Baffled wrath confused the brain of Conan the Cimmerian. He knew no more
how to go about searching for Muriela than he had known how to go about
searching for the Teeth of Gwahlur. Only one thought occurred to him--to
follow the priests. Perhaps at the hiding-place of the treasure some
clue would be revealed to him. It was a slim chance, but better than
wandering about aimlessly.
As he hurried through the great shadowy hall that led to the portico, he
half expected the lurking shades to come to life behind him with rending
fangs and talons. But only the beat of his own rapid heart accompanied
him into the moonlight that dappled the shimmering marble.
At the foot of the wide steps he cast about in the bright moonlight for
some sign to show him the direction he must go. And he found it--petals
scattered on the sward told where an arm or garment had brushed against
a blossom-laden branch. Grass had been pressed down under heavy feet.
Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found no
insurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Keshani priests.
It led away from the palace, through masses of exotic-scented shrubbery
where great pale blossoms spread their shimmering petals, through
verdant, tangled bushes that showered blooms at the touch, until he came
at last to a great mass of rock that jutted like a titan's castle out
from the cliffs at a point closest to the palace, which, however, was
almost hidden from view by vine-interlaced trees. Evidently that
babbling priest in Keshia had been mistaken when he said the Teeth were
hidden in the palace. This trail had led him away from the place where
Muriela had disappeared, but a belief was growing in Conan that each
part of the valley was connected with that palace by subterranean
passages.
Crouching in the deep velvet-black shadows of the bushes, he scrutinized
the great jut of rock which stood out in bold relief in the moonlight.
It was covered with strange, grotesque carvings, depicting men and
animals, and half-bestial creatures that might have been gods or devils.
The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of the
valley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era and
race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whatever
immeasurably distant date the people of Alkmeenon had found and entered
the haunted valley.
A great door stood open in the sheer curtain of the cliff, and a
gigantic dragon head was carved about it so that the open door was like
the dragon's gaping mouth. The door itself was of carven bronze and
looked to weigh several tons. There was no lock that he could see, but
a series of bolts showing along the edge of the massive portal, as it
stood open, told him that there was some system of locking and
unlocking--a system doubtless known only to the priests of Keshan.
The trail showed that Gorulga and his henchmen had gone through that
door. But Conan hesitated. To wait until they emerged would probably
mean to see the door locked in his face, and he might not be able to
solve the mystery of its unlocking. On the other hand, if he followed
them in, they might emerge and lock him in the cavern.
Throwing caution to the winds, he glided silently through the great
portal. Somewhere in the cavern were the priests, the Teeth of Gwahlur,
and perhaps a clue to the fate of Muriela. Personal risks had never yet
deterred the Cimmerian from any purpose.
Moonlight illumined, for a few yards, the wide tunnel in which he found
himself. Somewhere ahead of him he saw a faint glow and heard the echo
of a weird chanting. The priests were not so far ahead of him as he had
thought. The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight
played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty,
vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as
Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world. It made a
ghostly half-light, in which he was able to see a bestial image
squatting on a shrine and the black mouths of six or seven tunnels
leading off from the chamber. Down the widest of these--the one directly
behind the squat image which looked toward the outer opening--he caught
the gleam of torches wavering, whereas the phosphorescent glow was
fixed, and heard the chanting increase in volume.
Down it he went recklessly, and was presently peering into a larger
cavern than the one he had just left. There was no phosphorus here, but
the light of the torches fell on a larger altar and a more obscene and
repulsive god squatting toad-like upon it. Before this repugnant deity
Gorulga and his ten acolytes knelt and beat their heads upon the ground,
while chanting monotonously. Conan realized why their progress had been
so slow. Evidently approaching the secret crypt of the Teeth was a
complicated and elaborate ritual.
He was fidgeting in nervous impatience before the chanting and bowing
were over, but presently they rose and passed into the tunnel which
opened behind the idol. Their torches bobbed away into the nighted
vault, and he followed swiftly. Not much danger of being discovered. He
glided along the shadows like a creature of the night, and the black
priests were completely engrossed in their ceremonial mummery.
Apparently they had not even noticed the absence of Gwarunga.
Emerging into a cavern of huge proportions, about whose upward curving
walls gallery-like ledges marched in tiers, they began their worship
anew before an altar which was larger, and a god which was more
disgusting, than any encountered thus far.
Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the walls
reflecting the lurid glow of the torches. He saw a carven stone stair
winding up from tier to tier of the galleries; the roof was lost in
darkness.
He started violently and the chanting broke off as the kneeling blacks
flung up their heads. An inhuman voice boomed out high above them. They
froze on their knees, their faces turned upward with a ghastly blue hue
in the sudden glare of a weird light that burst blindingly up near the
lofty roof and then burned with a throbbing glow. That glare lighted a
gallery and a cry went up from the high priest, echoed shudderingly by
his acolytes. In the flash there had been briefly disclosed to them a
slim white figure standing upright in a sheen of silk and a glint of
jewel-crusted gold. Then the blaze smoldered to a throbbing, pulsing
luminosity in which nothing was distinct, and that slim shape was but
a shimmering blue of ivory.
'Yelaya!' screamed Gorulga, his brown features ashen. 'Why have you
followed us? What is your pleasure?'
That weird unhuman voice rolled down from the roof, re-echoing under
that arching vault that magnified and altered it beyond recognition.
'Woe to the unbelievers! Woe to the false children of Keshia! Doom to
them which deny their deity!'
A cry of horror went up from the priests. Gorulga looked like a shocked
vulture in the glare of the torches.
'I do not understand!' he stammered. 'We are faithful. In the chamber of
the oracle you told us--'
'Do not heed what you heard in the chamber of the oracle!' rolled that
terrible voice, multiplied until it was as though a myriad voices
thundered and muttered the same warning. 'Beware of false prophets and
false gods! A demon in my guise spoke to you in the palace, giving false
prophecy. Now harken and obey, for only I am the true goddess, and I
give you one chance to save yourselves from doom!
'Take the Teeth of Gwahlur from the crypt where they were placed so long
ago. Alkmeenon is no longer holy, because it has been desecrated by
blasphemers. Give the Teeth of Gwahlur into the hands of Thutmekri, the
Stygian, to place in the sanctuary of Dragon and Derketo. Only this can
save Keshan from the doom the demons of the night have plotted. Take the
Teeth of Gwahlur and go: return instantly to Keshia; there give the
jewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay him
alive in the great square.'
There was no hesitation in obeying. Chattering with fear the priests
scrambled up and ran for the door that opened behind the bestial god.
Gorulga led the flight. They jammed briefly in the doorway, yelping as
wildly waving torches touched squirming black bodies; they plunged
through, and the patter of their speeding feet dwindled down the tunnel.
Conan did not follow. He was consumed with a furious desire to learn the
truth of this fantastic affair. Was that indeed Yelaya, as the cold
sweat on the backs of his hands told him, or was it that little hussy
Muriela, turned traitress after all? If it was--
Before the last torch had vanished down the black tunnel he was bounding
vengefully up the stone stair. The blue glow was dying down, but he
could still make out that the ivory figure stood motionless on the
gallery. His blood ran cold as he approached it, but he did not
hesitate. He came on with his sword lifted, and towered like a threat of
death over the inscrutable shape.
'Yelaya!' he snarled. 'Dead as she's been for a thousand years! Ha!'
From the dark mouth of a tunnel behind him a dark form lunged. But the
sudden, deadly rush of unshod feet had reached the Cimmerian's quick
ears. He whirled like a cat and dodged the blow aimed murderously at his
back. As the gleaming steel in the dark hand hissed past him, he struck
back with the fury of a roused python, and the long straight blade
impaled his assailant and stood out a foot and a half between his
shoulders.
'So!' Conan tore his sword free as the victim sagged to the floor,
gasping and gurgling. The man writhed briefly and stiffened. In the
dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the
blue glare. He had killed Gwarunga.
Conan turned from the corpse to the goddess. Thongs about her knees and
breast held her upright against a stone pillar, and her thick hair,
fastened to the column, held her head up. At a few yards' distance these
bonds were not visible in the uncertain light.
'He must have come to after I descended into the tunnel,' muttered
Conan. 'He must have suspected I was down there. So he pulled out the
dagger'--Conan stooped and wrenched the identical weapon from the
stiffening fingers, glanced at it and replaced it in his own
girdle--'and shut the door. Then he took Yelaya to befool his brother
idiots. That was he shouting a while ago. You couldn't recognize his
voice, under this echoing roof. And that bursting blue flame--I thought
it looked familiar. It's a trick of the Stygian priests. Thutmekri must
have given some of it to Gwarunga.'
He could easily have reached this cavern ahead of his companions.
Evidently familiar with the plan of the caverns by hearsay or by maps
handed down in the priestcraft, he had entered the cave after the
others, carrying the goddess, followed a circuitous route through the
tunnels and chambers, and ensconced himself and his burden on the
balcony while Gorulga and the other acolytes were engaged in their
endless rituals.
The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow,
emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on the
ledge. Somewhere down that corridor there was another field of
phosphorus, for he recognized the faint steady radiance. The corridor
led in the direction the priests had taken, and he decided to follow it,
rather than descend into the darkness of the great cavern below.
Doubtless it connected with another gallery in some other chamber, which
might be the destination of the priests. He hurried down it, the
illumination growing stronger as he advanced, until he could make out
the floor and the walls of the tunnel. Ahead of him and below he could
hear the priests chanting again.
Abruptly a doorway in the left-hand wall was limned in the phosphorus
glow, and to his ears came the sound of soft, hysterical sobbing. He
wheeled, and glared through the door.
He was looking again into a chamber hewn out of solid rock, not a
natural cavern like the others. The domed roof shone with the
phosphorous light, and the walls were almost covered with arabesques of
beaten gold.
Near the farther wall on a granite throne, staring for ever toward the
arched doorway, sat the monstrous and obscene Pteor, the god of the
Pelishtim, wrought in brass, with his exaggerated attributes reflecting
the grossness of his cult. And in his lap sprawled a limp white figure.
'Well, I'll be damned!' muttered Conan. He glanced suspiciously about
the chamber, seeing no other entrance or evidence of occupation, and
then advanced noiselessly and looked down at the girl whose slim
shoulders shook with sobs of abject misery, her face sunk in her arms.
From thick bands of gold on the idol's arms slim gold chains ran to
smaller bands on her wrists. He laid a hand on her naked shoulder and
she started convulsively, shrieked, and twisted her tear-stained face
toward him.
'Conan!' She made a spasmodic effort to go into the usual clinch, but
the chains hindered her. He cut through the soft gold as close to her
wrists as he could, grunting: 'You'll have to wear these bracelets until
I can find a chisel or a file. Let go of me, damn it! You actresses are
too damned emotional. What happened to you, anyway?'
'When I went back into the oracle chamber,' she whimpered, 'I saw the
goddess lying on the dais as I'd first seen her. I called out to you and
started to run to the door--then something grabbed me from behind. It
clapped a hand over my mouth and carried me through a panel in the wall,
and down some steps and along a dark hall. I didn't see what it was that
had hold of me until we passed through a big metal door and came into a
tunnel whose roof was alight, like this chamber.
'Oh, I nearly fainted when I saw! They are not humans! They are gray,
hairy devils that walk like men and speak a gibberish no human could
understand. They stood there and seemed to be waiting, and once I
thought I heard somebody trying the door. Then one of the things pulled
a metal lever in the wall, and something crashed on the other side of
the door.
'Then they carried me on and on through winding tunnels and up stone
stairways into this chamber, where they chained me on the knees of this
abominable idol, and then they went away. Oh, Conan, what are they?'
'Servants of Bît-Yakin,' he grunted. 'I found a manuscript that told me
a number of things, and then stumbled upon some frescoes that told me
the rest. Bît-Yakin was a Pelishtim who wandered into the valley with
his servants after the people of Alkmeenon had deserted it. He found the
body of Princess Yelaya, and discovered that the priests returned from
time to time to make offerings to her, for even then she was worshipped
as a goddess.
'He made an oracle of her, and he was the voice of the oracle, speaking
from a niche he cut in the wall behind the ivory dais. The priests never
suspected, never saw him or his servants for they always hid themselves
when the men came. Bît-Yakin lived and died here without ever being
discovered by the priests. Crom knows how long he dwelt here, but it
must have been for centuries. The wise men of the Pelishtim know how to
increase the span of their lives for hundreds of years. I've seen some
of them myself. Why he lived here alone, and why he played the part of
oracle no ordinary human can guess, but I believe the oracle part was to
keep the city inviolate and sacred, so he could remain undisturbed. He
ate the food the priests brought as an offering to Yelaya, and his
servants ate other things--I've always known there was a subterranean
river flowing away from the lake where the people of the Puntish
highlands throw their dead. That river runs under this palace. They have
ladders hung over the water where they can hang and fish for the corpses
that come floating through. Bît-Yakin recorded everything on parchment
and painted walls.
'But he died at last, and his servants mummified him according to
instructions he gave them before his death, and stuck him in a cave in
the cliffs. The rest is easy to guess. His servants, who were even more
nearly immortal than he, kept on dwelling here, but the next time a high
priest came to consult the oracle, not having a master to restrain them,
they tore him to pieces. So since then--until Gorulga--nobody came to
talk to the oracle.
'It's obvious they've been renewing the garments and ornaments of the
goddess, as they'd seen Bît-Yakin do. Doubtless there's a sealed chamber
somewhere where the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the goddess
and brought her back to the oracle room after Zargheba had stolen her.
And by the way, they took off Zargheba's head and hung it in a thicket.'
She shivered, yet at the same time breathed a sigh of relief.
'He'll never whip me again.'
'Not this side of hell,' agreed Conan. 'But come on. Gwarunga ruined my
chances with his stolen goddess. I'm going to follow the priests and
take my chance of stealing the loot from them after they get it. And you
stay close to me. I can't spend all my time looking for you.'
'But the servants of Bît-Yakin!' she whispered fearfully.
'We'll have to take our chance,' he grunted. 'I don't know what's in
their minds, but so far they haven't shown any disposition to come out
and fight in the open. Come on.'
Taking her wrist he led her out of the chamber and down the corridor. As
they advanced they heard the chanting of the priests, and mingling with
the sound the low sullen rushing of waters. The light grew stronger
above them as they emerged on a high-pitched gallery of a great cavern
and looked down on a scene weird and fantastic.
Above them gleamed the phosphorescent roof; a hundred feet below them
stretched the smooth floor of the cavern. On the far side this floor was
cut by a deep, narrow stream brimming its rocky channel. Rushing out of
impenetrable gloom, it swirled across the cavern and was lost again in
darkness. The visible surface reflected the radiance above; the dark
seething waters glinted as if flecked with living jewels, frosty blue,
lurid red, shimmering green, an ever-changing iridescence.
Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that
banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge
of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern
to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river. Ten
feet below it another, broader arch spanned the cave. At either end a
carven stair joined the extremities of these flying arches.
Conan's gaze, following the curve of the arch that swept away from the
ledge on which they stood, caught a glint of light that was not the
lurid phosphorus of the cavern. On that small ledge opposite them there
was an opening in the cave wall through which stars were glinting.
But his full attention was drawn to the scene beneath them. The priests
had reached their destination. There in a sweeping angle of the cavern
wall stood a stone altar, but there was no idol upon it. Whether there
was one behind it, Conan could not ascertain, because some trick of the
light, or the sweep of the wall, left the space behind the altar in
total darkness.
The priests had stuck their torches into holes in the stone floor,
forming a semicircle of fire in front of the altar at a distance of
several yards. Then the priests themselves formed a semicircle inside
the crescent of torches, and Gorulga, after lifting his arms aloft in
invocation, bent to the altar and laid hands on it. It lifted and tilted
backward on its hinder edge, like the lid of a chest, revealing a small
crypt.
Extending a long arm into the recess, Gorulga brought up a small brass
chest. Lowering the altar back into place, he set the chest on it, and
threw back the lid. To the eager watchers on the high gallery it seemed
as if the action had released a blaze of living fire which throbbed and
quivered about the opened chest. Conan's heart leaped and his hand
caught at his hilt. The Teeth of Gwahlur at last! The treasure that
would make its possessor the richest man in the world! His breath came
fast between his clenched teeth.
Then he was suddenly aware that a new element had entered into the light
of the torches and of the phosphorescent roof, rendering both void.
Darkness stole around the altar, except for that glowing spot of evil
radiance cast by the teeth of Gwahlur, and that grew and grew. The
blacks froze into basaltic statues, their shadows streaming grotesquely
and gigantically out behind them.
The altar was laved in the glow now, and the astounded features of
Gorulga stood out in sharp relief. Then the mysterious space behind the
altar swam into the widening illumination. And slowly with the crawling
light, figures became visible, like shapes growing out of the night and
silence.
At first they seemed like gray stone statues, those motionless shapes,
hairy, man-like, yet hideously human; but their eyes were alive, cold
sparks of gray icy fire. And as the weird glow lit their bestial
countenances, Gorulga screamed and fell backward, throwing up his long
arms in a gesture of frenzied horror.
But a longer arm shot across the altar and a misshapen hand locked on
his throat. Screaming and fighting, the high priest was dragged back
across the altar; a hammer-like fist smashed down, and Gorulga's cries
were stilled. Limp and broken he sagged across the altar, his brains
oozing from his crushed skull. And then the servants of Bît-Yakin surged
like a bursting flood from hell on the black priests who stood like
horror-blasted images.
Then there was slaughter, grim and appalling.
Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the
slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and
swords of the priests were ineffective. He saw men lifted bodily and
their heads cracked open against the stone altar. He saw a flaming
torch, grasped in a monstrous hand, thrust inexorably down the gullet of
an agonized wretch who writhed in vain against the arms that pinioned
him. He saw a man torn in two pieces, as one might tear a chicken, and
the bloody fragments hurled clear across the cavern. The massacre was as
short and devastating as the rush of a hurricane. In a burst of red
abysmal ferocity it was over, except for one wretch who fled screaming
back the way the priests had come, pursued by a swarm of blood-dabbled
shapes of horror which reached out their red-smeared hands for him.
Fugitive and pursuers vanished down the black tunnel, and the screams of
the human came back dwindling and confused by the distance.
Muriela was on her knees clutching Conan's legs, her face pressed
against his knee and her eyes tightly shut. She was a quaking, quivering
mold of abject terror. But Conan was galvanized. A quick glance across
at the aperture where the stars shone, a glance down at the chest that
still blazed open on the blood-smeared altar, and he saw and seized the
desperate gamble.
'I'm going after that chest!' he grated. 'Stay here!'
'Oh, Mitra, no!' In an agony of fright she fell to the floor and caught
at his sandals. 'Don't! Don't! Don't leave me!'
'Lie still and keep your mouth shut!' he snapped, disengaging himself
from her frantic clasp.
He disregarded the tortuous stair. He dropped from ledge to ledge with
reckless haste. There was no sign of the monsters as his feet hit the
floor. A few of the torches still flared in their sockets, the
phosphorescent glow throbbed and quivered, and the river flowed with an
almost articulate muttering, scintillant with undreamed radiances. The
glow that had heralded the appearance of the servants had vanished with
them. Only the light of the jewels in the brass chest shimmered and
quivered.
He snatched the chest, noting its contents in one lustful
glance--strange, curiously shapen stones that burned with an icy,
non-terrestrial fire. He slammed the lid, thrust the chest under his
arm, and ran back up the steps. He had no desire to encounter the
hellish servants of Bît-Yakin. His glimpse of them in action had
dispelled any illusion concerning their fighting ability. Why they had
waited so long before striking at the invaders he was unable to say.
What human could guess the motives or thoughts of these monstrosities?
That they were possessed of craft and intelligence equal to humanity had
been demonstrated. And there on the cavern floor lay crimson proof of
their bestial ferocity.
The Corinthian girl still cowered on the gallery where he had left her.
He caught her wrist and yanked her to her feet, grunting: 'I guess it's
time to go!'
Too bemused with terror to be fully aware of what was going on, the girl
suffered herself to be led across the dizzy span. It was not until they
were poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voiced a
startled yelp and would have fallen but for Conan's massive arm about
her. Growling an objurgation in her ear, he snatched her up under his
free arm and swept her, in a flutter of limply waving arms and legs,
across the arch and into the aperture that opened at the other end.
Without bothering to set her on her feet, he hurried through the short
tunnel into which this aperture opened. An instant later they emerged
upon a narrow ledge on the outer side of the cliffs that circled the
valley. Less than a hundred feet below them the jungle waved in the
starlight.
Looking down, Conan vented a gusty sigh of relief. He believed that he
could negotiate the descent, even though burdened with the jewels and
the girl; although he doubted if even he, unburdened, could have
ascended at that spot. He set the chest, still smeared with Gorulga's
blood and clotted with his brains, on the ledge, and was about to remove
his girdle in order to tie the box to his back, when he was galvanized
by a sound behind him, a sound sinister and unmistakable.
'Stay here!' he snapped at the bewildered Corinthian girl. 'Don't move!'
And drawing his sword, he glided into the tunnel, glaring back into the
cavern.
Halfway across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of the
servants of Bît-Yakin was on his trail. There was no doubt that the
brute had seen them and was following them. Conan did not hesitate. It
might be easier to defend the mouth of the tunnel--but this fight must
be finished quickly, before the other servants could return.
He ran out on the span, straight toward the oncoming monster. It was no
ape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the
mysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed in
the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in
temples that had never known the tread of a human foot. How the ancient
Pelishtim had gained lordship over them--and with it eternal exile from
humanity--was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate,
even if he had had opportunity.
Man and monster; they met at the highest arch of the span, where, a
hundred feet below, rushed the furious black water. As the monstrous
shape with its leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman
idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with
every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow. That stroke would have
sheared a human body asunder; but the bones of the servant of Bît-Yakin
were like tempered steel. Yet even tempered steel could not wholly have
withstood that furious stroke. Ribs and shoulder-bone parted and blood
spouted from the great gash.
There was no time for a second stroke. Before the Cimmerian could lift
his blade again or spring clear, the sweep of a giant arm knocked him
from the span as a fly is flicked from a wall. As he plunged downward
the rush of the river was like a knell in his ears, but his twisted body
fell halfway across the lower arch. He wavered there precariously for
one blood-chilling instant, then his clutching fingers hooked over the
farther edge, and he scrambled to safety, his sword still in his other
hand.
As he sprang up, he saw the monster, spurting blood hideously, rush
toward the cliff-end of the bridge, obviously intending to descend the
stair that connected the arches and renew the feud. At the very ledge
the brute paused in mid-flight--and Conan saw it too--Muriela, with the
jewel chest under her arm, stood staring wildly in the mouth of the
tunnel.
With a triumphant bellow the monster scooped her up under one arm,
snatched the jewel chest with the other hand as she dropped it, and
turning, lumbered back across the bridge. Conan cursed with passion and
ran for the other side also. He doubted if he could climb the stair to
the higher arch in time to catch the brute before it could plunge into
the labyrinth of tunnels on the other side.
But the monster was slowing, like clockwork running down. Blood gushed
from that terrible gash in his breast, and he lurched drunkenly from
side to side. Suddenly he stumbled, reeled and toppled sidewise--pitched
headlong from the arch and hurtled downward. Girl and jewel chest fell
from his nerveless hands and Muriela's scream rang terribly above the
snarl of the water below.
Conan was almost under the spot from which the creature had fallen. The
monster struck the lower arch glancingly and shot off, but the writhing
figure of the girl struck and clung, and the chest hit the edge of the
span near her. One falling object struck on one side of Conan and one on
the other. Either was within arm's length; for the fraction of a split
second the chest teetered on the edge of the bridge, and Muriela clung
by one arm, her face turned desperately toward Conan, her eyes dilated
with the fear of death and her lips parted in a haunting cry of despair.
Conan did not hesitate, nor did he even glance toward the chest that
held the wealth of an epoch. With a quickness that would have shamed the
spring of a hungry jaguar, he swooped, grasped the girl's arm just as
her fingers slipped from the smooth stone, and snatched her up on the
span with one explosive heave. The chest toppled on over and struck the
water ninety feet below, where the body of the servant of Bît-Yakin had
already vanished. A splash, a jetting flash of foam marked where the
Teeth of Gwahlur disappeared for ever from the sight of the man.
Conan scarcely wasted a downward glance. He darted across the span and
ran up the cliff stair like a cat, carrying the limp girl as if she had
been an infant. A hideous ululation caused him to glance over his
shoulder as he reached the higher arch, to see the other servants
streaming back into the cavern below, blood dripping from their bared
fangs. They raced up the stair that wound from tier to tier, roaring
vengefully; but he slung the girl unceremoniously over his shoulder,
dashed through the tunnel and went down the cliffs like an ape himself,
dropping and springing from hold to hold with breakneck recklessness.
When the fierce countenances looked over the ledge of the aperture, it
was to see the Cimmerian and the girl disappearing into the forest that
surrounded the cliffs.
'Well,' said Conan, setting the girl on her feet within the sheltering
screen of branches, 'we can take our time now. I don't think those
brutes will follow us outside the valley. Anyway, I've got a horse tied
at a water-hole close by, if the lions haven't eaten him. Crom's devils!
What are you crying about now?'
She covered her tear-stained face with her hands, and her slim shoulders
shook with sobs.
'I lost the jewels for you,' she wailed miserably. 'It was my fault. If
I'd obeyed you and stayed out on the ledge, that brute would never have
seen me. You should have caught the gems and let me drown!'
'Yes, I suppose I should,' he agreed. 'But forget it. Never worry about
what's past. And stop crying, will you? That's better. Come on.'
'You mean you're going to keep me? Take me with you?' she asked
hopefully.
'What else do you suppose I'd do with you?' He ran an approving glance
over her figure and grinned at the torn skirt which revealed a generous
expanse of tempting ivory-tinted curves. 'I can use an actress like you.
There's no use going back to Keshia. There's nothing in Keshan now that
I want. We'll go to Punt. The people of Punt worship an ivory woman, and
they wash gold out of the rivers in wicker baskets. I'll tell them that
Keshan is intriguing with Thutmekri to enslave them--which is true--and
that the gods have sent me to protect them--for about a houseful of
gold. If I can manage to smuggle you into their temple to exchange
places with their ivory goddess, we'll skin them out of their jaw teeth
before we get through with them!'