Title: Queen Of The Black CoastAuthor: Robert E. Howard* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0600961.txtEdition: 1Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bitDate first posted: May 2006Date most recently updated: May 2006This eBook was produced by: Richard Scott and Colin ChoatProject Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.auQUEEN OF THE BACK COAST1 Conan Joins the PiratesBelieve green buds awaken in the spring,  That autumn paints the leaves with somber fire;Believe I held my heart inviolate  To lavish on one man my hot desire.                        The Song of BelitHoofs drummed down the street that sloped to the wharfs. The folk thatyelled and scattered had only a fleeting glimpse of a mailed figure ona black stallion, a wide scarlet cloak flowing out on the wind. Far upthe street came the shout and clatter of pursuit, but the horseman didnot look back. He swept out onto the wharfs and jerked the plungingstallion back on its haunches at the very lip of the pier. Seamengaped up at him, as they stood to the sweep and striped sail of ahigh-prowed, broadwaisted galley. The master, sturdy and black-bearded, stood in the bows, easing her away from the piles with aboat-hook. He yelled angrily as the horseman sprang from the saddleand with a long leap landed squarely on the mid-deck."Who invited you aboard?""Get under way!" roared the intruder with a fierce gesture thatspattered red drops from his broadsword."But we're bound for the coasts of Kush!" expostulated the master."Then I'm for Kush! Push off, I tell you!" The other cast a quickglance up the street, along which a squad of horsemen were galloping;far behind them toiled a group of archers, crossbows on theirshoulders."Can you pay for your passage?" demanded the master."I pay my way with steel!" roared the man in armor, brandishing thegreat sword that glittered bluely in the sun. "By Crom, yin, if youdon't get under way, I'll drench this galley in the blood of itscrew!"The shipmaster was a good judge of men. One glance at the irk scarredface of the swordsman, hardened with passion, and he shouted a quickorder, thrusting strongly against the piles. The galley wallowed outinto clear water, the oars began to clack rhythmically; then a puff ofwind filled the shimmering sail, the light ship heeled to the gust,then took her course like a swan, gathering headway as she skimmedalong.On the wharfs the riders were shaking their swords and shoutingthreats and commands that the ship put about, and yelling for thebowmen to hasten before the craft was out of arbalest range."Let them rave," grinned the swordsman hardily. "Do you keep her onher course, master steersman."The master descended from the small deck between the bows, made hisway between the rows of oarsmen, and mounted the mid-deck. Thestranger stood there with his back to the mast, eyes narrowed alertly,sword ready. The shipman eyed him steadily, careful not to make anymove toward the long knife in his belt. He saw a tall powerfully builtfigure in a black scalemail hauberk, burnished greaves and a blue-steel helmet from which jutted bull's horns highly polished. From themailed shoulders fell the scarlet cloak, blowing in the sea-wind. Abroad shagreen belt with a golden buckle held the scabbard of thebroadsword he bore. Under the horned helmet a square-cut black manecontrasted with smoldering blue eyes."If we must travel together," said the master, "we may as well be atpeace with each other. My name is Tito, licensed mastershipman of theports of Argos. I am bound for Kush, to trade beads and silks andsugar and brass-hilted swords to the black kings for ivory, copra,copper ore, slaves and pearls."The swordsman glanced back at the rapidly receding docks, where thefigures still gesticulated helplessly, evidently having trouble infinding a boat swift enough to overhaul the fast-sailing galley."I am Conan, a Cimmerian," he answered. "I came into Argos seekingemployment, but with no wars forward, there was nothing to which Imight turn my hand.""Why do the guardsman pursue you?" asked Tito. "Not that it's any ofmy business, but I thought perhaps-""I've nothing to conceal," replied the Cimmerian. "By Crom, thoughI've spent considerable time among you civilized peoples, your waysare still beyond my comprehension."Well, last night in a tavern, a captain in the king's guard offeredviolence to the sweetheart of a young soldier, who naturally ran himthrough. But it seems there is some cursed law against killingguardsmen, and the boy and his girl fled away. It was bruited aboutthat I was seen with them, and so today I was haled into court, and ajudge asked me where the lad had gone. I replied that since he was afriend of mine, I could not betray him. Then the court waxed wrath,and the judge talked a great deal about my duty to the state, andsociety, and other things I did not understand, and bade me tell wheremy friend had flown. By this time I was becoming wrathful myself, forI had explained my position."But I choked my ire and held my peace, and the judge squalled that Ihad shown contempt for the court, and that I should be hurled into adungeon to rot until I betrayed my friend. So then, seeing they wereall mad, I drew my sword and cleft the judge's skull; then I cut myway out of the court, and seeing the high constable's stallion tiednear by, I rode for the wharfs, where I thought to find a ship boundfor foreign parts.""Well," said Tito hardily, "the courts have fleeced me too often insuits with rich merchants for me to owe them any love. I'll havequestions to answer if I ever anchor in that port again, but I canprove I acted under compulsion. You may as well put up your sword.We're peaceable sailors, and have nothing against you. Besides, it'sas well to have a fighting-man like yourself on board. Come up to thepoop-deck and we'll have a tankard of ale.""Good enough," readily responded the Cimmerian, sheathing his sword.The Argus was a small sturdy ship, typical of those trading-craftwhich ply between the ports of Zingara and Argos and the southerncoasts, hugging the shoreline and seldom venturing far into the openocean. It was high of stern, with a tall curving prow; broad in thewaist, sloping beautifully to stem and stern. It was guided by thelong sweep from the poop, and propulsion was furnished mainly by thebroad striped silk sail, aided by a jibsail. The oars were for use intacking out of creeks and bays, and during calms. There were ten tothe side, five fore and five aft of the small mid-deck. The mostprecious part of the cargo was lashed under this deck, and under thefore-deck. The men slept on deck or between the rowers' benches,protected in bad weather by canopies. With twenty men at the oars,three at the sweep, and the shipmaster, the crew was complete.So the Argus pushed steadily southward, with consistently fairweather. The sun beat down from day to day with fiercer heat, and thecanopies were run up--striped silken cloths that matched theshimmering sail and the shining goldwork on the prow and along thegunwales.They sighted the coast of Shem--long rolling meadowlands with thewhite crowns of the towers of cities in the distance, and horsemenwith blue-black beards and hooked noses, who sat their steeds alongthe shore and eyed the galley with suspicion. She did not put in;there was scant profit in trade with the sons of Shem.Nor did master Tito pull into the broad bay where the Styx riveremptied its gigantic flood into the ocean, and the massive blackcastles of Khemi loomed over the blue waters. Ships did not putunasked into this port, where dusky sorcerers wove awful spells in themurk of sacrificial smoke mounting eternally from blood-stained altarswhere naked women screamed, and where Set, the Old Serpent, arch-demonof the Hyborians but god of the Stygians, was said to writhe hisshining coils among his worshippers.Master Tito gave that dreamy glass-floored bay a wide berth, even whena serpent-prowed gondola shot from behind a castellated point of land,and naked dusky women, with great red blossoms in their hair, stoodand called to his sailors, and posed and postured brazenly.Now no more shining towers rose inland. They had passed the southernborders of Stygia and were cruising along the coasts of Kush. The seaand the ways of the sea were neverending mysteries to Conan, whosehomeland was among the high hills of the northern uplands. Thewanderer was no less of interest to the sturdy seamen, few of whom hadever seen one of his race.They were characteristic Argosean sailors, short and stockily built.Conan towered above them, and no two of them could match his strength.They were hardy and robust, but his was the endurance and vitality ofa wolf, his thews steeled and his nerves whetted by the hardness ofhis life in the world's wastelands. He was quick to laugh, quick andterrible in his wrath. He was a valiant trencherman, and strong drinkwas a passion and a weakness with him. Naive as a child in many ways,unfamiliar with the sophistry of civilization, he was naturallyintelligent, jealous of his rights, and dangerous as a hungry tiger.Young in years, he was hardened in warfare and wandering, and hissojourns in many lands were evident in his apparel. His horned helmetwas such as was worn by the golden-haired AEsir of Nordheim; hishauberk and greaves were of the finest workmanship of Koth; the finering-mail which sheathed his arms and legs was of Nemedia; the bladeat his girdle was a great Aquilonian broadsword; and his gorgeousscarlet cloak could have been spun nowhere but in Ophir.So they beat southward, and master Tito began to look for the high-walled villages of the black people. But they found only smoking ruinson the shore of a bay, littered with naked black bodies. Tito swore."I had good trade here, aforetime. This is the work of pirates.""And if we meet them?" Conan loosened his great blade in its scabbard."Mine is no warship. We run, not fight. Yet if it came to a pinch, wehave beaten off reavers before, and might do it again; unless it wereBelit's Tigress.""Who is Belit?""The wildest she-devil unhanged. Unless I read the signs awrong, itwas her butchers who destroyed that village on the bay. May I some daysee her dangling from the yard-arm! She is called the queen of theblack coast. She is a Shemite woman, who leads black raiders. Theyharry the shipping and have sent many a good tradesman to the bottom."From under the poop-deck Tito brought out quilted jerkins, steel caps,bows and arrows."Little use to resist if we're run down," he grunted. "But it raspsthe soul to give up life without a struggle."It was just at sunrise when the lookout shouted a warning. Around thelong point of an island off the starboard bow glided a long lethalshape, a slender serpentine galley, with a raised deck that ran fromstem to stern. Forty oars on each side drove her swiftly through thewater, and the low rail swarmed with naked blacks that chanted andclashed spears on oval shields. From the masthead floated a longcrimson pennon."Belit!" yelled Tito, paling. "Yare! Put her about! Into that creek-mouth! If we can beach her before they run us down, we have a chanceto escape with our lives!"So, veering sharply, the Argus ran for the line of surf that boomedalong the palm-fringed shore, Tito striding back and forth, exhortingthe panting rowers to greater efforts. The master's black beardbristled, his eyes glared."Give me a bow," requested Conan. "It's not my idea of a manly weapon,but I learned archery among the Hyrkanians, and it will go hard if Ican't feather a man or so on yonder deck."Standing on the poop, he watched the serpent-like ship skimminglightly over the waters, and landsman though he was, it was evident tohim that the Argus would never win that race. Already arrows, archingfrom the pirate's deck, were falling with a hiss into the sea, nottwenty paces astern."We'd best stand to it," growled the Cimmerian; "else we'll all diewith shafts in our backs, and not a blow dealt.""Bend to it, dogs!" roared Tito with a passionate gesture of hisbrawny fist. The bearded rowers grunted, heaved at the oars, whiletheir muscles coiled and knotted, and sweat started out on theirhides. The timbers of the stout little galley creaked and groaned asthe men fairly ripped her through the water. The wind had fallen; thesail hung limp. Nearer crept the inexorable raiders, and they werestill a good mile from the surf when one of the steersmen fell gaggingacross a sweep, a long arrow through his neck. Tito sprang to take hisplace, and Conan, bracing his feet wide on the heaving poop-deck,lifted his bow. He could see the details of the pirate plainly now.The rowers were protected by a line of raised mantelets along thesides, but the warriors dancing on the narrow deck were in full view.These were painted and plumed, and mostly naked, brandishing spearsand spotted shields.On the raised platform in the bows stood a slim figure whose whiteskin glistened in dazzling contrast to the glossy ebon hides about it.Belit, without a doubt. Conan drew the shaft to his ear--then somewhim or qualm stayed his hand and sent the arrow through the body of atall plumed spearman beside her.Hand over hand the pirate galley was overhauling the lighter ship.Arrows fell in a rain about the Argus, and men cried out. All thesteersmen were down, pincushioned, and Tito was handling the massivesweep alone, gasping black curses, his braced legs knots of strainingthews. Then with a sob he sank down, a long shaft quivering in hissturdy heart. The Argus lost headway and rolled in the swell. The menshouted in confusion, and Conan took command in characteristicfashion."Up, lads!" he roared, loosing with a vicious twang of cord. "Grabyour steel and give these dogs a few knocks before they cut ourthroats! Useless to bend your backs any more: they'll board us ere wecan row another fifty paces!"In desperation the sailors abandoned their oars and snatched up theirweapons. It was valiant, but useless. They had time for one flight ofarrows before the pirate was upon them. With no one at the sweep, theArgus rolled broadside, and the steel-baked prow of the raider crashedinto her amidships. Grappling-irons crunched into the side. From thelofty gunwales, the black pirates drove down a volley of shafts thattore through the quilted jackets of the doomed sailormen, then sprangdown spear in hand to complete the slaughter. On the deck of thepirate lay half a dozen bodies, an earnest of Conan's archery.The fight on the Argus was short and bloody. The stocky sailors, nomatch for the tall barbarians, were cut down to a man. Elsewhere thebattle had taken a peculiar turn. Conan, on the high-pitched poop, wason a level with the pirate's deck. As the steel prow slashed into theArgus, he braced himself and kept his feet under the shock, castingaway his bow. A tall corsair, bounding over the rail, was met inmidair by the Cimmerian's great sword, which sheared him cleanlythrough the torso, so that his body fell one way and his legs another.Then, with a burst of fury that left a heap of mangled corpses alongthe gunwales, Conan was over the rail and on the deck of the Tigress.In an instant he was the center of a hurricane of stabbing spears andlashing clubs. But he moved in a blinding blur of steel. Spears benton his armor or swished empty air, and his sword sang its death-song.The fighting-madness of his race was upon him, and with a red mist ofunreasoning fury wavering before his blazing eyes, he cleft skulls,smashed breasts, severed limbs, ripped out entrails, and littered thedeck like a shambles with a ghastly harvest of brains and blood.Invulnerable in his armor, his back against the mast, he heapedmangled corpses at his feet until his enemies gave back panting inrage and fear. Then as they lifted their spears to cast them, and hetensed himself to leap and die in the midst of them, a shrill cryfroze the lifted arms. They stood like statues, the black giantspoised for the spearcasts, the mailed swordsman with his drippingblade.Befit sprang before the blacks, beating down their spears. She turnedtoward Conan, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing. Fierce fingers ofwonder caught at his heart. She was slender, yet formed like agoddess: at once lithe and voluptuous. Her only garment was a broadsilken girdle. Her white ivory limbs and the ivory globes of herbreasts drove a beat of fierce passion through the Cimmerian's pulse,even in the panting fury of battle. Her rich black hair, black as aStygian night, fell in rippling burnished clusters down her suppleback. Her dark eyes burned on the Cimmerian.She was untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she-panther. She came close to him, heedless of his great blade, drippingwith blood of her warriors. Her supple thigh brushed against it, soclose she came to the tall warrior. Her red lips parted as she staredup into his somber menacing eyes."Who are you?" she demanded. "By Ishtar, I have never seen your like,though I have ranged the sea from the coasts of Zingara to the firesof the ultimate south. Whence come you?""From Argos," he answered shortly, alert for treachery. Let her slimhand move toward the jeweled dagger in her girdle, and a buffet of hisopen hand would stretch her senseless on the deck. Yet in his heart hedid not fear; he had held too many women, civilized or barbaric, inhis iron-Chewed arms, not to recognize the light that burned in theeyes of this one."You are no soft Hyborian!" she exclaimed. "You are fierce and hard asa gray wolf. Those eyes were never dimmed by city lights; those thewswere never softened by life amid marble walls.""I am Conan, a Cimmerian," he answered.To the people of the exotic climes, the north was a mazy half-mythicalrealm, peopled with ferocious blue-eyed giants who occasionallydescended from their icy fastnesses with torch and sword. Their raidshad never taken them as far south as Shem, and this daughter of Shemmade no distinction between AEsir, Vanir or Cimmerian. With theunerring instinct of the elemental feminine, she knew she had foundher lover, and his race meant naught, save as it invested him with theglamor of far lands."And I am Belit," she cried, as one might say, "I am queen.""Look at me, Conan!" She threw wide her arms. "I am Belit, queen ofthe black coast. Oh, tiger of the North, you are cold as the snowymountains which bred you. Take me and crush me with your fierce love!Go with me to the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am aqueen by fire and steel and slaughter--be thou my king!"His eyes swept the blood-stained ranks, seeking expressions of wrathor jealousy. He saw none. The fury was gone from the ebon faces. Herealized that to these men Belit was more than a woman: a goddesswhose will was unquestioned. He glanced at the Argus, wallowing in thecrimson sea-wash, heeling far over, her decks awash, held up by thegrappling-irons. He glanced at the blue-fringed shore, at the fargreen hazes of the ocean, at the vibrant figure which stood beforehim; and his barbaric soul stirred within him. To quest these shiningblue realms with that white-skinned young tiger-cat--to love, laugh,wander and pillage--"I'll sail with you," he grunted, shaking the reddrops from his blade."Ho, N'Yaga!" her voice twanged like a bowstring. "Fetch herbs anddress your master's wounds! The rest of you bring aboard the plunderand cast off."As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shamanattended to the cuts on his hands and limbs, the cargo of the ill-fated Argus was quickly shifted aboard the Tigress and stored in smallcabins below deck. Bodies of the crew and of fallen pirates were castoverboard to the swarming sharks, while wounded blacks were laid inthe waist to be bandaged. Then the grappling-irons were cast off, andas the Argus sank silently into the blood-flecked waters, the Tigressmoved off southward to the rhythmic clack of the oars.As they moved out over the glassy blue deep, Belit came to the poop.Her eyes were burning like those of a she-panther in the dark as shetore off her ornaments, her sandals and her silken girdle and castthem at his feet. Rising on tiptoe, arms stretched upward, a quiveringline of naked white, she cried to the desperate horde: "Wolves of theblue sea, behold ye now the dance--the mating-dance of Belit, whosefathers were kings of Askalon!"And she danced, like the spin of a desert whirlwind, like the leapingof a quenchless flame, like the urge of creation and the urge ofdeath. Her white feet spurned the blood-stained deck and dying menforgot death as they gazed frozen at her. Then, as the white starsglimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body ablur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet,and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away ashe crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseletedbreast.2 The Black LotusIn that dead citadel of crumbling stone. Her eyes were snared by that unholy sheen,And curious madness took me by the throat, As of a rival lover thrust between.                 The Song of BelitThe Tigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tomtomsbeat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had founda mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. Andsurvivors of butchered Stygian ships named Belit with curses, and awhite warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes rememberedthis man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which borecrimson fruit in the years to come.But heedless as a vagrant wind, the Tigress cruised the southerncoasts, until she anchored at the mouth of a broad sullen river, whosebanks were jungle-clouded walls of mystery."This is the river Zarkheba, which is Death," said Belit. "Its watersare poisonous. See how dark and murky they run? Only venomous reptileslive in that river. The black people shun it. Once a Stygian galley,fleeing from me, fled up the river and vanished. I anchored in thisvery spot, and days later, the galley came floating down the darkwaters, its decks blood-stained and deserted. Only one man was onboard, and he was mad and died gibbering. The cargo was intact, butthe crew had vanished into silence and mystery."My lover, I believe there is a city somewhere on that river. I haveheard tales of giant towers and walls glimpsed afar off by sailors whodared go part-way up the river. We fear nothing: Conan, let us go andsack that city."Conan agreed. He generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind thatdirected their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas. Itmattered little to him where they sailed or whom they fought, so longas they sailed and fought. He found the life good.Battle and raid had thinned their crew; only some eighty spear-menremained, scarcely enough to work the long galley. But Beliit wouldnot take the time to make the long cruise southward to the islandkingdoms where she recruited her buccaneers. She was afire witheagerness for her latest venture; so the Tigress swung into the rivermouth, the oarsmen pulling strongly as she breasted the broad current.They rounded the mysterious bend that shut out the sight of the sea,and sunset found them forging steadily against the sluggish flow,avoiding sandbars where strange reptiles coiled. Not even a crocodiledid they see, nor any fourlegged beast or winged bird coming down tothe water's edge to drink. On through the blackness that precededmoonrise they drove, between banks that were solid palisades ofdarkness, whence came mysterious rustlings and stealthy footfalls, andthe gleam of grim eyes. And once an inhuman voice was lifted in awfulmockery the cry of an ape, Belit said, adding that the souls of evilmen were imprisoned in these man-like animals as punishment for pastcrimes. But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in anHyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men toldhim was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniacmalevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed fromthe black jungle.Then the moon rose, a splash of blood, ebony-barred, and the jungleawoke in horrific bedlam to greet it. Roars and howls and yells setthe black warriors to trembling, but all this noise, Conan noted, camefrom farther back in the jungle, as if the beasts no less than menshunned the black waters of Zarkheba.Rising above the black denseness of the trees and above the wavingfronds, the moon silvered the river, and their wake became a ripplingscintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shiningroad of bursting jewels. The oars dipped into the shining water andcame up sheathed in frosty silver. The plumes on the warrior's head-piece nodded in the wind, and the gems on sword-hilts and harnesssparkled frostily.The cold light struck icy fire from the jewels in Wit's clusteredblack locks as she stretched her lithe figure on a leopardskin thrownon the deck. Supported on her elbows, her chin resting on her slimhands, she gazed up into the face of Conan, who lounged beside her,his black mane stirring in the faint breeze. Belit's eyes were darkjewels burning in the moonlight."Mystery and terror are about us, Conan, and we glide into the realmof horror and death," she said. "Are you afraid?"A shrug of his mailed shoulders was his only answer."I am not afraid either," she said meditatively. "I was never afraid.I have looked into the naked fangs of Death too often. Conan, do youfear the gods?""I would not tread on their shadow," answered the barbarianconservatively. "Some gods are strong to harm, others, to aid; atleast so say their priests. Mitra of the Hyborians must be a stronggod, because his people have builded their cities over the world. Buteven the Hyborians fear Set. And Bel, god of thieves, is a good god.When I was a thief in Zamora I learned of him.""What of your own gods? I have never heard you call on them.""Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to callon him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent thanto call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! Heis grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive andslay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?""But what of the worlds beyond the river of death?" she persisted."There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people,"answered Conan. "In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, findingpleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their soulsenter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wandercheerlessly throughout eternity."Belit shuddered. "Life, bad as it is, is better than such a destiny.What do you believe, Conan?"He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies themis as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death.It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom'srealm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of theNordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deepwhile I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stingingwine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultationof battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content.Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions ofreality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am noless an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live,I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.""But the gods are real," she said, pursuing her own line of thought."And above all are the gods of the Shemites--Ishtar and Ashtoreth andDerketo and Adonis. Bel, too, is Shemitish, for he was born in ancientShumir, long, long ago and went forth laughing, with curled beard andimpish wise eyes, to steal the gems of the kings of old times.""There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan ofCimmeria--" she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in apantherish embrace--"my love is stronger than any death! I have lainin your arms, panting with the violence of our love; you have held andcrushed and conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with thefierceness of your bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart,my soul is part of your soul! Were I still in death and you fightingfor life, I would come back from the abyss to aid you--aye, whether myspirit floated with the purple sails on the crystal sea of paradise,or writhed in the molten flames of hell! I am yours, and all the godsand all their eternities shall not sever us!"A scream rang from the lookout in the bows. Thrusting Belit aside,Conan bounded up, his sword a long silver glitter in the moonlight,his hair bristling at what he saw. The black warrior dangled above thedeck, supported by what seemed a dark pliant tree trunk arching overthe rail. Then he realized that it was a gigantic serpent which hadwrithed its glistening length up the side of the bow and gripped theluckless warrior in its jaws. Its dripping scales shone leprously inthe moonlight as it reared its form high above the deck, while thestricken man screamed and writhed like a mouse in the fangs of apython. Conan rushed into the bows, and swinging his great sword,hewed nearly through the giant trunk, which was thicker than a man'sbody. Blood drenched the rails as the dying monster swayed far out,still gripping its victim, and sank into the river, coil by coil,lashing the water to bloody foam, in which man and reptile vanishedtogether.Thereafter Conan kept the lookout watch himself, but no other horrorcame crawling up from the murky depths, and as dawn whitened over thejungle, he sighted the black fangs of towers jutting up among thetrees. He called Belit, who slept on the deck, wrapped in his scarletcloak; and she sprang to his side, eyes blazing. Her lips were partedto call orders to her warriors to take up bow and spears; then herlovely eyes widened.It was but the ghost of a city on which they looked when they cleareda jutting jungle-clad point and swung in toward the incurving shore.Weeds and rank river grass grew between the stones of broken piers andshattered paves that had once been streets anal spacious plazas andbroad courts. From all sides except that toward the river, the junglecrept in, masking fallen columns and crumbling mounds with poisonousgreen. Here and there buckling towers reeled drunkenly against themorning sky, and broken pillars jutted up among the decaying walls. Inthe center space a marble pyramid was spired by a slim column, and onits pinnacle sat or squatted something that Conan supposed to be animage until his keen eyes detected life in it."It is a great bird," said one of the warriors, standing in the bows."It is a monster bat," insisted another."It is an ape," said Belit.Just then the creature spread broad wings and flapped off into thejungle."A winged ape," said old N'Yaga uneasily. "Better we had cut ourthroats than come to this place. It is haunted."Belit mocked at his superstitions and ordered the galley run inshoreand tied to the crumbling wharfs. She was the first to spring ashore,closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinnedpirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyesrolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.Over all brooded a silence as sinister as that of a sleeping serpent.Belit posed picturesquely among the ruins, the vibrant life in herlithe figure contrasting strangely with the desolation and decay abouther. The sun flamed up slowly, sullenly, above the jungle, floodingthe towers with a dull gold that left shadows lurking beneath thetottering walls. Belit pointed to a slim round tower that reeled onits rotting base. A broad expanse of cracked, grass-grown slabs led upto it, flanked by fallen columns, and before it stood a massive altar.Belit went swiftly along the ancient floor and stood before it."This was the temple of the old ones," she said. "Look--you can seethe channels for the blood along the sides of the altar, and the rainsof ten thousand years have not washed the dark stains from them. Thewalls have all fallen away, but this stone block defies time and theelements.""But who were these old ones?" demanded Conan.She spread her slim hands helplessly. "Not even in legendary is thiscity mentioned. But look at the handholes at either end of the altar!Priests often conceal their treasures beneath their altars. Four ofyou lay hold and see if you can lift it."She stepped back to make room for them, glancing up at the tower whichloomed drunkenly above them. Three of the strongest blacks had grippedthe handholes cut into the stone curiously unsuited to human hands--when Belit sprang back with a sharp cry. They froze in their places,and Conan, bending to aid them, wheeled with a startled curse."A snake in the grass," she said, backing away. "Come and slay it; therest of you bend your backs to the stone."Conan came quickly toward her, another taking his place. As heimpatiently scanned the grass for the reptile, the giant blacks bracedtheir feet, grunted and heaved with their huge muscles coiling andstraining under their ebon skin. The altar did not come off theground, but it revolved suddenly on its side. And simultaneously therewas a grinding rumble above and the tower came crashing down, coveringthe four black men with broken masonry.A cry of horror rose from their comrades. Belit's slim fingers duginto Conan's arm-muscles. "There was no serpent," she whispered. "Itwas but a ruse to call you away. I feared; the old ones guarded theirtreasure well. Let us clear away the stones."With herculean labor they did so, and lifted out the mangled bodies ofthe four men. And under them, stained with their blood, the piratesfound a crypt carved in the solid stone. The altar, hinged curiouslywith stone rods and sockets on one side, had served as its lid. And atfirst glance the crypt seemed brimming with liquid fire, catching theearly light with a million blazing facets. Undreamable wealth laybefore the eyes of the gaping pirates; diamonds, rubies, bloodstones,sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, opals, emeralds, amethysts, unknowngems that shone like the eyes of evil women. The crypt was filled tothe brim with bright stones that the morning sun struck into lambentflame.With a cry Wit dropped to her knees among the bloodstained rubble onthe brink and thrust her white arms shoulder-deep into that pool ofsplendor. She withdrew them, clutching something that brought anothercry to her lips--a long string of crimson stones that were like clotsof frozen blood strung on a thick gold wire. In their glow the goldensunlight changed to bloody haze.Belit's eyes were like a woman's in a trance. The Shemite soul finds abright drunkenness in riches and material splendor, and the sight ofthis treasure might have shaken the soul of a sated emperor ofShushan."Take up the jewels, dogs!" her voice was shrill with her emotions."Look!" a muscular black arm stabbed toward the Tigress, and Belitwheeled, her crimson lips a-snarl, as if she expected to see a rivalcorsair sweeping in to despoil her of her plunder. But from thegunwales of the ship a dark shape rose, soaring away over the jungle."The devil-ape has been investigating the ship," muttered the blacksuneasily."What matter?" cried Belit with a curse, raking back a rebellious lockwith an impatient hand. "Make a litter of spears and mantles to bearthese jewels--where the devil are you going?""To look to the galley," grunted Conan. "That bat-thing might haveknocked a hole in the bottom, for all we know."He ran swiftly down the cracked wharf and sprang aboard. A moment'sswift examination below decks, and he swore heartily, casting aclouded glance in the direction the bat-being had vanished. Hereturned hastily to Belit, superintending the plundering of the crypt.She had looped the necklace about her neck, and on her naked whitebosom the red clots glimmered darkly. A huge naked black stood crotch-deep in the jewel-brimming crypt, scooping up great handfuls ofsplendor to pass them to eager hands above. Strings of frozeniridescence hung between his dusky fingers; drops of red fire drippedfrom his hands, piled high with starlight and rainbow. It was as if ablack titan stood straddle-legged in the bright pits of hell, hislifted hands full of stars."That flying devil has staved in the water-casks," said Conan. "If wehadn't been so dazed by these stones we'd have heard the noise. Wewere fools not to have left a man on guard. We can't drink this riverwater. I'll take twenty men and search for fresh water in the jungle."She looked at him vaguely, in her eyes the blank blaze of her strangepassion, her fingers working at the gems on her breast."Very well," she said absently, hardly heeding him. "I'll get the lootaboard."The jungle closed quickly about them, changing the light from gold togray. From the arching green branches creepers dangled like pythons.The warriors fell into single file, creeping through the primordialtwilights like black phantoms following a white ghost.Underbrush was not so thick as Conan had anticipated. The ground wasspongy but not slushy. Away from the river, it sloped graduallyupward. Deeper and deeper they plunged into the green waving depths,and still there was no sign of water, either running stream orstagnant pool. Conan halted suddenly, his warriors freezing intobasaltic statues. In the tense silence that followed, the Cimmerianshook his head irritably."Go ahead," he grunted to a sub-chief, N'Gora. "March straight onuntil you can no longer see me; then stop and wait for me. I believewe're being followed. I heard something."The blacks shuffled their feet uneasily, but did as they were told. Asthey swung onward, Conan stepped quickly behind a great tree, glaringback along the way they had come. From that leafy fastness anythingmight emerge. Nothing occurred; the faint sounds of the marchingspearmen faded in the distance. Conan suddenly realized that the airwas impregnated with an alien and exotic scent. Something gentlybrushed his temple. He turned quickly. From a cluster of green,curiously leafed stalks, great black blossoms nodded at him. One ofthese had touched him. They seemed to beckon him, to arch their pliantstems toward him. They spread and rustled, though no wind blew.He recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, andwhose scent brought dream-haunted slumber. But already he felt asubtle lethargy stealing over him. He sought to lift his sword, to hewdown the serpentine stalks, but his arm hung lifeless at his side. Heopened his mouth to shout to his warriors, but only a faint rattleissued. The next instant, with appalling suddenness, the jungle wavedand dimmed out before his eyes; he did not hear the screams that burstout awfully not far away, as his knees collapsed, letting him pitchlimply to the earth. Above his prostrate form the great black blossomsnodded in the windless air.3 The Horror in the JungleWas it a dream the nighted lotus brought?  Then curst the dream that bought my sluggish life;And curst each laggard hour that does not see  Hot blood drip blackly from the crimsoned knife.                            The Song of BelitFirst there was the blackness of an utter void, with the cold winds ofcosmic space blowing through it. Then shapes, vague, monstrous andevanescent, rolled in dim panorama through the expanse of nothingness,as if the darkness were taking material form. The winds blew and avortex formed, a whirling pyramid of roaring blackness. From it grewShape and Dimension; then suddenly, like clouds dispersing, thedarkness rolled away on either hand and a huge city of dark greenstone rose on the bank of a wide river, flowing through an illimitableplain. Through this city moved beings of alien configuration.Cast in the mold of humanity, they were distinctly not men. They werewinged and of heroic proportions; not a branch on the mysterious stalkof evolution that culminated in man, but the ripe blossom on an alientree, separate and apart from that stalk. Aside from their wings, inphysical appearance they resembled man only as man in his highest formresembles the great apes. In spiritual, esthetic and intellectualdevelopment they were superior to man as man is superior to thegorilla. But when they reared their colossal city, man's primalancestors had not yet risen from the slime of the primordial seas.These beings were mortal, as are all things built of flesh and blood.They lived, loved and died, though the individual span of life wasenormous. Then, after uncounted millions of years, the Change began.The vista shimmered and wavered, like a picture thrown on a windblowncurtain. Over the city and the land the ages flowed as waves flow overa beach, and each wave brought alterations. Somewhere on the planetthe magnetic centers were shifting; the great glaciers and ice-fieldswere withdrawing toward the new poles.The littoral of the great river altered. Plains turned into swampsthat stank with reptilian life. Where fertile meadows had rolled,forests reared up, growing into dank jungles. The changing ageswrought on the inhabitants of the city as well. They did not migrateto fresher lands. Reasons inexplicable to humanity held them to theancient city and their doom. And as that once rich and mighty landsank deeper and deeper into the black mire of the sunless jungle, sointo the chaos of squalling jungle life sank the people of the city.Terrific convulsions shook the earth; the nights were lurid withspouting volcanoes that fringed the dark horizons with red pillars.After an earthquake that shook down the outer walls and highest towersof the city, and caused the river to run black for days with somelethal substance spewed up from the subterranean depths, a frightfulchemical change became apparent in the waters the folk had drunk formillenniums uncountable.Many died who drank of it; and in those who lived, the drinkingwrought change, subtle, gradual and grisly. In adapting themselves tothe changing conditions, they had sunk far below their original level.But the lethal waters altered them even more horribly, from generationto more bestial generation. They who had been winged gods becamepinioned demons, with all that remained of their ancestors' vastknowledge distorted and perverted and twisted into ghastly paths. Asthey had risen higher than mankind might dream, so they sank lowerthan man's maddest nightmares reach. They died fast, by cannibalism,and horrible feuds fought out in the murk of the midnight jungle. Andat last among the lichen-grown ruins of their city only a single shapelurked, a stunted abhorrent perversion of nature.Then for the first time humans appeared: dark-skinned, hawkfaced menin copper and leather harness, bearing bows--the warriors of pre-historic Stygia. There were only fifty of them, and they were haggardand gaunt with starvation and prolonged effort, stained and scratchedwith jungle-wandering, with bloodcrusted bandages that told of fiercefighting. In their minds was a tale of warfare and defeat, and flightbefore a stronger tribe which drove them ever southward, until theylost themselves in the green ocean of jungle and river.Exhausted they lay down among the ruins where red blossoms that bloombut once in a century waved in the full moon, and sleep fell uponthem. And as they slept, a hideous shape crept red-eyed from theshadows and performed weird and awful rites about and above eachsleeper. The moon hung in the shadowy sky, painting the jungle red andblack; above the sleepers glimmered the crimson blossoms, likesplashes of blood. Then the moon went down and the eyes of thenecromancer were red jewels set in the ebony of night.When dawn spread its white veil over the river, there were no men tobe seen: only a hairy winged horror that squatted in the center of aring of fifty great spotted hyenas that pointed quivering muzzles tothe ghastly sky and howled like souls in hell.Then scene followed scene so swiftly that each tripped over the heelsof its predecessor. There was a confusion of movement, a writhing andmelting of lights and shadows, against a background of black jungle,green stone ruins and murky river. Black men came up the river in longboats with skulls grinning on the prows, or stole stooping through thetrees, spear in hand. They fled screaming through the dark from redeyes and slavering fangs. Howls of dying men shook the shadows;stealthy feet padded through the gloom, vampire eyes blazed redly.There were grisly feasts beneath the moon, across whose red disk abatlike shadow incessantly swept.Then abruptly, etched clearly in contrast to these impressionisticglimpses, around the jungled point in the whitening dawn swept a longgalley, thronged with shining ebon figures, and in the bows stood awhite-skinned ghost in blue steel.It was at this point that Conan first realized that he was dreaming.Until that instant he had had no consciousness of individualexistence. But as he saw himself treading the boards of the Tigress,he recognized both the existence and the dream, although he did notawaken.Even as he wondered, the scene shifted abruptly to a jungle gladewhere N'Gora and nineteen black spearmen stood, as if awaitingsomeone. Even as he realized that it was he for whom they waited, ahorror swooped down from the skies and their stolidity was broken byyells of fear. Like men maddened by terror, they threw away theirweapons and raced wildly through the jungle, pressed close by theslavering monstrosity that flapped its wings above them.Chaos and confusion followed this vision, during which Conan feeblystruggled to awake. Dimly he seemed to see himself lying under anodding cluster of black blossoms, while from the bushes a hideousshape crept toward him. With a savage effort he broke the unseen bondswhich held him to his dreams, and started upright.Bewilderment was in the glare he cast about him. Near him swayed thedusky lotus, and he hastened to draw away from it.In the spongy soil near by there was a track as if an animal had putout a foot, preparatory to emerging from the bushes, then hadwithdrawn it. It looked like the spoor of an unbelievably large hyena.He yelled for N'Gora. Primordial silence brooded over the jungle, inwhich his yells sounded brittle and hollow as mockery. He could notsee the sun, but his wilderness-trained instinct told him the day wasnear its end. A panic rose in him at the thought that he had lainsenseless for hours. He hastily followed the tracks of the spearmen,which lay plain in the damp loam before him. They ran in single file,and he soon emerged into a glade--to stop short, the skin crawlingbetween his shoulders as he recognized it as the glade he had seen inhis lotus-drugged dream. Shields and spears lay scattered about as ifdropped in headlong flight.And from the tracks which led out of the glade and deeper into thefastnesses, Conan knew that the spearmen had fled, wildly. Thefootprints overlay one another; they weaved blindly among the trees.And with startling suddenness the hastening Cimmerian came out of thejungle onto a hill-like rock which sloped steeply, to break offabruptly in a sheer precipice forty feet high. And something crouchedon the brink.At first Conan thought it to be a great black gorilla. Then he sawthat it was a giant black man that crouched ape-like, long armsdangling, froth dripping from the loose lips. It was not until, with asobbing cry, the creature lifted huge hands and rushed towards him,that Conan recognized N'Gora. The black man gave no heed to Conan'sshout as he charged, eyes rolled up to display the whites, teethgleaming, face an inhuman mask.With his skin crawling with the horror that madness always instils inthe sane, Conan passed his sword through the black man's body; then,avoiding the hooked hands that clawed at him as N'Gora sank down, hestrode to the edge of the cliff.For an instant he stood looking down into the jagged rocks below,where lay N'Gora's spearmen, in limp, distorted attitudes that told ofcrushed limbs and splintered bones. Not one moved. A cloud of hugeblack flies buzzed loudly above the bloods-plashed stones; the antshad already begun to gnaw at the corpses. On the trees about sat birdsof prey, and a jackal, looking up and seeing the man on the cliff,slunk furtively away.For a little space Conan stood motionless. Then he wheeled and ranback the way he had come, flinging himself with reckless haste throughthe tall grass and bushes, hurdling creepers that sprawled snake-likeacross his path. His sword swung low in his right hand, and anunaccustomed pallor tinged his dark face.The silence that reigned in the jungle was not broken. The sun had setand great shadows rushed upward from the slime of the black earth.Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conanwas a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel. No sound in all thesolitude was heard except his own quick panting as he burst from theshadows into the dim twilight of the river-shore.He saw the galley shouldering the rotten wharf, the ruins reelingdrunkenly in the gray half-light.And here and there among the stones were spots of raw bright color, asif a careless hand had splashed with a crimson brush.Again Conan looked on death and destruction. Before him lay hisspearmen, nor did they rise to salute him. From the jungle edge to theriverbank, among the rotting pillars and along the broken piers theylay, torn and mangled and half devoured, chewed travesties of men.All about the bodies and pieces of bodies were swarms of hugefootprints, like those of hyenas.Conan came silently upon the pier, approaching the galley above whosedeck was suspended something that glimmered ivory-white in the fainttwilight. Speechless, the Cimmerian looked on the Queen of the BlackCoast as she hung from the yard-arm of her own galley. Between theyard and her white throat stretched a line of crimson clots that shonelike blood in the gray light.4 The Attack from the AirThe shadows were black around him, The dripping jaws gaped wide,Thicker than rain the red drops fell;But my love was fiercer than Death's black spell,Nor all the iron walls of hell  Could keep me from his side.                   The Song of BelitThe jungle was a black colossus that locked the ruin-littered glade inebon arms. The moon had not risen; the stars were flecks of hot amberin a breathless sky that reeked of death. On the pyramid among thefallen towers sat Conan the Cimmerian like an iron statue, chinpropped on massive fists. Out in the black shadows stealthy feetpadded and red eyes glimmered. The dead lay as they had fallen. But onthe deck of the Tigress, on a pyre of broken benches, spear-shafts andleopardskins, lay the Queen of the Black Coast in her last sleep,wrapped in Conan's scarlet cloak. Like a true queen she lay, with herplunder heaped high about her: silks, cloth-of-gold, silver braid,casks of gems and golden coins, silver ingots, jeweled daggers andteocallis of gold wedges.But of the plunder of the accursed city, only the sullen waters ofZarkheba could tell where Conan had thrown it with a heathen curse.Now he sat grimly on the pyramid, waiting for his unseen foes. Theblack fury in his soul drove out all fear. What shapes would emergefrom the blackness he knew not, nor did he care.He no longer doubted the visions of the black lotus. He understoodthat while waiting for him in the glade, N'Gora and his comrades hadbeen terror-stricken by the winged monster swooping upon them from thesky, and fleeing in blind panic, had fallen over the cliff, all excepttheir chief, who had somehow escaped their fate, though not madness.Meanwhile, or immediately after, or perhaps before, the destruction ofthose on the riverbank had been accomplished. Conan did not doubt thatthe slaughter along the river had been massacre rather than battle.Already unmanned by their superstitious fears, the blacks might wellhave died without striking a blow in their own defense when attackedby their inhuman foes.Why he had been spared so long, he did not understand, unless themalign entity which ruled the river meant to keep him alive to torturehim with grief and fear. All pointed to a human or superhumanintelligence--the breaking of the watercasks to divide the forces, thedriving of the blacks over the cliff, and last and greatest, the grimjest of the crimson necklace knotted like a hangman's noose aboutBelit's white neck.Having apparently saved the Cimmerian for the choicest victim, andextracted the last ounce of exquisite mental torture, it was likelythat the unknown enemy would conclude the drama by sending him afterthe other victims. No smile bent Conan's grim lips at the thought, buthis eyes were lit with iron laughter.The moon rose, striking fire from the Cimmerian's horned helmet. Nocall awoke the echoes; yet suddenly the night grew tense and thejungle held its breath. Instinctively Conan loosened the great swordin its sheath. The pyramid on which he rested was four-sided, one--theside toward the jungle carved in broad steps. In his hand was aShemite bow, such as Belit had taught her pirates to use. A heap ofarrows lay at his feet, feathered ends towards him, as he rested onone knee.Something moved in the blackness under the trees. Etched abruptly inthe rising moon, Conan saw a darkly blocked-out head and shoulders,brutish in outline. And now from the shadows dark shapes camesilently, swiftly, running low--twenty great spotted hyenas. Theirslavering fangs flashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no truebeast's eyes ever blazed.Twenty: then the spears of the pirates had taken toll of the pack,after all. Even as he thought this, Conan drew nock to ear, and at thetwang of the string a flame-eyed shadow bounded high and fellwrithing. The rest did not falter; on they came, and like a rain ofdeath among them fell the arrows of the Cimmerian, driven with all theforce and accuracy of steely thews backed by a hate hot as the slag-heaps of hell.In his berserk fury he did not miss; the air was filled with feathereddestruction. The havoc wrought among the onrushing pack wasbreathtaking. Less than half of them reached the foot of the pyramid.Others dropped upon the broad steps. Glaring down into the blazingeyes, Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely intheir unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference. Theyexuded an aura tangible as the black mist rising from a corpse-littered swamp. By what godless alchemy these beings had been broughtinto existence, he could not guess; but he knew he faced diabolismblacker than the Well of Skelos.Springing to his feet, he bent his bow powerfully and drove his lastshaft point blank at a great hairy shape that soared up at his throat.The arrow was a flying beam of moonlight that flashed onward with buta blur in its course, but the were-beast plunged convulsively inmidair and crashed headlong, shot through and through.Then the rest were on him, in a nightmare rush of blazing eyes anddripping fangs. His fiercely driven sword shore the first asunder;then the desperate impact of the others bore him down. He crushed anarrow skull with the pommel of his hilt, feeling the bone splinterand blood and brains gush over his hand; then, dropping the sword,useless at such deadly close quarters, he caught at the throats of thetwo horrors which were ripping and tearing at him in silent fury. Afoul acrid scent almost stifled him, his own sweat blinded him. Onlyhis mail saved him from being ripped to ribbons in an instant. Thenext, his naked right hand locked on a hairy throat and tore it open.His left hand, missing the throat of the other beast, caught and brokeits foreleg. A short yelp, the only cry in that grim battle, andhideously human-like, burst from the maimed beast. At the sick horrorof that cry from a bestial throat, Conan involuntarily relaxed hisgrip.One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a lastspasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat--to fall backdead, even as Conan felt the tearing agony of its grip.The other, springing forward on three legs, was slashing at his bellyas a wolf slashes, actually rending the links of his mail. Flingingaside the dying beast, Conan grappled the crippled horror and, with amuscular effort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, heheaved upright, gripping the struggling, bearing fiend in his arms. Aninstant he reeled off balance, its fetid breath hot on his nostrils;its jaws snapping at his neck; then he hurled it from him, to crashwith bone-splintering force down the marble steps.As he reeled on wide-braced legs, sobbing for breath, the jungle andthe moon swimming bloodily to his sight, the thrash of bat-wings wasloud in his ears. Stooping, he groped for his sword, and swayingupright, braced his feet drunkenly and heaved the great blade abovehis head with both hands, shaking the blood from his eyes as he soughtthe air above him for his foe.Instead of attack from the air, the pyramid staggered suddenly andawfully beneath his feet. He heard a rumbling crackle and saw the tallcolumn above him wave like a wand. Stung to galvanized life, hebounded far out; his feet hit a step, halfway down, which rockedbeneath him, and his next desperate leap carried him clear. But evenas his heels hit the earth, with a shattering crash like a breakingmountain the pyramid crumpled, the column came thundering down inbursting fragments. For a blind cataclysmic instant the sky seemed torain shards of marble. Then a rubble of shattered stone lay whitelyunder the moon.Conan stirred, throwing off the splinters that half covered him. Aglancing blow had knocked off his helmet and momentarily stunned him.Across his legs lay a great piece of the column, pinning him down. Hewas not sure that his legs were unbroken. His black locks wereplastered with sweat; blood trickled from the wounds in his throat andhands. He hitched up on one arm, struggling with the debris thatprisoned him.Then something swept down across the stars and struck the sward nearhim. Twisting about, he saw it--the winged one!With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conanhad only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike shape hurtlingalong on bowed and stunted legs; of huge hairy arms outstretchingmisshapen black-nailed paws; of a malformed head, in whose broad facethe only features recognizable as such were a pair of blood-red eyes.It was a thing neither man, beast, nor devil, imbued withcharacteristics subhuman as well as characteristics superhuman.But Conan had no time for conscious consecutive thought. He threwhimself toward his fallen sword, and his clawing fingers missed it byinches. Desperately he grasped the shard which pinned his legs, andthe veins swelled in his temples as he strove to thrust it off him. Itgave slowly, but he knew that before he could free himself the monsterwould be upon him, and he knew that those black-taloned hands weredeath.The headlong rush of the winged one had not wavered. It towered overthe prostrate Cimmerian like a black shadow, arms thrown wide--aglimmer of white flashed between it and its victim.In one mad instant she was there--a tense white shape, vibrant withlove fierce as a she-panther's. The dazed Cimmerian saw between himand the onrushing death, her lithe figure, shimmering like ivorybeneath the moon; he saw the blaze of her dark eyes, the thick clusterof her burnished hair; her bosom heaved, her red lips were parted, shecried out sharp and ringing at the ring of steel as she thrust at thewinged monster's breast."Belit!" screamed Conan. She flashed a quick glance at him, and in herdark eyes he saw her love flaming, a naked elemental thing of raw fireand molten lava. Then she was gone, and the Cimmerian saw only thewinged fiend which had staggered back in unwonted fear, arms lifted asif to fend off attack. And he knew that Belit in truth lay on her pyreon the Tigress's deck. In his ears rang her passionate cry: "Were Istill in death and you fighting for life I would come back from theabyss--"With a terrible cry he heaved upward hurling the stone aside. Thewinged one came on again, and Conan sprang to meet it, his veins onfire with madness. The thews started out like cords on his forearms ashe swung his great sword, pivoting on his heel with the force of thesweeping arc. Just above the hips it caught the hurtling shape, andthe knotted legs fell one way, the torso another as the blade shearedclear through its hairy body.Conan stood in the moonlit silence, the dripping sword sagging in hishand, staring down at the remnants of his enemy. The red eyes glaredup at him with awful life, then glazed and set; the great handsknotted spasmodically and stiffened. And the oldest race in the worldwas extinct.Conan lifted his head, mechanically searching for the beast-thingsthat had been its slaves and executioners. None met his gaze. Thebodies he saw littering the moon-splashed grass were of men, notbeasts: hawk-faced, dark skinned men, naked, transfixed by arrows ormangled by sword-strokes. And they were crumbling into dust before hiseyes.Why had not the winged master come to the aid of its slaves when hestruggled with them? Had it feared to come within reach of fangs thatmight turn and rend it? Craft and caution had lurked in that misshapenskull, but had not availed in the end.Turning on his heel, the Cimmerian strode down the rotting wharfs andstepped aboard the galley. A few strokes of his sword cut her adrift,and he went to the sweep-head. The Tigress rocked slowly in the sullenwater, sliding out sluggishly toward the middle of the river, untilthe broad current caught her. Conan leaned on the sweep, his sombergaze fixed on the cloak-wrapped shape that lay in state on the pyrethe richness of which was equal to the ransom of an empress.5 The Funeral PyreNow we are done with roaming, evermore;  No more the oars, the windy harp's refrain;Nor crimson pennon frights the dusky shore;  Blue girdle of the world, receive againHer whom thou gavest me.                   The Song of BelitAgain dawn tinged the ocean. A redder glow lit the river-mouth. Conanof Cimmeria leaned on his great sword upon the white beach, watchingthe Tigress swinging out on her last voyage. There was no light in hiseyes that contemplated the glassy swells. Out of the rolling bluewastes all glory and wonder had gone. A fierce revulsion shook him ashe gazed at the green surges that deepened into purple hazes ofmystery.Belit had been of the sea; she had lent it splendor and allure.Without her it rolled a barren, dreary and desolate waste from pole topole. She belonged to the sea; to its everlasting mystery he returnedher. He could do no more. For himself, its glittering blue splendorwas more repellent than the leafy fronds which rustled and whisperedbehind him of vast mysterious wilds beyond them, and into which hemust plunge.No hand was at the sweep of the Tigress, no oars drove her through thegreen water. But a clean tanging wind bellied her silken sail, and asa wild swan cleaves the sky to her nest, she sped seaward, flamesmounting higher and higher from her deck to lick at the mast andenvelop the figure that lay lapped in scarlet on the shining pyre.So passed the Queen of the Black Coast, and leaning on his red-stainedsword, Conan stood silently until the red glow had faded far out inthe blue hazes and dawn splashed its rose and gold over the ocean.THE END