"We have the girl," he said; "let that thing go. We were not sent out for him. He is not the man who abducted the apsaras from the palace of Lodivarman."
At the moment that the brute had seen the soldiers, so had Fou-tan; and now she scrambled quickly to her feet, from where he had hurled her to the ground, and turned in flight back toward the gorge where she had last seen King.
"After her!" cried the officer; "but do not harm her."
Fou-tan ran fleetly and perhaps would have gotten away from them had not she tripped and fallen; as she scrambled to her feet, they were upon her. Rough hands seized her, but they did not harm her, nor did they offer her insult; for she who was to have been the favourite of Lodivarman might yet be, and it is not well to incur the displeasure of a king's favourite.
"Where is the man?" asked the officer, addressing Fou-tan.
The girl thought very quickly in that instant, and there was apparently no hesitation as she nodded her head in the direction that the fleeing brute had taken. "You know as well as I do," she said. "Why did you not capture him?"
"Not that man," said the officer. "I refer to the soldier of the guard who abducted you from the palace of Lodivarman."
"It was no soldier of the guard who abducted me," replied the girl. "This creature stole into the palace and seized me. A soldier of the guard followed us into the jungle and tried to rescue me, but he failed."
"Lodivarman sent word that it was the strange warrior, Gordon King, who stole you from the palace," said the officer.
"You saw the creature that stole me," said Fou-tan. "Did it look like a soldier of Lodivarman?"