Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Another night he pushed on through the jungle, and as morning came he guessed that he must be approaching the vicinity of Lodidhapura. He made no kill that morning and built no fire, but satisfied himself with fruits and nuts, which he found in abundance. He had no intention of risking discovery and capture by attempting to pass Lodidhapura by day, and so he found a place where he could lie up until night.

  This time he dreamed of Fou-tan and it was a pleasant dream, for they were alone together in the jungle and all obstacles had been removed from their path, but presently they heard people approaching; they seemed to be all about them, and their presence and their talk annoyed Fou-tan and angered King; in fact, he became so angry that he awoke. As the figure of Fou-tan faded from his side, he kept his eyes tight shut, trying to conjure her back again; but the voices of the intruders continued, and that seemed strange to King. He could even hear their words: “I tell you it is he,” said one voice; and another cried, “Hey, you, wake up!” Then King opened his eyes to look upon twenty brass cuirasses upon twenty sturdy warriors in the uniform of Lodivarman.

  “So you have come back!” exclaimed one of the warriors. “I did not think you were such a fool.”

  “Neither did I,” said King.

  “Where is the girl?” demanded the speaker. “Lodivarman will be glad to have you, but he would rather have the girl.”

  “He will never get her,” said King. “She is safe in the palace of her father at Pnom Dhek.”

  “Then it will go so much the harder for you,” said the warrior, “and I am sorry for you, for you are certainly a courageous man.”

  King shrugged. He looked about him for some avenue of escape, but he was entirely surrounded now and the odds were twenty to one against him. Slowly he arose to his feet. “Here I am,” he said. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “We are going to take you to Lodivarman,” replied the warrior who had spoken first. Then they took his weapons from him and tied his wrists behind his back. They were not cruel nor unduly rough, for in the hearts of these men, them-selves brave, was admiration for the courage of their prisoner.

  “I’d like to know how you did it,” said a warrior walking next to King.

  “Did what?” demanded the American.

  “How you got into the King’s apartment unseen and got out again with the girl. Three men have died for it already, but Lodivarman is no nearer a solution of the puzzle than he was at first.”

  “Who died and why?” demanded King.

  “The major-domo, for one,” said the warrior.

  “The major-domo did naught but obey the orders of Lodivarman,” said King.

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” replied the warrior; “yet that is the very reason that he died. For once in his life he should have disobeyed the King, but he failed to do so, and Lodivarman lay bound and gagged until Vay Thon came to his rescue.”

  “Who else died?” asked King.

  “The sentry who was posted at the banquet door with you. He had to admit that he had deserted his post, leaving you there alone; and with him was slain the officer of the guard who posted you, a stranger inside the King’s palace.”

  “And these were all?” asked King.

  “Yes,” said the warrior. And when King smiled he asked him why he smiled.

  “Oh, nothing of any importance,” replied the American. “I was just thinking.” He was thinking that the guiltiest of all had escaped — the sentry who had permitted Fou-tan to beguile him into allowing them to pass out of the palace into the garden. He guessed that this man would not be glad to see him return.

  “So even now Lodivarman does not know how I escaped from the palace?” he demanded.

  “No, but he will,” replied the man with a sinister grin.

  “What do you mean?” asked the American.

  “I mean that before he kills you he will torture the truth from you.”

  “Evidently my stay in Lodidhapura is to be a pleasant one,” he said.

  “I do not know how pleasant it will be,” replied the warrior; “but it will be short.”

  “Perhaps I shall be glad of that,” said King.

  “It will be short, man, but it will seem an eternity. I have seen men die before to satisfy Lodivarman’s wrath.”

  From his captors King learned that his discovery had been purely accidental; the party that had stumbled upon him constituted a patrol, making its daily rounds through the jungle in the vicinity of Lodidhapura. And soon the great city itself arose before King’s eyes, magnificent in its ancient glory, but hard as the stone that formed its temples and its towers, and hard as the savage hearts that beat behind its walls. Into its building had gone the sweat and the blood and the lives of a million slaves; behind its frowning walls had been enacted two thousand years of cruelties and bloody crimes committed in the names of kings and gods.

  “The mills of the gods!” soliloquized King. “It is not so remarkable that they grind exceedingly fine as it is that their masters can reach out of the ages across a world and lay hold upon a victim who scarce ever heard of them.”

  They were rapidly approaching one of the gates of Lodidhapura, at the portals of which King knew he must definitely abandon hope; and all that King found to excite his interest was his own apathy to his impending fate. He knew that his mind should be dwelling upon thoughts of escape, and yet he found himself assuming a fatalistic attitude of mind that could contemplate impending death with utmost composure, for, indeed, what had life to offer him? The orbit of his existence was determined by that shining sun about which his love revolved — his little flaming princess. Denied for ever the warmth and light of her near presence, he was a lost satellite, wandering aimlessly in the outer darkness and the cold of interstellar space. What had such an existence to offer against the peaceful oblivion of death?

  Yet whatever his thoughts may have been there was no reflection of them in his demeanor, as with firm stride and high-held head he entered once again the city of Lodidhapura, where immediately he and his escort were surrounded by curious crowds as word travelled quickly from mouth to mouth that the abductor of the dancing girl of the Leper King had been captured.

  They took him to the dungeons beneath the palace of Lodivarman, and there they chained him to a wall. As if he had been a wild beast they chained him with double chains, and the food that they brought was thrown upon the floor before him — food that one would have hesitated to cast before a beast. The darkness of his cell was mitigated by a window near the low-ceiling — an aperture so small that it might scarcely be dignified by the name of window, since nothing larger than a good-sized cat could have passed through it; yet it served its purpose in a meager way by admitting light and air.

  Once again, as it had many times in the past, a conviction sought foothold in King’s mind that he was still the victim of the hallucinations of fever, for notwithstanding all his experiences since he had entered the jungle it did not seem possible that in this twentieth century he, a free-born American, could be the prisoner of a Khmer king. The idea was fantastic, preposterous, unthinkable. He resorted to all the time-worn expedients for proving the fallacy of mental aberration, but in the end he always found himself double-chained to a stone wall in a dark-foul-stinking dungeon.

  Night came and with it those most hideous of nocturnal dungeon dwellers - the rats. He fought them off, but always they returned; and all night he battled with them until, when daylight came and they left him, he sank exhausted to the stone flagging of his cell.

  Perhaps he slept then, but he could scarcely know, for it seemed that almost instantly a hand was laid upon his shoulder and he was shaken to wakefulness. It was the hand of Vama, the commander of the ten who first had captured him in the jungle; and so it was neither a rough nor unfriendly hand, for the brass-bound warrior could find in his heart only admiration for this courageous stranger who had dared to thwart the desires of the Leper King, whom he feared more than he respected.

  “I am
glad to see you again, Gordon King,” said Vama, “but I am sorry that we meet under such circumstances. The rage of Lodivarman is boundless and from it no man may save you, but it may lessen the anguish of your last hours to know that you have many friends among the warriors of Lodidhapura.”

  “Thank you, Vama,” replied King. “I have found more than friendship in the land of the Khmers, and if I also find death here, it is because of my own choosing. I am content with whatever fate awaits me, but I want you to know that your assurances of friendship will ameliorate whatever pangs of suffering death may hold for me. But why are you here? Has Lodivarman sent you to execute his sentence upon me?”

  “He will not finish you so easily as that,” replied Vama. “What he has in his mind I do not know. I have been sent to conduct you to his presence, a signal honor for you, attesting the impression that your act made upon him.”

  “Perhaps he wants to question me,” suggested King.

  “Doubtless,” replied Vama, “but that he could have delegated to his torturers, who well know how to elicit whatever they wish from the lips of their victims.”

  Vama bent and unlocked the padlock that fettered King to the wall and led him into the corridor upon which his cell opened, where the rest of Varna’s ten awaited to escort the prisoner into the presence of Lodivarman. Kau and Tchek were there with the others with whom King had become familiar while he served as a warrior of the royal guard of Lodivarman, Leper King of Lodidhapura. Rough were the greetings that they exchanged, but none the less cordial; and so, guarded by his own friends, Gordon King was conducted toward the audience chamber of Lodivarman.

  14. MY LORD THE TIGER

  Lodivarman, a malignant scowl upon his face, crouched upon his great throne. Surrounding him were his warlords and his ministers, his high priests and the officers of his household; and at his left knelt a slave bearing a great golden platter piled high with mushrooms. But for the moment Lodivarman was too intent upon his vengeance to be distracted even by the cravings of his unnatural appetite, for here at last he had within his grasp the creature that had centered upon itself all the unbridled rage of a tyrant.

  Trembling with the anger that he could not conceal, Lodivarman glared at Gordon King as the prisoner was led to the foot of the dais below his throne.

  “Where is the girl?” demanded the King angrily.

  “The Princess Fou-tan is safe in the palace of Beng Kher,” replied King.

  “How did you get her away? Some one must have helped you. If you would save yourself the anguish of torture, speak the truth,” cried Lodivarman, his voice trembling with rage.

  “Lodivarman, the King, knows better than any other how I took Fou-tan from him,” replied the American.

  “I do not mean that,” screamed Lodivarman, trembling. “Siva will see that you suffer sufficient agonies for the indignity that you put upon me, but I can curtail that if you will reveal your accomplices.”

  “I had no accomplices,” replied King. “I took the Princess and walked out of your palace and no one saw me.”

  “How did you get out?” demanded Lodivarman.

  King smiled. “You are going to torture me, Lodivarman, and you are going to kill me. Why should I give you even the gratification of satisfying your curiosity? Wantonly you have already destroyed three men in your anger. I shall be the fourth. The life of any one of us is worth more than yours. If I could I would not add further to the debt that you must pay in the final accounting when you face God beyond the grave.”

  “What do you know, stranger, of the gods of the Khmers?” demanded Lodivarman.

  “I know little or nothing of Brahma, of Vishnu, or Siva,” replied King, “but I do know that above all there is a God that kings and tyrants must face; and in His eyes even a good king is not greater than a good slave, and of all creatures a tyrant is the most despicable.”

  “You would question the power of Brahma, of Vishnu, and of Siva!” hissed Lodivarman. “You dare to set your God above them! Before you die then, by the gods, you shall seek their mercy in your anguish.”

  “Whatever my suffering may be, you will be its author, Lodivarman,” replied King. “The gods will have nothing to do with it.”

  A minor priest came near and whispered in the King’s ear. Vay Thon, the high priest, was there, too. The old man stood with his eyes fixed compassionately upon King, but he knew he was powerless to aid his friend, for who should know better than a high priest the power of kings and the futility of gods.

  The priest appeared to be urging something upon his ruler with considerable enthusiasm.

  Lodivarman listened to the whispered words of counsel, and then for some time he sat in thought. Presently he raised his eyes to King again. “It pleases us to prove the power of our Gods, revealing their omnipotence to the eyes of our people. My Lord the Tiger knows no god; you shall contend with him. If your God be so powerful let him preserve you from the beast.” Lodivarman helped himself to mushrooms and sank back in his throne. “Take him to the pit of My Lord the Tiger,” he said presently; “but do not liberate the great beast until we come.”

  The soldiers surrounded King and led him away, but before they had reached the doorway leading from the audience chamber Lodivarman halted them. “Wait!” he cried. “It shall not be said the Lodivarman is unfair even to an enemy. When this man enters the pit with My Lord the Tiger, see that he has a javelin wherewith to defend himself. I have heard stories of his prowess; let us see if they were exaggerated.”

  From the palace, King was led across the royal garden to the great temple of Siva; and there, upon one of the lower levels, a place where he had never been before, he was conducted to a small amphitheater, in the center of which was sunk a deep pit that was, perhaps, a hundred feet square. The entrance to the pit was down a stairway and along a narrow corridor of stone to massive wooden doors which the soldiers threw open.

  “Enter, Gordon King,” said Vama. “Here is my javelin, and may your God and my gods be with you.”

  “Thanks!” said King. “I imagine that I shall need them all,” and then he stepped into the sunlit pit as the doors were closed behind him.

  The floor and walls of the cubicle were of blocks of stone set without mortar, but so perfectly fitted that the joints were scarcely discernible. As King stood with his back against the doorway through which he had entered the pit, he saw in the wall opposite him another door of great planks, a low sinister door, behind which he guessed paced a savage, hungry carnivore.

  King hefted the javelin in his hand. It was a sturdy, well-balanced weapon. Once again he recalled his college days when he had hurled a similar weapon beneath the admiring eyes of his mates; but then only distance had counted, only the superficial show that is the keynote of civilization had mattered.

  What mattered it that other men might cast a javelin more accurately? Which after all would be the practical test of efficiency. Gordon King could cast it farther than any of them, which was a feat far more showy than accuracy; but from the unlettered Che he had learned what college had failed to teach him and had acquired an accuracy as uncanny as the great distances that had won him fame.

  Twice already had he met My Lord the Tiger and vanquished him with his javelin. Each time it had seemed to King a miracle. That it could be repeated again, that for the third time he could overcome the lord of Asia seemed incredible. And what would it profit him were he to succeed? From the cruel fangs and talons of the tiger he would be transferred to the greater cruelties of Lodivarman.

  As he stood there upon the stone flagging of the pit beneath the hot sun that poured its unobstructed rays into the enclosure, he saw the audience sauntering to the stone benches that encircled the arena. It was evident that those who were to witness his destruction were members of the household of the King; princes and nobles and warriors there were and ministers and priests, and with them were their women. Last of all came Lodivarman with his bodyguard and slaves. To a canopied throne he made his way while the au
dience knelt, the meeker of them touching their foreheads to the stone flagging of the aisles. Before his throne Lodivarman halted, while his dead eyes swept quickly over the assembly, passing from them to the arena and the solitary warrior standing there below him. For a long moment the gaze of the King was riveted upon the American; hatred and suppressed rage were in that long, venomous appraisal of the man who had thwarted and humiliated him — that low creature that had dared lay profaning hands upon the person of the King.

  Slowly Lodivarman sank into his throne. Then he made a brief sign to an attendant, and an instant later the notes of a trumpet floated out across the still air of the arena. The kneeling men and women arose and took their seats. Once again Lodivarman raised his hand, and again the trumpet sounded, and every eye was turned upon the low doorway upon the opposite side of the arena from the American.

  King saw the heavy barrier rise slowly. In the darkness beyond it nothing was visible at first, but presently he was aware that something moved within, and then he saw the familiar yellow and black stripes that he had expected. Slowly a great tiger stepped into the doorway, pausing upon the threshold, blinking from the glare of the sunlight. His attention was attracted first by the people upon the stone benches above him, and he looked up at them and growled. Then he looked down and saw King. Instantly his whole attitude changed. He half crouched, and his tail moved in sinuous undulations; his head was flattened, and his eyes glared fiercely.