The brute sprang close behind her. A filthy, calloused paw was clapped across her mouth. A rough and powerful arm encircled her waist. She was whirled from her feet, her cries stifled in her throat, as the brute wheeled and ran swiftly up the gorge, bearing his prize.
King quickly found the fruit he sought, but he loitered in returning to give Fou-tan an opportunity to complete her toilet. As he idled slowly back to the gorge, his mind was occupied with plans for the future. He was considering the advisability of remaining in hiding where they were for several days on the chance that the soldiers of Lodivarman might in the meantime give up the search and return to Lodidhapura. He determined that they might explore the gorge further in the hope of finding a safer and more comfortable retreat, where they might be less at the mercy of night prowlers and even more securely hidden from searchers than they were at present. He was also moved by the prospect of a few idyllic days during which there would be no one in the world but himself and Fou-tan.
Filled with enthusiasm for his heaven-sent plan, King descended into the gorge and approached the now hallowed precincts of his greatest happiness; but as he rounded the last bend he saw that Fou-tan was not there. Perhaps she had gone farther up the stream to bathe. He called her name aloud, but there was no reply. Again he called, raising his voice, but still there was only silence. Now he became alarmed and, running quickly forward, searched about for some sign or clue to her whereabouts; nor had he long to search. In the soft earth, damp from the recent rain, he saw the imprints of a huge foot—the great bare foot of a man. He saw where the prints had stopped and turned, and it was easy to follow them up the gorge. Casting aside the fruit that he had gathered, he hastened along the well-marked trail, his mind a fiery furnace of fear and rage, his heart a cold clod in his leaden breast.
Now, quite suddenly, he recalled the arrow he had found embedded behind the shoulders of the tiger that he had killed. He recalled the beast's sudden scream of rage and pain as it had charged so unexpectedly toward him, and quite accurately he reconstructed the whole scene—the man had been spying upon them from the top of the gorge; he had seen the tiger and had shot it to save his quarry to himself; then he had waited until King had left Fou-tan alone; the rest was plainly discernible in the footprints that he followed. He was confident that this was no soldier of Lodivarman; the crude arrow refuted that idea, as did the imprints of the great bare feet. But what sort of man was it and why had he stolen Fou-tan? The answer to that question goaded King to greater speed.
A short distance up the gorge King discovered where the tracks turned to the right, up the bed of a dry wash and thus to the level of the forest above. He gave thanks now for the providential rain that rendered the spoor easily followed. He knew that the abductor could not be far ahead, and he was sure that he could overtake him before harm could befall Fou-tan. However, as he hastened on, he was chilled by the thought that no matter how plain the spoor, the necessity for keeping it always in sight could but retard his speed; and his fear was that the slight delay might permit the man to outdistance him; and then he came to a patch of rocky ground where the trail, becoming immediately faint, suddenly disappeared entirely. Sick with apprehension, the American was forced to stop and search for a continuation of the tracks, and when, at last, he found them he knew that his quarry had gained greatly upon him during this enforced delay.
Again he sped along as rapidly as he could through a forest unusually devoid of underbrush. As he advanced he presently became aware of a new sound mingling with the subdued daylight noises of the jungle. It was a sound that he could not identify, but there was something ominous about it; and then, quite suddenly, he came upon the authors of it—great grey bulks looming among the boles of the trees directly in his path.
Under other circumstances he would have halted or, at least, changed his route; and had he reflected even for an instant, his better judgment now would have prompted him to do the latter; but uppermost in his mind and entirely dominating him was the great fear that he felt for Fou-tan's safety; and when he saw this obstacle looming menacingly before him, his one thought was to override it by sheer effrontery that it might not even delay him, much less thwart him in the pursuit of his object.
Had he been vouchsafed from his insanity even a single brief moment of lucidity, he would have avoided those ominous bulks moving restlessly to and fro among the boles of the giant trees, for even at the best wild elephants are nervous and short-tempered; and these, obviously disconcerted and suspicious by reason of some recent occurrence, were in a particularly hysterical and ugly mood. There were young calves among them and, therefore, watchful and irritable mothers; while the great bulls, aroused and on guard, were in no mood to be further provoked.
A huge bull, his ears outspread, his tail erect, wheeled toward the advancing man. The forest trembled to his mad trumpeting, and in that instant King realised for the first time the deadly peril of his position and knew that it would serve Fou-tan nothing were he to rush headlong into that inevitable death.