By this time even the appearance of a monkey is enough to cause consternation, if not strike terror, in the hearts of the demon citizens of Longka.  So when Ongkot comes to the main gate of the city, the watchmen in the twin towers raise the alarm and the great doors are swung to and bolted against him.  From the ramparts above the moat the demon rabble raises up a clamor of curses, cries and imprecations so deafening that the very kites wheel higher in alarm.  Standing on the causeway across the moat, looking up at the crowded ramparts, his intelligent face registering contempt and disgust at the hullabaloo raised by the demons, Ongkot waits until he can be heard and then shouts up :

"I am the ambassador of the god Narai: my duty is to speak with your master, the ten-headed King Totsagan."  But this speech is wasted, for the demons either fail to understand him of refuse to believe his words, and neither deliver his message nor open the gates.

Ongkot waits until his patience is exhausted.  Then he murmurs a spell to himself.  Immediately, his body begins to grow and continues until he is so huge that he can blot out the light of the sun with his hands.  A premature twilight settles over Longka.  The birds go to roost and the bats sally forth from their caves.

Interrupted in his affairs of state by this phenomenon, Totsagan sends to learn the reason for the darkness.  The reply comes that the cause is a monkey colossus named Ongkot who demands to speak to him.  At the word Ongkot, the darkness strikes through to the king's soul.  This is the monkey, born of his own wife Monto, who has already brought him misery, humiliation and loss.  With a sense of deep foreboding, he orders that the envoy be admitted and instructs his wife to prepare a banquet worthy of one who is the ambassador of Phra Narai.

The beautiful Nang Monto obeys him, her heart sad with the certainty that this meeting must end badly for either her husband or her son.

Totsagan's courtesies to the envoy have come too late, however.  Incensed beyond endurance at the delay and enraged by the taunts of the demons on the walls, the hot-tempered Ongkot throws patience and protocol to the wind and breaks in the main door.  Striking aside the guard and putting the demon citizens to flight before him, the masterful monkey strides through the streets until he comes to the palace.  Without waiting to be announced he stalks through the apartments until he comes to the audience chamber, where Totsagan is still preparing to receive him.

Without ceremony, without salutation, the angry monkey strides to the throne.  Seeing that no stool has been brought for him, he enlarges his tail, coils it beneath him, and thus raised to the level of the enthroned king, sits himself upon it.

Surprised and angry, and yet restraining his emotions, Totsagan gently reprimands the ambassador.

"How is it that you neglect the courtesies customary when dealing with a king?" he asks.  "Speak, my good monkey.

"Monkey I am indeed, O king, but of a royal and divine line," Ongkot replies.  "This being so, it is I who should complain of courtesies denied.  But rather then waste words, I take action to raise myself to the level of a king, as is my right."  And before Totsagan can reply to this rude speech, Ongkot produces a palm leaf, on which the terms of his mission are set forth, and from it reads Phra Narai's message:

"The Great Discus Maha Jakri, the Lord of the Bird Krut, the King and God, sends his Ambassador the Prince Ongkot to Totsagan, the King of the Demons.  The subject of this embassy is the divine Lady Lakshmi, whom the great and powerful Lord Totsagan did seize from her master and wrongfully abduct to his kingdom beyond the ocean.  Lord Totsagan is required to return this lady to the feet of her master, the divine king, Phra Ram Jakri."

Hearing this, Totsagan grinds his teeth.  "How am I to understand this?" he shouts.  "Who here is accused of abduction?  Look about this court and ask here who needs to steal, abduct or otherwise wrongfully acquire a wife."  At the thought of Nang Seeda and all that she means to him, Totsagan's self-possession deserts him.  With mounting anger, he leans from his dais to glare at Ongkot.  "What is it you mean, monkey?  Or perhaps it is more apposite to demand what it is you are doing at this court with your silly tale.  There was a happy time not long ago when there were so few of your kind that one could pass from one end of the kingdom to the other without so much as seeing a monkey.  Now it seems that the whole world teems with vermin.  Even here to my court they come, first the insolent Hanuman, and now, even worse, a ruffian of your sort."

"Release the lady and 'vermin' will no longer trouble you," says Ongkot, his temper rising again at the sting of the insults.

"Never !" says Totsagan decisively, "I found the lady weeping and unprotected in the wild forest.  Out of charity I extended to her my protection and I shall continue to hold her by right."

"So be it," says Ongkot.  "Your stubbornness means the end of the demons.  We have already rid the world of a number of your brothers, and soon, with the power vested in us by the gods, we shall complete the business."

At the reminder of these recent losses, Totsagan's faces darken.  "Yes. Out in the forest you were able to murder my brothers," he says.  "But the taking of a fortified and defended city is altogether another matter.  Before Longka's armies, the two little men, your masters, and their monkey rabble, will be put to flight like spray before the wind.

"So you say," counters Ongkot.  "But you would be wiser to remember that Phra Ram and Phra Lak are born on earth expressly to kill you and the whole demon brood."

"A child's tale, and you believe it," Totsagan taunts the envoy.  "Demons defeated by lesser breeds like the monkeys.  Do you hear this?"  Totsagan turns to the demons about the chamber with a sneer so that the entire assembly bursts into mocking laughter, and the chamber rings with the harsh sound.

Almost blind with rage, Ongkot allows the laughter to die down.  Then in a quiet, controlled voice, and yet with a clarity that carries to the furthest doors of the chamber, he says:

"Perhaps it was a dream I had when I was a youth, merely a dream that my father King Palee captured a giant crab that lay waiting in a stream to seize his son.  Perhaps I only dreamed that the crab reassumed the form of a ten-headed king, and as such was given a merciless whipping and then allowed to drag himself back to Longka in shame.  But was it only my dream, great king, or did you share in it too?  Is it possible that . . ."

But Totsagan can stand no more of this quiet voice that with every word lays open the scars across his back.  Leaping to his feet, he screams, "Seize him ! Slit his throat ! Cut out his tongue!"

And the rest of the words are drowned by the shout of the demons as they start for ward to lay hold of the insolent envoy.