ahead and in the rear. Of all these symbols of worldly pomp and
power, Vay Thon was entirely unconscious. During those periods that
he was wrapped in the oblivion of meditation and upon the numerous
occasions when he had managed to leave the temple ground unperceived,
he had walked through the streets of the city equally unaware of all
that surrounded him. Upon three separate and distinct occasions he
had been found wandering in the jungle, and Lodivarman, the King, had
threatened to wreak dire punishment upon the lesser priests should harm
ever befall Vay Thon during one of these excursions.
It so happened that upon this very day Vay Thon had walked out of the
city and into the jungle alone. That he had been able to leave a walled
city, the gates of which were heavily guarded by veteran warriors,
might have seemed a surprising thing to the citizens of Lodidhapura;
but not so to the one familiar with the secret galleries that lay
beneath the temple and the palace, through which the ancient builders
of Lodidhapura might well have expected to flee the wrath of the
downtrodden slaves who comprised 75 per cent. of the population. Though
times have changed with the passing centuries, the almost forgotten
passageways remain. It was through one of these that Vay Thon reached
the jungle. He did not know that he was in the jungle. He was as
totally oblivious of his surroundings as is one who is wrapped in deep
and dreamless sleep.
The last that the lesser priests had seen of Vay Thon was when he had
entered the Holy of Holies, which houses the symbol of Siva. As they
had noticed a glassy expression in his eyes, they had known that he
was entering upon a period of meditation. Therefore, they maintained a
watch at the entrance to the chamber, but felt no concern during the
passing hours since they knew that Vay Thon was safe. What they did not
know of was the loose stone in the flooring of the chamber directly
behind the symbol of Siva, or the passageway beneath, which led to a
ravine in the jungle beyond the city wall. And so during those hours
Vay Thon wandered far into the jungle, and with him, perhaps, walked
Siva, the Destroyer.
His rapt meditation, which amounted to almost total unconsciousness
of his mundane surroundings, was shattered by a noise of terrific
violence such as had never before impinged upon the ears of Vay Thon or
any other inhabitant of Lodidhapura. Awakened suddenly as from a deep
sleep, the startled priest wheeled about amazed at his surroundings,
but more amazed by the sight which greeted his eyes. Wallowing in its
own gore scarce three paces behind him lay a great tiger in its death
throes; and a little to his right, a wisp of blue smoke rose from some
grasses at the edge of the clearing.
When King regained consciousness he was vaguely aware of voices
that seemed to be floating in the air about him. The sounds were
meaningless, but they conveyed to his fevered brain an assurance
of human origin. He opened his eyes. Above him was a brown face.
Supporting his head and shoulders he felt the naked flesh of a human
arm. His eyes wandered. Standing close was a woman, naked but for a
sampot drawn diaperwise between her legs and knotted at the belt.
Hiding fearfully behind her was a naked child. The man who supported
him spoke to him, but in a language that he could not understand.
From whence had these people come, or were they but figments of his
fevered imagination like the old man with the yellow cloak and the
red parasol? Were they no more real than the spectral tiger that he
had shot at in his delirium? He closed his eyes in an effort to gain
control of his senses, but when he opened them again the man and the
woman and the child were still there. With a sigh of resignation he
gave it up. His throbbing temples were unequal to the demands of
sustained thought. He closed his eyes, and his chin dropped upon his
breast.
"He is dying," said Che, looking up at the woman.
"Let us take him to our dwelling," replied Kangrey, the woman. "I will
watch over him while you lead the holy priest back to Lodidhapura."
As the man lifted King in his arms and turned to carry him away, the
American caught a glimpse of an old man in a long, yellow cloak and
a strange headdress, who carried above his head a red parasol. The
American closed his eyes against the persistent hallucination of his
fever. His head swam, and once again he lost consciousness.
King never knew how long he remained unconscious, but when he next
opened his eyes he found himself lying upon a bed of grasses in the
interior of a dark retreat which he thought, at first, was a cave.
Gradually he discerned the presence of a man, a woman, and a child. He
did not remember ever having seen them before. The child was naked,
and the man and woman were clothed only in sampots. The woman was
ministering to him, forcing a liquid between his lips.
Slowly and sluggishly his mind commenced to function, and at last he
recalled them--the creatures of the hallucination that had conjured the
image of the old man in the yellow cloak with the red parasol, and the
charging tiger that he had dreamed of shooting. Would the fever never
leave him? Was he to die thus alone in the sombre jungle tortured by
hallucinations that might terminate only with his discovery by a tiger?
But yet how real was the feeling and taste of the liquid that the woman
was forcing between his lips. He could even feel the animal warmth of
the bare arm that was supporting his head and shoulders. Could any
figment of a fever-tortured brain be as realistic as these? Repeatedly
he closed his eyes and opened them again, but always the same picture
was there before him. He raised one hand weakly and touched the woman's
shoulder and face. They seemed real. He was almost convinced that they
were when he sank again into unconsciousness.
For days Gordon King hovered between life and death. Kangrey, the
woman, ministered to him, utilising the lore of the primitive jungle
dweller in the brewing of medicinal potions from the herbs of the
forest. Of equal or perhaps greater value were certain incantations
which she droned monotonously above him.
Little Uda, the child, was much impressed with all these unusual and
remarkable occurrences. The stranger with the pale skin was the first
momentous event of his little life. The strange clothing that his
parents had removed from their helpless charge thrilled him with awe,
as did the rifle, the knife, and the revolver, which he rightfully
guessed to be weapons, though he had no more conception of the
mechanism of the firearms than did his parents. Uda was indefatiguable
in his search for the herbs and roots that Kangrey, his mother,
required; and when Che returned from the hunt it was always Uda who
met him first with a full and complete history of their patient's case
brought down to the last minute with infinite attention to details.
At last the fever broke. Though it left King weak and helpless in body,
his mind was clear, and he knew at last that the man and the woman and
the child were no figments of his imagination. Of course, the old man
with the yellow cloak and the red parasol had been but an hallucination
of a kind with the charging tiger; but this kindly brown woman, who was
nursing him back to health, was real; and his eyes filled as the thanks
which he could not voice welled up within his breast.
A day and a night without any return of the fever or hallucination
convinced King that the ministration of the kindly natives had rid
him of the illness that had nearly killed him, yet he was so weak
that he still had little or no hope of ultimate recovery. He had not
the strength to raise a hand to his face. It required a real physical
effort to turn his head from side to side upon the rough pallet of
grasses upon which he lay. He noticed that they never left him alone
for long. Either the woman or the child was with him during the day,
and all three slept near him upon the floor of their little den at
night. In the daytime the woman or the child brushed the flies and
other insects from him with a leafy branch and gave him food at
frequent intervals. What the food was he did not know except that it
was semi-liquid, but now that his fever had passed he was so ravenous
that whatever it was they gave him he relished it.
One day when he had been left alone with the little boy longer than
usual, the child, possibly tiring of the monotony of brushing insects
from the body of the pale one, deserted his post, leaving King alone.
King did not care, for much of his time, anyway, was spent in sleep
and he had become so accustomed to the insects that they no longer
irritated him as they formerly had. He was awakened from a sleep by
the feel of a rough hand upon his face. Opening his eyes, he saw a
monkey squatting beside him. When King opened his eyes the animal
leaped nimbly away, and then the American saw that there were several
monkeys in the chamber. They were quite the largest that he had seen
in the jungle, and in his helpless condition he knew that they might
constitute a real menace to his life. But they did not attack him, nor
did they come close to him again; and it soon became evident that their
visit was prompted solely by curiosity.
A little later he heard a scraping sound behind him in one corner of
the chamber. Having regained his strength during the past few days
sufficiently to be able to move his head and hands with comparative
ease, he turned his head to see what was going on. The sight that met
his eyes would have been highly amusing had it not been fraught with
the possibility of such unhappy results.
The monkeys had discovered his weapons and his clothing. All had
congregated at the point of interest. They were dragging the things
about and chattering excitedly. They seemed to be quarrelling about
something; and their chattering and scolding rose in volume until
finally one old fellow, who was apparently contesting possession of the
rifle with two others, leaped angrily upon them, growling and biting.
Instantly the other two relinquished their holds upon the firearm and
scurried to a far corner of the chamber; whereupon the victor seized
the weapon again and dragged it toward the doorway.
"Hey!" shouted King in the loudest voice he could muster. "Drop that;
and get out of here!"
The sound of the human voice seemed to startle the monkeys, but not
sufficiently to cause them to relinquish the purpose they had in mind.
It is true that they scampered from the chamber, but they gathered up
all of King's belongings and took them with them, even to his socks.
King shouted to the boy whom he had heard the parents address as Uda;
but when at last the little chap came, breathless and frightened, it
was too late to avert or remedy the catastrophe, even if King had been
able to explain to Uda what had happened.
The night when she returned, Kangrey found her patient very weak, but
she did not guess the cause of it since she could not know that in the
mind of the pale one was implanted the conviction that his only hope
for eventual escape from the jungle had lain in the protection that the
stolen weapons would have afforded him.
The days and nights wore slowly on as gradual convalescence brought
returning strength to the sick man. To while away the tedious hours he
sought to learn the language of his benefactors; and when, finally,
they understood his wish they entered with such spirit into its
consummation that he found himself deluged with such a variety of new
words that his mind became fogged with information. But eventually some
order and understanding came out of the chaos, so that presently he was
able to converse with Che and Kangrey and Uda. Thereafter his existence
was far less monotonous; but his slow recovery irked and worried him,
for it seemed impossible that his strength ever would return. He was so
emaciated that it was well for his peace of mind that he had no access
to any mirrors.
Yet surely, though slowly, his strength was returning. From sitting
up with his back against the wall he came at length to standing upon
his feet once more; and though he was weak and tottering, it was a
beginning; and each day now he found his strength returning more
rapidly.
From talking with Che and Kangrey, King had learned the details of
the simple life they led. Che was a hunter. Some days he brought back
nothing, but as a rule he did not return without adding to the simple
larder. The flesh was usually that of a monkey or bird or one of the
small rodents that lived in the jungle. Fish he brought, too, and fruit
and vegetables and sometimes wild honey.
Che and Kangrey and Uda were equally proficient in making fires with
a primitive fire stick, which they twirled between the palms of their
hands. Kangrey possessed a single pot in which all food was cooked. It
was a brass pot, the inside of which she kept scrupulously polished,
using earth and leaves for this purpose.
Che was, indeed, a primitive hunter, armed with a spear, bow and
arrows, and a knife. When King explained to him the merits of the
firearms that had been stolen by the monkeys, Che sympathised with his
guest in their loss; but he promised to equip King with new weapons
such as he himself carried; and King expressed his gratitude to the
native, though he could not arouse within himself much enthusiasm at
the prospect of facing a long trip through this tiger-infested forest
armed only with the crude weapons of primitive man, even were he
skilled in their use.
As King's strength had returned, he had tried to keep together in his
mind the happenings that had immediately preceded his illness, but he
always felt that the old man with the yellow cloak and the red parasol
and the charging tiger that had fallen to a single shot were figments
of a fever-tortured brain. He had never spoken to Che and Kangrey
about this hallucination because it seemed silly to do so; yet he
found its memory persisting in his mind as a reality rather than an
hallucination, so that at last, one evening, he determined to broach
the subject, approaching it in a roundabout way.
"Che," he said, "you have lived in the jungle a long while, have you
not?"
"Yes," replied the native. "For five years I was a slave in
Lodidhapura, but then I escaped, and all the rest of my life I have
spent in the jungle."
"Did you ever see an old man wandering in the jungle," continued King,
"an old man who wore a long yellow cloak and carried a red parasol?"
"Of course," replied Che, "and you saw him, too. It was Vay Thon, whom
you saved from the charge of My Lord the Tiger."
King looked at the native in open-mouthed astonishment. "Have you had a
touch of fever too, Che?" he asked.
"No," replied the native. "Che is a strong man; he is never ill."
"No," Kangrey said proudly. "Che is a very strong man. In all the years
that I have known him, he has never been ill."
"Did you see this old man with the yellow cloak and the red parasol,
Kangrey?" asked King, sceptically.
"Of course I did. Why do you ask?" inquired the woman.
"And you saw me kill the tiger?" demanded the American.
"I did not see you kill him; but I heard a great noise, and I saw him
after he had died. There was a little round hole just behind his left
ear; and when Che cut him open to see why he died, he found a piece
of metal in his brain, the same metal that the walls of the palace of
Lodivarman are covered with."
"That is lead," said Che with an air of superiority.
"Then you mean to tell me that this old man and the tiger were real?"
demanded King.
"What do you think they were?" asked Che.
"I thought they were of the same stuff as were the other dreams that
the fever brought into my brain," replied King.
"No," said Che, "they were not dreams. They were real. And it was good
for you and for me and for Vay Thon that you killed the tiger, though
how you did it neither Vay Thon nor I can understand."
"It was certainly good for Vay Thon," said King.
"And good for you and for me, too," insisted Che.
"Why was it so good for us?" asked the American.
"Vay Thon is the high priest of Siva in the city of Lodidhapura. He
is very powerful. Only Lodivarman, the King, is more powerful. Vay
Thon had wandered far from the city immersed in deep thought. He did
not know where he was. He did not know how to return to Lodidhapura.
Kangrey and I are runaway slaves of Lodidhapura. Had we been discovered
before this happened, we should have been killed; but Vay Thon promised
us our freedom if I would lead him back to the city. In gratitude to
you for having saved my life he charged Kangrey and me to nurse you
back to health and to take care of you. So you see it was good for all
of us that you killed the tiger that would have killed Vay Thon."
"And you would not have nursed me back to health, Che, had Vay Thon not
exacted the promise from you?" inquired King.
"We are runaway slaves," said the native. "We fear all men, or until
Vay Thon promised us our freedom, we did fear all men; and it would
have been safer for us to let you die, since you were unknown to us and
might have carried word to the soldiers of Lodidhapura and led them to
our hiding-place."
For a time King remained in silent thought, wondering, in view of what
he had just heard, where the dividing line had lain between reality
and hallucination. "Perhaps, then," he said with a smile, "the weeping
queen on the misty elephant and the many soldiers in cuirasses of
polished brass were real too."
"You saw those?" asked Che.
"Yes," replied King.
"When and where?" demanded the native excitedly.
"It could not have been very long before I saw the high priest and the
tiger."
"They are getting close," said Che nervously to Kangrey. "We must
search for another hiding-place."
"You forget the promise of Vay Thon," Kangrey reminded him. "We are
free now; we are no longer slaves."
"I had forgotten," said Che. "I am not yet accustomed to freedom, and
perhaps I think, too, that possibly Vay Thon may forget."
"I do not think so," said the woman. "Lodivarman might forget, but not
Vay Thon, for Vay Thon is a good man. Every one in Lodidhapura said so."
"You really believe that I saw an elephant, a queen, and soldiers?"
demanded King.
"Why not?" asked Che.
"There are such things in the jungle?" inquired the young man.
"Of course," said Kangrey.
"And this city of Lodidhapura?" demanded King. "I have never heard of
it before. Is that close beside the jungle?"
"It is in the jungle," said Che.
King shook his head. "It is strange," he said. "I wandered through
the jungle for days and never saw signs of a human being or a human
habitation."
"There are many things in the jungle which men do not always see,"
replied Che. "There are the Nagas and the Yeacks. You may be glad that
you did not see them."
"What are the Nagas and the Yeacks?" asked King.
"The Nagas are the Cobra people," replied Che. "They live in a great
palace upon a mountain and are very powerful. They have seven heads
and can change themselves into any form of creature that they desire.
They are workers of magic. It is said that Lodivarman's principal wife
is the queen of the Nagas and that she changed herself into the form
of a beautiful woman that she might rule directly over the mortals as
well as the gods. But I do not believe that, because no one, not even a
Naga, would choose to be the queen of a leper. But the Yeacks are most
to be feared because they do not live far away upon a mountain-top, but
are everywhere in the jungle."
"What are they like?" asked King.
"They are horrible Ogres who live upon human flesh," replied Che.
"Have you ever seen them?" asked King.
"Of course not," replied the native. "Only he who is about to be
devoured sees them."
Gordon King listened with polite attention to the folk tales of Che and
Kangrey, but he knew that they were only legends of a kind with the
fabulous city of Lodidhapura and its Leper King, Lodivarman. He was
somewhat at a loss to account for Vay Thon, the high priest, but he
decided finally that the old man was an eccentric hermit who had come
into the jungle to live and that to him might be attributed many of the
fabulous tales that Che and Kangrey narrated so glibly. That his two
friends were runaway slaves from the fabulous city of Lodidhapura, King
doubted, attributing their story to the desire of primitive minds to
inject a strain of romance into their otherwise monotonous lives.
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.