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Dawn found Larra and Rupali a quarter way
down the cliff. It was not, as
harem rumour had stated, bottomless.
But it was still a long way down.
The two women had been working their way down the cliff all
night. Looking back the way she
had come, Rupali could not believe that she had done
it. Above her loomed broken rock
and above that towered the outer walls of the
palace. They were so far down
now that Rupali doubted that anyone on the wall would be able to see them,
not with the amount of vegetation that covered the slope.
It was the thick vegetation that had enabled
them to descend the dangerous slope in the
dark. By taking the utmost care
and not moving until they were sure of a foot or hand hold, Rupali and Larra
had managed to put enough distance between themselves and the palace of the
Prahgan that they were probably temporarily
safe.
Larra still had her doubts,
however. Despite the fact that
she had pushed herself to the edge of exhaustion, a fact that she would not
reveal to Rupali, she was concerned over what might happen when it was discovered
that they were missing. She wanted
to be sure that in the event of a swift response from the Prahgan, they would
not be overtaken. She was willing
to push herself to the very limits of her endurance in order to make sure
that any pursuit would not find them.
Fighting off the urge to rest, she continued
her slow descent, working her way toward the bottom of the jungle filled
valley. As she and Rupali descended
the temperature steadily climbed and sweat streamed from their
bodies. Ironically, in spite
of the high humidity there was no water to drink and she and Rupali were
becoming steadily dehydrated. They
had brought only a single gourd of water and that was quickly
gone. Quite soon Larra was desperate
for water and she knew that Rupali was probably in the same
condition. However, there was
no choice but to go on. Ignoring
the thirst that tortured her, she fought on, trying to concentrate on the
critical task of not falling.
It seemed an eon before she finally set foot
once again on level ground. She
swayed unsteadily as she listened for the sound of running
water. Somewhere at the bottom
of the valley there had to be water.
They finally found it, but it was not easy
to get to. The valley floor was
choked with thick stands of bamboo, some of the plants growing up to forty
feet tall. It was like trying
to force their way though a fence and they were required to make numerous
detours before they finally reached what they sought.
They drank eagerly from the small
pool they finally found and then ate a bit of the food they had brought with
them. They had brought mainly
uncooked rice as it was relatively light and easy to prepare, but they had
also brought some food they could eat without
preparation.
They also needed
rest. The arduous climb, coupled
with the fact that they had not slept had left both women near
exhaustion. Larra, with
Rupali’s help gathered some bamboo and wove
a crude shelter.
It was to keep the insects away from them
more than anything else and would have been a lot easier if either of them
had a knife, but sharp objects were something that were normally kept away
from the harem. Jealous concubines
had sometimes been known to take a knife to rivals, and as a result Rupali
had not been able to get her hands on anything sharper than a nail
file. However, they managed,
and settled down beside one another in the cramped
shelter.
They rested only until
But there was a still more important reason
and that was that they simply did not have the resources to survive long
in the jungle. Somehow they had
to find someplace where they would be safe and they could find the resources
for survival. Better yet would
be if they could make their way back to civilization, although the fact that
the Japanese had invaded the
Larra was confident that she could survive
in the wilds. She would not have
dared to escape if she thought she and Rupali would face death by
starvation. Ever since her first
adventure she had made a point of studying the edible flora of any region
she visited. She knew that the
forests of
Gathering together their few possessions and
filling a gourd they had brought with them from the small pool they had found,
they set out. Larra listened
carefully as she walked, but there was no sound of pursuit, only the raucous
clamour of insects, the call of birds, the chit-chat of monkeys and the many
sounds she did not recognize, but which seemed part of the normal forest
background noise. It seemed typical
of most rainforest environments Larra had visited and the steady background
noise did not disturb her. She
knew that like all rainforests it was not without its dangers, and would
have would have preferred to have some sort of weapon, but she was confident
that if she proceeded with caution she would probably be able to deal with
any situation.
The first difficulty was pushing through the
bamboo. If the vegetation continued
for the entire length of the valley they would be lucky to travel more than
a few miles a day. At that rate
it would take months for them to make it any distance at
all. Larra also did not like
the fact that the bamboo made it impossible to see more than a few feet in
any direction. If there was any
danger she would not be able to see it until it was upon her or else she
blundered into it.
That was proven a just a short time after
they started out. Rupali and
Larra took it in turns leading the way through the
bamboo. It was too exhausting
for just one of them to lead the way.
Larra insisted on taking her turn, in spite of Rupali’s protests
and was in the lead when a loud snort just in front of her brought her to
an abrupt halt.
Suddenly the bamboo in front of her parted
as if pushed aside by a giant hand and a magnificent but incredibly ugly
head thrust its way through the bamboo.
Larra stared in shock at the twin horns projecting from the head of
the huge beast. There was no
need to signal Rupali to stop, the rhinoceros filled the space immediately
before them.
Even if she had been armed the situation would
have been deadly. This time,
unarmed, and six months pregnant, Larra had no chance to
escape. She simply stared at
the beast and hoped that by some miracle she was not facing the last living
thing she would ever see. To
her acute surprise and immense relief, the near-sighted creature merely snorted
and then turned away, parting the bamboo in front of
it. It was so close that Larra
felt the blast of air on her face as it
exhaled.
The encounter with the rhinoceros turned out
to be a blessing in disguise.
Although the path it forced through the bamboo was far from straight,
it was much easier to follow after it than try to make their
own way. In spite of the
danger of the rhinoceros reversing its tracks, Larra and Rupali followed
as close behind as they dared. It
did not entirely solve their problem.
Much of the bamboo was so resilient that it sprang up quickly after
the passing of the thick hided beast, but a gap remained long enough that
their passage was now much easier.
Although they could now move more quickly,
their progress was still difficult.
The stifling heat of the jungle valley soon had them
exhausted. And the soft harem
slippers were soon worn right through, despite the fact that they had wrapped
layers of silk about them to extend their
life. Now barefoot, they had
to proceed much more slowly to preserve their
feet.
It was at this point that Larra realized her
escape was not going to be quite a smooth as she had
hoped. But she remembered something
from one of her earlier adventures.
“We’re going to have to make some sort of shoes,” she
said to Rupali. “Otherwise
our feet are going to be too bloody to go
anywhere.”
“But we don’t have anything to make
shoes with,” Rupali said.
“Or even any tools.”
“Watch me and do
what I do,” “Larra
replied. She began to search
the area around her.
Inside of a few minutes she had gathered up
some promising materials and went to
work. Rupali copied, working
more slowly than Larra, but trying to follow her exactly.
Rupali soon saw what Larra was trying to
do. To her pleasant surprise
it was one of the few skills she had mastered back in the seemingly distant
times when she had lived on the rubber plantation with her
parents. Her fingers proved to
be even more adept than Larra’s and the Englishwoman finally gave up
trying to show her what to do.
“I think you should be teaching me,”
Larra smiled as Rupali, with quiet efficiently wove the split bamboo stems
into a serviceable pair of shoes.
Rupali grinned. Glad to
have at least one area where she could take the lead, she soon had woven
a second pair for Larra while the tall Englishwoman tore strips of silk into
padding for the inside of the soles.
“As fine a pair of shoes as I’ve
ever helped make,” Larra said, pulling the makeshift footwear onto her
feet. “We might get a few
blisters from these, but at least we will be able to
walk.”
Thus equipped the two women started out once
more. Unfortunately, the way
was once more blocked by bamboo that had annoyingly sprung back into position
soon after the passing of the rhinoceros.
Without the huge beast to help them they were once again forced to
make their own way through the thick bamboo
groves. Within a short time they
were both gasping for breath, their bodies strained to the edge of
exhaustion.
Larra was just about to give up and suggest
they stop for the night when without warning the bamboo thickets suddenly
tapered out. They had entered
the rainforest proper, huge trees so massive that they blocked out the light
of the sun and turned the forest into an enormous green-roofed
temple. Beneath the canopy the
temperature dropped so suddenly that it almost felt
chilly.
Wildlife, however, was even more prolific
that in the bamboo forest. Brightly
plumaged birds flitted overhead, and monkeys and other arboreal creatures
scampered among the upper branches.
Larra even thought she caught a glimpse of the shy orangutan, but
couldn’t be sure. The noise
as usual was tremendous, the buzz of insects
dominating.
Larra had to think that this was an
improvement. The forest floor
was shaded so completely that there was little undergrowth and walking would
be much easier. However, it would
also be equally difficult to determine if they were going in the right direction
and not heading toward some physical barrier that might force them to retrace
their steps. With little choice
in the matter Larra merely shrugged and said
nothing. There was no point in
alarming Rupali prematurely.
That day and the next they made reasonable
time. They ate some of their
rice, which they cooked in a small earthenware vessel that Rupali had procured
and added to it a few edible tubers that Larra chanced upon along with some
fruit that was growing within reach.
Water was no problem.
Several streams crossed their path and they were able to refill the
gourd they had brought with them just in
case. Their spirits buoyed, the
two women were feeling quite cheerful when the landscape suddenly
changed.
Rocky outcrops began to appear among the trees,
becoming more and more frequent the farther they
walked. Larra began to fear that
they might be getting closer to some jungle covered mountain
landscape. If so, the way would
become very difficult to traverse, but with no way of knowing for certain,
the two women pressed on and suddenly found themselves entering a steep-sided
rocky canyon. With no other option
they entered the canyon, but there was something about the narrow defile
that bothered Larra, something that at first she could not quite
place.
“Where is the vegetation?” Larra
finally murmured.
“What?” Rupali asked, not understanding
Larra’s query.
“The
vegetation. It just
stops. That is very
strange. The canyon should be
as choked with undergrowth and trees as the place by the palace, but everything
seems to have been cleared.”
“But that would mean…” Rupali
began.
“Yes,” Larra finished for
her.
“People. We will
have to be careful. They might
be friendly and they might not.”
A few minutes later they rounded a turn in
the canyon. Both women came to
a halt and for a few moments they just stared.
“Incredible,” Larra
commented. “It looks
Indian.”
Rupali
nodded. Indian art was something
she
did know something about, although she
had never seen anything on this scale.
Carved into the side of the canyon, and taking
up its entire height of almost two hundred feet was an enormous bas-relief
of an elephant. It was framed
by other intricate carvings, giving the impression that the wall of the canyon
was actually the outer part of some colossal
temple.
“My goodness,” Rupali
exclaimed. “Who could have
created such a thing?”
“It appears southern Indian in style,”
Larra commented. “I don’t
know enough to be sure, but it appears similar to the temple styles in Tamil
Nadu. Perhaps Chola
Dynasty.”
None of Larra’s comments made any sense
to Rupali, she simply stared; awed that anyone could create anything so huge
from solid rock.
“Whoever it was ,” Larra continued
after awhile, “it wasn’t done
yesterday. It’s been there
for a long time. But I suspect
that it might have some connection with the people who have been keeping
the canyon clear of vegetation.”
More cautiously now they began to move down
the canyon. Unlike the steep-sided
valley of the Prahgan there did not appear to be any defensive positions
carved into the canyon walls nor was there any sign that the cliffs had had
been cut into for habitation. As
they progressed they came to a part of the canyon where a stream tumbled
over the edge. It had created
a deep plunge pool shaped very much like a large
bathtub. It was too much for
either of the two women to resist and in short order they stripped off their
clothing and entered the pool.
They did not stay
long. The sky was darkening,
promising another tropical downpour and Larra suddenly realized that a
steep-sided canyon might not be the best place to be in a heavy
rainstorm. She wondered if they
should go back the way they had come or continue to follow the
canyon. They were about an hour
into the canyon and the way back was
uphill. She doubted they could
make it out before the rain began in earnest and so decided to proceed the
way they had been going. She
suspected that whomever had cut the elephant into
the side of the canyon would not have done so in a place that
flooded. However, the carving
was so old that it was just possible that when the elephant had been carved
conditions were different. She
quickened her pace, hoping to find some place that promised shelter before
it began to rain.
This time, however, luck was not on their
side. The rain when it came was
heavy and within minutes the small stream that they were following down the
canyon began to swell into a raging
torrent. Very quickly they were
walking through ankle deep water and the intensity of the storm appeared
to be increasing.
Overhead the sky
raged. Incredible bolts of lightening
lit up the clouds and the thunder crashed with almost deafening
violence. The rain came down
with such intensity that it was like walking under a
waterfall. Visibility was reduced
to almost nothing and Larra and Rupali were forced to struggle almost blind
while the water surged around them.
Larra cursed her lack of foresight in not
realizing that the canyon could turn into a
trap. The signs had been more
than obvious, but she had been blind to them.
Now she knew why the canyon was
free of vegetation.
“Idiot,” she
muttered. “By now I should
be able to tell a geological phenomenon from a human
one.”
The water now swirled about her
thighs. For Rupali it was even
worse, the water up to her hips.
The current was so strong that if either of them slipped they would
be swept away by the rushing waters.
Desperately they clung to one another helping each other to keep their
footing, but the increasing power of the water told them both that it was
only a matter of time before they were pulled under.
Larra felt her strength
failing. She was almost afloat
now, the water surging about her belly and almost up to Rupali’s
breasts. A vision flashed through
her mind of how ironic it would be if the great
She spotted the alcove at the last
second. Almost at the end of
her strength she was almost swept past it, but exerting the last of her strength,
she grabbed Rupali by the arm and pulled her out of the
current. For a few seconds they
were in a bit of a backwater; it gave them the extra time they needed to
climb a bit higher. This was
facilitated by the fact that the niche in the cliff side seemed to have steps
cut into it. She had no time
for a more careful look at her refuge.
Fighting for her life and attempting to drag Rupali with her, she
fought her way up the steps of the alcove, attempting to get clear of the
rising water.
She made it just in
time. A powerful surge swept
down the canyon, increasing the water level to more than double what it had
been. If she and Rupali had still
been in the canyon they would have been swept to their
deaths. Exhausted from her Herculean
exertions, Larra collapsed. The
effort of saving herself and Rupali had stripped away her last reserves of
strength. Cold and wet, with
most of her flimsy clothing ripped from their bodies by the force of the
water, she clung to Rupali for warmth, unable to stop her over stressed body
from shivering.
Rupali was in no better
shape. Not as physically strong
as Larra, the girl had been sure that she was going to die when Larra had
grabbed her and pulled her to safety at the last
instance. The two women clasped
one another, glad to be alive, but too exhausted to do more than lie where
they were.
As the roaring waters thundered past their
shelter, Larra wondered if they would survive the
night. The storm had dissipated
the tropical heat, dropping the temperature
radically. They were under a
rock overhang, sheltered from the pelting
rain. But soaked to the skin;
they were suffering severely from
exposure. Had she been with a
man, she could have figured out a way to keep warm, but she could do no more
than simply cling to Rupali.
Shivering, she closed her eyes and let exhaustion take its natural
course.
The sound of voices awakened
her. The rays of the morning
sun had found their way into the niche where she and Rupali
sheltered. Somehow, she had survived
the night, but her body was so chilled that she couldn’t move, not even
to see who was speaking. Beside
her, Rupali lay with eyes closed.
The girl appeared to be unconscious and only the very slight rise
and fall of her pretty breasts showed that she was still
alive.
The sound of voices moved closer.
From her prone position in the
rock alcove, Larra could see nothing.
The speakers were below her on the floor of the valley that she and
Rupali had fled. The language
being spoken was somehow familiar, and yet beyond her
understanding. For several minutes
all Larra could hear was animated conversation and then there was the sound
of cautious, almost hesitant footsteps.
A brown face appeared just at her line of
vision. Dark eyes in an equally
dark face peered at her; the expression on the face was one of fear and
wonder. Almost immediately the
face disappeared. There was hurried
conversation below her and then the face was back
again, accompanied by several more.
Six brown-skimmed men wearing only loincloths
stood on the stop step. All of
them appeared fearful and two of them even went to their
knees. Too weak to respond, Larra
could merely stare and wonder.
Larra recognized a little about
them. They appeared to be Indian
and the language they were speaking certainly resembled Indian languages
she had heard, but she could understand nothing of what they
said. She suspected it was one
of the many languages that were spoken in the Indian subcontinent, although
how it came to be spoken in the wilds of
For a minute or so the six men stood and
talked. Clearly from their
expressions and gestures the conversation was about her and
Rupali. The conversation for
the most part was calm, without any sense of anger or
animosity. For this Larra was
grateful. She and Rupali were
completely at the mercy of the six men who had discovered
them.
Whatever the subject of their conversation
they finally seemed to reach a
conclusion. Two of the men remained,
sitting themselves close by, although making no other
move. The other four ducked back
down the steps. Below, Larra
could hear more hurried conversation and some activity as of people
leaving. Then a minute later
one of the four men reappeared carrying a
gourd. He hesitatingly moved
next to Larra and knelt. Almost
reverently he held the gourd to her lips.
Larra
drank. In spite of the fact that
she and Rupali had almost drowned she was quite thirsty, but even more she
needed clothing. Her body was
still quite chilled and desperately needed something to warm
her. The man holding the bottle
seemed to sense this, because he turned and said something to one of the
other men and gestured toward them.
There was a hurried discussion with the other man shaking his head,
but the man who had helped them stood up.
He appeared insistent.
Finally the other man nodded.
He shouted something and several other men
appeared. There were now ten
men crowded into the alcove.
Larra could not help being
apprehensive. She and Rupali
were completely at the mercy of the dozen or so men who had found them, and
the fact that so far they had offered no harm, did not mean they
wouldn’t. Her fears increased
when several of the men closed about her.
Immediate thoughts of rape and brutality flooded her mind, and she
would have fought if she was not so close to fainting from
exposure.
Rupali moaned as she was picked
up. Five men carried each of
them, distributing their weight evenly.
One supported Larra’s shoulders and head; two others took her
arms and torso; and the last two held her
legs. It was apparent that they
were trying to be as gentle as possible and Larra’s fears died somewhat,
but she still couldn’t help feeling somewhat
fearful.
She was brought out into the bright
sunlight. This time the tropical
heat was more than welcome.
Although it was still only midmorning the temperatures would have
been oppressive, but now Larra welcomed the
heat. To her immense relief the
men holding her stretched her out on a sun-warmed
stone. As the heat flowed into
her body she felt her strength slowly
returning. She would have preferred
a blanket to being stretched out nude on a large boulder surrounded by more
than a dozen brown-skinned men, but at least they kept a respectful
distance. And then she saw something
that chilled her.
“My god,” she
thought. “I took shelter
on the lap of Ganesh!”
Above her in the alcove where she had taken
shelter was a large statue of the Hindu
god. It was in a sitting position,
its legs crossed so that its lap formed the area where she and Rupali had
curled up to avoid being drowned.
There was no mistaking the idol.
The elephant head with its single tusk; and the four arms each with
a different Hindu motif, were clear indicators of the Hindu
god.
“If I have offended these people by
desecrating their god, goodness knows what they will do to me,” Larra
thought. Her spirits died as
she realized that in attempting to escape from the prince she might have
placed herself and Rupali in even greater
danger. And it was all due to
an innocent mistake. Rupali moaned
as the warm sun revived her, but Larra’s eyes were on the men around
her. As Rupali groaned again
the ring of men began to close.
Larra’s heart leapt into her
throat. Helpless and surrounded
by an overwhelming number of enemies she and Rupali faced a fearsome ordeal.
She tried to control her fear
and then the men’s hands were on her body once
again. As she was lifted from
the rock she struck out in terror.
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