"I do," replied the girl.
"In what direction?" he asked.
She pointed. "There," she said, "but the way is long and difficult."
Near them was a group of native huts, clustered close to the foot of the wall, and so they moved out straight across the clearing to the edge of the jungle and then, turning, paralleled the jungle until they had passed the city.
"When we were brought into Lodidhapura I saw an avenue leading into the jungle somewhere in this direction," said King.
"Yes," replied Fou-tan, "but that does not lead to Pnom Dhek."
"Which is the reason that I wish to find it," said King. "The pursuit will be directed straight in the direction of Pnom Dhek, you may be assured. Men upon elephants and upon horses will travel after us much more rapidly than we can travel and we shall be overtaken if we take the road toward Pnom Dhek. We must go in some other direction and hide in the jungle for days, perhaps, before we may dare to approach Pnom Dhek."
"I do not care," she said, "and I shall not be afraid if you are with me, Gordon King."
It was not long before they found the road that he sought. In the open starlit night the transition to the jungle was depressing and, too, as they both realised, it was highly dangerous. All about them were the noises of the gloomy nocturnal forest: the mysterious rustling of underbrush as some beast passed on padded feet, a coughing growl in the distance, a snarl and a scream, followed by a long silence that was more terrifying than the noise.
A few months ago King would have considered their position far more precarious than he did this night, but now long familiarity with the jungle had so inured him to its dangers that he had unwittingly acquired that tendency to fatalism that is a noticeable characteristic of primitive people who live constantly beneath the menace of beasts of prey. He was, however, no less aware of the dangers that confronted them, but held them the lesser of two evils. To remain in the neighbourhood of Lodidhapura would most certainly result in their early capture and subject them to a fate more merciless and more cruel than any which might waylay them along the dark aisles of the forest. Propinquity had considerably altered his estimation of the great cats; whereas formerly he had thought of them as the fearless exterminators of mankind; he had since learned that not all of them are man-killers and that more often did they avoid man than pursue him. The chances, then, that they might come through the night without attack were greatly in their favour; but should they meet a tiger or a leopard or a panther which, because of hunger, old age, or viciousness, should elect to attack them, their doom might well be sealed; and whether they were moving away from Lodidhapura upon the ground or hiding in a tree, they would be almost equally at the mercy of one or another of these fierce carnivores.