"The mills of the gods!" soliloquised 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 demeanour, 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 meagre 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 honour for you, attesting the impression that your act made upon him."