"Yes, I noted it as we came this way in the morning."
"Will it be safe to go out and search for food?" asked the girl.
"We shall have to take the chance," he replied. "We must eat and we cannot find food at night. We shall have to go together, Fou-tan, as I cannot risk leaving you alone for a moment."
As King and Fou-tan left their hiding-place and started down the gorge toward a place where they could clamber out of it into the forest in search of food, a creature at the summit of the cliff upon the opposite side of the stream crouched behind a low bush and watched them. Out of small eyes, deep-set beneath a mass of tangled hair, the creature watched every movement of the two; and when they had passed, it followed them stealthily, stalking them as a tiger might have stalked. But this was no tiger; it was a man—a huge, hulking brute of a man, standing well over six-feet-six on its great flat feet. Its only apparel was a G string, made from the skin of a wild animal. It wore no ornaments, but it carried weapons—a short spear, a bow, and arrows.
The jungle lore that the American had learned under the tutorage of Che stood him in good stead now, for it permitted him quickly to locate edible fruit and tubers without waste of time and with a minimum of effort. Fou-tan, city-bred, had but a hazy and most impractical knowledge of the flora of the jungle. She knew the tall, straight teak standing leafless now in the dry season and the India-rubber tree; and with almost childish delight she recognised the leathery laurel-like leaves of the tree from whose gum resin gamboge is secured; the tall, flowering stems of the cardamon she knew too; but the sum total of her knowledge would not have given sustenance to a canary in the jungle. It was therefore that King's efficiency in this matter filled her with awe and admiration. Her dark eyes followed his every move; and when he had collected all of the food that they could conveniently carry and they had turned their steps back toward their hiding-place, Fou-tan was bubbling over with pride and confidence and happiness. Perhaps it was as well that she did not see the uncouth figure hiding in the underbrush as they passed.
Back in their retreat they partially satisfied their hunger with such of the food as did not require cooking. "To-night we can have a fire," said King, "and roast some of these tubers. It would not be safe now, for the smoke might be seen for a considerable distance; but at night they will not be searching for us, and the light of a small fire will never escape from this gorge."
After they had eaten, King took his spear and walked down to the stream where he had seen fish jumping. He was prompted more by a desire to pass away the time than by any hope of success in this piscatorial adventure, but so numerous were the fish and so unafraid that he succeeded in spearing two with the utmost ease while Fou-tan stood at his elbow applauding him with excited little exclamations and squeals of delight.
King had never been any less sensitive to the approbation of the opposite sex than any other normal man, but never, he realised, had praise sounded more sweetly in his ears than now. There was something so altogether sincere in Fou-tan's praise that it never even remotely suggested adulation. He had always found her such an altogether forthright little person that he could never doubt her sincerity.
"Now we shall have a feast," she exclaimed, as they carried the fishes back into their grotto. "It is a good thing for me that you are here, Gordon King, and not another."
"Why, Fou-tan?" he asked.