"You questioned the power of my God, Lodivarman," continued King, "but you saw me vanquish My Lord the Tiger in the face of the wrath of Siva, and now you know that I am aware of just what you planned for me here. How could I have vanquished the beast, or how could I have known your plans except through the intervention and the favour of my God?"
Lodivarman seemed ill at ease. His eyes shifted suspiciously from one man to another. "I have been betrayed," he said angrily.
"On the contrary," replied King, "you have been given such an opportunity as never could have come to you without me. Will you hear me before I am slain?"
"I do not know what you are talking about. I sent for you to free you; but speak on, I am listening."
"You are a leper," said King, and at the hideous word Lodivarman sprang to his feet, trembling with rage, his face livid, his dead eyes glaring.
"Death to him!" he cried. "No man may speak that accursed word to me and live."
At Lodivarman's words warriors sprang menacingly toward King. "Wait!" cried the American. "You have told me that you would listen. Wait until I have spoken, for what I have to say means more to you than life itself."
"Speak, then, but be quick," snapped Lodivarman.
"In the great country from which I come," continued King, "there are many brilliant physicians who have studied all of the diseases to which mankind is heir. I, too, am a physician, and under many of those men have I studied and particularly have I studied the disease of leprosy. Lodivarman, you believe this disease to be incurable; but I, the man whom you would destroy, can cure you."
King's voice, well modulated but clear and distinct, had carried his words to every man in the audience chamber, and the silence which followed his dramatic declaration was so profound that one might have said that no man even breathed. All felt the tenseness of the moment.