Chapter 15 The Land of Hidden Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs
War
From the quarters of Vay Thon slaves were despatched into the jungle for many strange herbs and roots, and from these King compounded three prescriptions, but the basis of each was a mild laxative. The purpose of the other ingredients was chiefly to add impressiveness and mystery to the compounds, for however much King might deplore this charlatanism he was keenly aware that he must not permit the cure to appear too simple. He was dealing with a primitive mind, and he was waging a battle of wits for his life—conditions which seemed to warrant the adoption of means that are not altogether frowned upon by the most ethical of modern practitioners.
Three times a day he went in person to a small audience chamber off the bedroom of Lodivarman, and there, in the presence of Vay Thon and officers of the royal household, he tasted the medicine himself before administering it to Lodivarman. Upon the third day it became apparent that the sores upon the body of the King were drying up. Exsiccation was so manifest that Lodivarman was jubilant. He laughed and joked with those about him and renewed his assurances to the American that no reward within the power of his giving would be denied him when Lodivarman was again a whole man. Each day thereafter the improvement was marked and rapid, until, at the end of three weeks, no trace remained of the hideous sores that had so horribly disfigured the monarch for so many years.
Gradually King had been diminishing the dosages that he had been administering and had tapered off the treatment from three to two a day and finally to one. Upon the twenty-first day King ordered Lodivarman to his bedroom; and there, in the presence of Vay Thon and three of the highest officers of the kingdom, he examined the King’s entire body and found the skin clear, healthy, and without blemish.
“Well?” demanded Lodivarman, when the examination had been completed.
“Your Majesty is cured,” said King.
The King arose from his bed and threw a robe about him. “Life and liberty are yours, Gordon King,” he said. “A palace, slaves, riches are at your disposal. You have proven yourself a great warrior and a great physician. If you will remain here you shall be an officer in the royal guard and the private physician of Lodivarman, the King.”
“There is but one reason why I care to remain in the land of the Khmers,” replied King, “and that reason you must know, Lodivarman, before I can accept the honours that you would bestow upon me.”
“And what is that?” demanded Lodivarman.
“To be as near as possible to the Princess Fou-tan of Pnom Dhek in the hope that some day I may claim her hand in marriage as already I have won her love.”
“Already have I forgiven you for that act of yours which deprived me of the girl,” said Lodivarman, without an instant’s hesitation. “If you can win her, I shall place no obstacles in your path, but on the contrary I shall assist you in every way within my power. Let no man say that the gratitude of Lodivarman is tinged with selfishness or with revenge.”
Lodivarman did even more than he had promised, for he created Gordon King a prince of Khmer, and so it was that the American found himself elevated from the position of the condemned criminal to that of the titled master of a palace—a lord over many slaves and the commander of five hundred Khmer warriors.
Great was the rejoicing in Lodidhapura when the King’s cure became known; and for a week the city was given over to dancing, to pageants, and to celebration. In the howdah of the royal elephant at Lodivarman’s side, King rode along the avenues of Lodidhapura in the van of a procession of a thousand elephants trapped in gorgeous silks and gold and jewels.
And then upon the last day, when the rejoicing was at its height, all was changed in the brief span of an instant. A sweat-streaked, exhausted messenger staggered to the gates of Lodidhapura; and ere he swooned from fatigue he gasped out his brief message to the captain of the gates.
“Beng Kher comes with a great army to avenge the insult to his Princess,” and then he fell unconscious at the feet of the officer.
Quickly was the word carried to Lodivarman and quickly did it spread through the city of Lodidhapura. The gay trappings of a fete vanished like magic to be replaced by the grim trappings of war. Well worn and darkened with age were the housings and harnesses of the elephants as a thousand strong they filed from the north gates of Lodidhapura, bearing upon their backs the sturdy archers and spearmen of Lodivarman; and with them rode Gordon King, the prince, at the head of his new command. Alone upon a swift elephant he rode with only the mahout seated before him on the head of the great beast.
Little or nothing did the American know of the tactics of Khmer warfare, except that which he had derived from fellow warriors while he served among them and from other officers since his appointment. He had learned that the battles consisted principally of individual combat between elephant crews and that the duties of an officer did little more than constitute him a focal point upon which his men might rally for the pursuit if the enemy broke and retreated.
With long, rolling strides the elephants of war swung along the avenue into the jungle. Here and there were bits of colour or a glint of sunlight on a shining buckle, but for the most part the beasts were caparisoned with stern simplicity for the business of war. From the howdahs the burnished cuirasses of the warriors gave back the sunlight, and from the shaft of many a spear floated a coloured ribbon. The men themselves were grim and silent, or moved to coarse jokes and oaths as suited the individuality of each; and the music was from rough-throated trumpets and booming drums.
Toward a great clearing the army made its way and there awaited the coming of Beng Kher, for wars between Lodidhapura and Pnom Dhek were governed by age-old custom. Here for a thousand years their armies had met whenever Pnom Dhek attacked Lodidhapura. Here the first engagement must take place; and if the soldiers of Beng Kher could not pass the forces of Lodivarman, they must turn back in defeat. It was a game of war governed by strict rules up to the point where one side broke and fled. If the troops of Lodivarman broke here they would be pursued to the gates of Lodidhapura; and there, within the walls of the city, they would make their final stand. But if Beng Kher’s troops broke first, Lodivarman could take credit for a victory and might pursue them or not as he chose. To elude one another by strategy, to attempt to gain the rear of an enemy were not to be countenanced, largely so, perhaps, from the fact that flanking and enveloping movements were impossible with elephant troops in a dense forest, where the only avenues of advance or retreat were the well-marked trails that were known to all.
The clearing, along the south side of which the troops of Lodivarman were drawn up, was some two miles in length by a half or three-quarters of a mile in width. The ground was slightly rolling and almost entirely denuded of vegetation, since it was in almost constant use for the training and drilling of elephant troops.
As the last of the great pachyderms wheeled into place, the drums and the trumpets were silent; and from out of the north, to the listening ears of the warriors, came faintly the booming of Pnom Dhek’s war drums. The enemy was approaching. The men looked to arrows and bowstrings. The mahouts spoke soothingly and encouragingly to their mighty charges. The officers rode slowly up and down the line in front of their men, exhorting them to deeds of courage. As the sound of the enemy drums and trumpets drew nearer, the elephants became noticeably nervous. They swayed from side to side, raising and lowering their trunks and flapping their great ears.
In each howdah were many extra spears and great quantities of arrows. King, alone, had twenty spears in his howdah and fully a hundred arrows. When he had first seen them loaded upon his elephant it had not seemed possible that he was to use them against other men, and he had found himself rather shrinking from contemplation of the thought; but now with the sound of the war drums in his ears and the smell of leather and the stink of war elephants in his nostrils and with that long line of grim faces and burnished cuirasses at his back, he felt a sudden mad blood lust that thrilled him to the depths of his being. No longer was he the learned and cultured gentleman of the twentieth century, but as much a Khmer warrior as ever drew a bow for ancient Yacovarman, The King of Glory.
The enemy is coming. The blare of his trumpets resounds across the field of battle, and now the head of the enemy column emerges on to the field. The trumpets of Lodidhapura blare and her drums boom. An elephant lifts his trunk and trumpets shrilly. It is with difficulty now that the mahouts hold their charges in line.
The enemy line is finally formed upon the opposite side of the great field. For a moment drums and trumpets are stilled, and then a hoarse fanfare rolls across the clearing from the trumpeters of Beng Kher. “We are ready,” it seems to say, and instantly it is answered from Lodivarman’s side. Simultaneously now the two lines advance upon one another; and for a moment there is a semblance of order and discipline, but presently here and there an elephant forges ahead of his fellows. They break into a trot. King is almost run down by his own men.
“Forward!” he shouts to his mahout.
Pandemonium has broken loose. Trumpets and drums merge with the battle cries of ten thousand warriors. The elephants, goaded to anger, scream and trumpet in their rage. As the two lines converge, the bowmen loose a shower of arrows from either side; and now the curses and cries of wounded men and the shrill screaming of hurt elephants mingle with the trumpets and the bugles and the war cries in the mad diapason of war.
King found himself carried forward on the crest of battle straight toward a lone officer of the enemy forces. He was riding the swaying howdah now like a sailor on the deck of a storm-tossed ship. The antagonist approaching him was balancing his javelin, waiting until they should come within surer range; but King did not wait. He was master of his weapon, and he had no doubts. Behind him were his men. He did not know that they were watching him; but they were, for he was a new officer and this his first engagement. His standing with them would be determined now forever. All of them had heard of his prowess and many of them had doubted the truth of the stories they had heard. They saw his spear-arm come back, they saw the heavy weapon flying through the air and a hoarse cheer broke from their throats as the point crashed through the burnished cuirass of the enemy.
An instant later the two lines came together with such terrific force that a score of elephants were overthrown. King was almost pitched from his howdah; and an instant later he was fighting hand to hand, surrounded by the warriors of Beng Kher. The battle now resolved itself into a slow milling of elephants as the mahouts sought to gain advantageous positions for the crews in their howdahs. Here and there a young elephant, or one sorely wounded and driven mad by pain, broke from the melee and bolted for the jungle. Warriors leaped from their howdahs, risking injury rather than the almost certain death that would await them as the frightened beasts stampeded through the forest. Only the mahouts clung to their posts, facing death rather than the disgrace of abandoning their charges. The hot sun blazed down upon the stinking, sweating mass of war. The feet of the milling elephants raised clouds of dust through which it was sometimes difficult to see more than a few yards.
In the moment that King was surrounded an arrow grazed his arm, while a dozen glanced from his helmet and his cuirass. His impressions were confused. He saw savage, distorted faces before him, at which he lunged with a long javelin. He was choked with dust and blinded by sweat. He heard the savage trumpeting of his own elephant and the shouts and curses of his mahout. It seemed impossible that he could extricate himself from such a position, or that he could long survive the vicious attack that was being directed upon him by the men of the officer he had slain; and then some of his own elephants came charging in, and a moment later he was surrounded by the warriors of his own command.
Ever forward they pushed. What was happening elsewhere in the line they did not know, for obscuring dust hid all but those close to them. The line before them gave; and then it held and pushed them back again, and so the battle surged to and fro and back and forth. But always it seemed to King that his side gained a little more at each advance than it lost. Presently the enemy line gave way entirely. King saw the elephants of Pnom Dhek turn in the murky dust and race toward the north. Just what the rest of the line was doing he did not know; and for the moment none of his own men was visible, so thick and heavy hung the pall of dust upon the field of battle.
Perhaps King forgot what little of the rules of Khmer warfare he had ever learned. Perhaps he thought only of following up an advantage already gained; but be that as it may, he shouted to his men to follow and ordered his mahout to pursue the fleeing warriors to Pnom Dhek. Amid the din of battle his men did not hear him, and so it was that, alone, Gordon King pursued that part of the enemy line that had broken directly in front of him.
Presently, as they drew away from the centre of the field and the dust clouds became less impenetrable, King saw the grey bulk of an elephant moving just ahead of him; and then as the visibility increased he saw still other enemy elephants farther in advance. Now he could see that there were two men in the howdah of the elephant just in front of him; but as he raised his javelin to cast it, he suddenly recognised the man at whom his weapon was to be directed—it was Beng Kher, King of Pnom Dhek and father of Fou-tan. King lowered his spear-arm; he could not slay the father of the girl he loved. But who was his companion? Through the lessening dust King sensed a vague familiarity in that figure. It occurred to him that he might take Beng Kher prisoner and thus force him to sanction his marriage with Fou-tan. Other mad schemes passed through his head as the two swift elephants raced across the clearing.
Neither Beng Kher nor his companion appeared to be paying any attention to the warrior pursuing them, which convinced King that they believed him to be one of their own men. King saw Beng Kher’s companion lean forward over the front of the howdah as though issuing instructions to the mahout; and almost immediately their course was changed to the right, while ahead of them King saw the other elephants that had accompanied Beng Kher disappearing into the forest to the north.
The air about them was comparatively free from dust now, so that King could see all that transpired about him. He glanced behind; and from the clouds of dust arising from the centre of the field he knew that the battle was still raging, but he kept on in pursuit of the King of Pnom Dhek.
To his dismay he saw that the royal elephant was drawing away from him, being swifter than his own. He saw something else, too—he saw Beng Kher remonstrating with his companion, and then for the first time he recognised the other man in the howdah as Bharata Rahon.
King was exhorting his mahout to urge the elephant to greater speed; and when he glanced up again at the two men in the howdah ahead of him, he saw Bharata Rahon suddenly raise a knife and plunge it into the neck of Beng Kher. The King staggered backward; and before he could regain his equilibrium Bharata Rahon leaped forward and gave him a tremendous shove, and King saw Beng Kher, the ruler of Pnom Dhek, topple backward out of the howdah and plunge to the ground below.
Horrified by the ruthless crime he had witnessed and moved by the thought of Fou-tan’s love for her father, King ordered his mahout to bring their elephant to a stop; and then sliding quickly from the howdah, he ran to where Beng Kher lay. The King was half stunned and blood was gushing from the wound in his neck. As best he could and as quickly, King stanched the flow; but what was he to do? Beng Kher was indeed his prisoner, but what would it profit him now?
He signalled his mahout to bring the elephant closer and make it lie down, and then the two men lifted the wounded Beng Kher into the howdah.
“What do you want with a wounded enemy?” demanded the mahout, and it was evident to King that the fellow had not recognised Beng Kher as King of Pnom Dhek. “Why do you not kill him?” continued the man.
“You were detailed to drive my elephant and not to question my acts,” snapped King shortly, and whatever thoughts concerning the matter the mahout had thereafter he kept to himself.
“Whither, my lord?” he asked presently.
That was the very question that was bothering King—whither! Were he to take Beng Kher back to Lodidhapura, he did not know but that Lodivarman might destroy him. If he tried to take him back to Pnom Dhek, Beng Kher might die before they reached the city, or if he lived, doubtless he would see that King died shortly thereafter. The American had no love for Beng Kher, but if he could protect Fou-tan from grief by saving the life of her father, he would do so if he could but find the means; and presently a possible solution of his problem occurred to him.
He turned to his mahout. “I wish to go to the jungle south of Lodidhapura, avoiding the city and all men upon the way. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the man.
“Then make haste. I must reach a certain spot before dark. When we have passed Lodidhapura I will give you further directions.”
Little Uda was playing before the dwelling of Che and Kangrey when he heard a sound that was familiar to him—the approach of an elephant along the jungle trail that passed not far from where he played. Now and then elephants passed that way and sometimes little Uda saw them, but more often he did not. Uda and Che and Kangrey had no fear of these passing elephants, for the massive stone ruin in which they lived was off the beaten trail among a jumble of fallen ruins that was little likely to tempt the feet of the great pachyderms; so little Uda played on, giving scant heed to the approaching footsteps, but presently his keen ears noted what his eyes could not see; and leaping to his feet, he ran quickly into the dwelling, where Kangrey was preparing food for the evening meal before the return of Che.
“Mamma,” cried Uda, “an elephant is coming. He has left the trail and is coming here.”
Kangrey stepped to the doorway. To her astonishment she saw an elephant coming straight toward her dwelling. She only saw his feet and legs at first; and then, as he emerged from behind a tree that had hidden the upper part of his body, the woman gave a cry of alarm, for she saw that the elephant was driven by a mahout and that there was a warrior in the howdah upon its back. Grasping Uda by the hand, she sprang from her dwelling, bent upon escaping from the feared power of Lodivarman; but a familiar voice halted her, calling her by name.
“Do not be afraid, Kangrey,” came the reassuring voice. “It is I, Gordon King.”
The woman stopped and turned back, a smile of welcome upon her face. “Thanks be to the gods that it is you, Gordon King, and not another,” she exclaimed. “But what brings you thus upon a great elephant and in the livery of Lodivarman to the poor dwelling of Kangrey?”
The mahout had brought the elephant to a stop now before Kangrey’s doorway, and at his command the great beast lowered its huge body to the ground.
“I have brought a wounded warrior to you, Kangrey,” said King, “to be nursed back to life and health as once you nursed me,” and with the help of the mahout he lifted Beng Kher from the howdah.
“For you, Gordon King, Kangrey would nurse Lodivarman himself,” said the woman.
They carried Beng Kher into the dwelling and laid him upon a pallet of dry grasses and leaves covered with the pelts of wild animals. Together King and Kangrey removed the golden cuirass from the fallen monarch. Taking off the rough bandages with which the American had stanched the flow of blood and covered the wounds, the woman bathed the gashes with water brought by Uda. Her deft fingers worked lightly and quickly; and while she prepared new bandages she sent Uda into the jungle to fetch certain leaves, which she laid upon the wounds beneath the bandages.
The mahout had returned to his elephant; and as Kangrey and King were kneeling upon opposite sides of the wounded man, Beng Kher opened his eyes. For a moment they roved without comprehension about the interior of the rude dwelling and from the face of the woman leaning above him to that of the man, upon whom he noted the harness of Lodivarman, and King saw that Beng Kher did not recognise him.
“Where am I?” asked the wounded man. “What has happened? But I need not ask. I fell in battle and I am a prisoner in the hands of my enemy.”
“No,” replied King, “you are in the hands of friends, Beng Kher. This woman will nurse you back to health; after that we shall decide what is to be done.”
“Who are you?” demanded Beng Kher, scrutinising the features of his captor.
From beneath his cuirass and his leather tunic the American withdrew a tiny ring that was suspended about his neck on a golden chain, and when Beng Kher saw it he voiced an exclamation of surprise.
“It is Fou-tan’s,” he said. “How came you by it, man?”
“Do you not recognise me?” demanded the American.
“By Siva, you are the strange warrior who dared aspire to the love of the Princess of Pnom Dhek. The gods have deserted me.”
“Why do you say that?” demanded King. “I think they have been damn’ good to you.”
“They have delivered me into the hands of one who may profit most by destroying me,” replied Beng Kher.
“On the contrary, they have been kind to you, for they have given you into the keeping of the man who loves your daughter. That love, Beng Kher, is your shield and your buckler. It has saved you from death, and it will see that you are brought back to health.”
For a while the King of Pnom Dhek lay silent, lost in meditation, but presently he spoke again. “How came I to this sorry pass?” he asked. “We were well out of the battle, Bharata Rahon and I—by Siva, I remember now!” he exclaimed suddenly.
“I saw what happened, Beng Kher,” said King. “I was pursuing you and was but a short distance behind when I saw Bharata Rahon suddenly stab you and then throw you from the howdah of your elephant.”
Beng Kher nodded. “I remember it all now,” he said. “The traitorous scoundrel! Fou-tan warned me against him, but I would not believe her. There were others who warned me, but I was stubborn. He thought he had killed me, eh? but he has not. I shall recover and have my revenge, but it will be too late to save Fou-tan.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Gordon King.
“I can see his plan now as plainly as though he had told me in his own words,” said Beng Kher. “By now he is on his way to Pnom Dhek. He will tell them that I fell in battle. He will force Fou-tan to marry him, and thus he will become King of Pnom Dhek. Ah, if I had but one of my own people here I could thwart him yet.”
“I am here,” said Gordon King, “and it means more to me to prevent Bharata Rahon from carrying out his design than it could to any other man.” He rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?” demanded Beng Kher.
“I am going to Pnom Dhek,” replied King, “and if I am not too late I shall save Fou-tan; and if I am, I shall make her a widow.”
“Wait,” said Beng Kher. He slipped a massive ring from one of his fingers and held it out to the American. “Take this,” he said. “In Phom Dhek it will confer upon you the authority of Beng Kher, the King. Use it as you see fit to save Fou-tan and to bring Bharata Rahon to justice. Farewell, Gordon King, and may the gods protect you and give you strength.”
Gordon King ran from the dwelling and leaped into the howdah of his elephant. “Back to Lodidhapura,” he commanded the mahout, “and by the shortest route as fast as the beast can travel.”