The major-domo, bowing low, backed from the room, closing the door softly as he departed. Then it was that Lodivarman advanced toward Fou-tan. He laid a hand upon her naked shoulder as she shrank back involuntarily.
"You fear me," he said. "To you I am a loathsome leper. They all fear me; they all hate me, but what can they do? What can you do? I am King. May the gods help the poor leper who is not a king!"
"Oh, King, I am not a king," cried the girl. "You call upon the gods to help the poor leper who is not a king, and yet you would make a leper of me, you who could save me!"
Lodivarman laughed. "Why should I spare you?" he demanded. "It was a woman who made me a leper. Let her sin be upon all women. The accursed creature! From that moment I have hated women; even while I have held them in my arms I have hated them, but some malignant demon has thwarted me. Never has a woman contracted leprosy from me; yet I always hope, and the more beautiful and young they are the higher rises my hope, for once I was young and beautiful until that accursed woman robbed me of happiness and took away from me all except the life I had grown to hate; but perhaps in you my revenge shall be consummated as I have always hoped. With you it seems that it must be fulfilled, for you are very young and by far the most beautiful woman that has been offered in atonement for the sin of her sister. I shall tell you the story; I tell it to each of them that they may know how well they deserve whatever fate the gods may hold in store for them, because, like the accursed one, they are women.
"It was many years ago. I was in the prime of my youth and my beauty. I had ridden out to hunt My Lord the Tiger with a hundred courtiers and a thousand men-at-arms. The hunt was a success. Upon that wall beside you the artist has painted Lodivarman slaying the great beast. Never shall I forget the day of our triumphal return to Lodidhapura. Ah, Siva, no, never shall I forget. It was a day of triumph, a day of discovery, and the day of my cruel undoing by the foul creature whose sin you are to expiate.
"It was upon that day that I first tasted a mushroom. At a little village in the jungle a native upon bended knee offered me a platter of this then strange food. I partook. Never in my life had I tasted a viand more delicious. Dismounting, I sat beneath a tree before the hut of the poor peasant, and there I ate all of the mushrooms that he had prepared—a great platter of them—but I did not seem able to satisfy my craving for them, nor have I since then. I questioned him as to what they were and how they grew, and I gave orders that he be brought to Lodidhapura and given the means to propagate the royal food. He still lives. He has been showered with honours and riches, and still he raises mushrooms for Lodivarman; nor may any other in the realm raise them, nor any but the King partake of them. And thus there occurred a great happiness and a great satisfaction upon the selfsame day that saw all else snatched from me.
"As we entered Lodidhapura later in the day, crowds lined the avenue to see their King. They sang and shouted in welcome and threw blossoms at us. My charger, frightened by the noise and the bombardment of blossoms, became unmanageable, and I was hurled heavily to the ground; whereat a woman of the crowd rushed forward and threw herself upon me and with her arms about me covered my face and mouth with kisses. When my courtiers reached my side and dragged her from me and lifted me to my feet, it was seen that the woman was a leper. A great cry of horror arose, and the people who had come to applaud me shrank away, and even my courtiers drew to one side; and alone I mounted my horse and alone I rode into the city of Lodidhapura.
"Within an hour I was stricken; these hideous sores came upon my body as by magic, and never since have I been free from them. Now you shall have them, woman—daughter of a woman. As I have rotted, so shall you rot; as I am loathed, so shall you be loathed; as my youth and beauty were blasted, so shall yours be. Come!" and he laid a heavy hand upon the arm of Fou-tan.
Gordon King, entering the dimly lighted corridor, paused a moment to listen, to note if he might not hear voices that would guide him to those he sought. As he stood there thus, he saw a door open farther along the corridor and a man back out whom he instantly recognised as the major-domo. King looked for a place to hide, but there was no hiding-place; the corridor was straight and none too wide, and it was inevitable that he would be discovered if the major-domo came that way, as he did immediately he had closed the door of the apartment he had just quitted.
King grasped at the only chance that occurred to him for disarming the suspicions of the major-domo. Snapping to rigid attention, he stood as though a posted sentry just inside the entrance to the corridor. The major-domo saw him, and a puzzled frown crossed the man's face as he approached along the corridor, halting when he came opposite King.