"I offer you more than that!" Kane's eyes narrowed as the queen leaned
toward him, vibrant with suppressed excitement. "White man, what is it
that you want more than anything else in the world?"
"To take the white girl you call Mara, and go."
Nakari sank back with an impatient exclamation.
"You can not have her; she is the promised bride of the Master. Even
I could not save her, even if I wished. Forget her. I will help you
forget her. Listen, white man, listen to the words of Nakari, queen of
Negari! You say you are a landless man--I will make you a king! I will
give you the world for a toy!
"No, no! Keep silent until I have finished," she rushed on, her words
tumbling over each other in her eagerness. Her eyes blazed, her whole
body quivered with dynamic intensity. "I have talked to travelers, to
captives and slaves, men from far countries. I know that this land of
mountains and rivers and jungle is not all the world. There are far-off
nations and cities, and kings and queens to be crushed and broken.
"Negari is fading, her might is crumbling, but a strong man beside her
queen might build it up again--might restore all her vanishing glory.
Listen, white man! Sit by me on the throne of Negari! Send afar to
your people for the thunder-clubs to arm my warriors! My nation is
still lord of central Africa; together we will band the conquered
tribes--call back the days when the realm of ancient Negari spanned the
land from sea to sea! We will subjugate all the tribes of the river,
the plain and the sea-shore, and instead of slaying them all, we will
make one mighty army of them! And then, when all Africa is under our
heel, we will sweep forth upon the world like a hungry lion to rend and
tear and destroy!"
Solomon's brain reeled. Perhaps it was the woman's fierce magnetic
personality, the dynamic power she instilled in her fiery words, but at
the moment her wild plan seemed not at all wild and impossible. Lurid
and chaotic visions flamed through the Puritan's brain--Europe torn by
civil and religious strife, divided against herself, betrayed by her
rulers, tottering--aye, Europe was in desperate straits now, and might
prove an easy victim for some strong savage race of conquerors. What
man can say truthfully that in his heart there lurks not a yearning
for power and conquest? For a moment the Devil sorely tempted Solomon
Kane; then before his mind's eye rose the wistful sad face of Marylin
Taferal, and Solomon cursed.
"Out on ye, daughter of Satan! Avaunt! Am I a beast of the forest to
lead your black devils against mine own race? Nay, no beast ever did
so. Begone! If you wish my friendship, set me free and let me go with
the girl."
Nakari leaped like a tiger-cat to her feet, her eyes flaming now with
passionate fury. A dagger gleamed in her hand and she raised it high
above Kane's breast with a feline scream of hate. A moment she hovered
like a shadow of death above him; then her arm sank and she laughed.
"Freedom? She will find her freedom when the Moon of Skulls leers down
on the black altar. As for you, you shall rot in this dungeon. You are
a fool; Africa's greatest queen has offered you her love and the empire
of the world--and you revile her! You love the white girl, perhaps?
Until the Moon of Skulls she is mine and I leave you to think about
this: that she shall be punished as I have punished her before--hung up
by her wrists, naked, and whipped until she swoons!"
Nakari laughed as Kane tore savagely at his shackles. She crossed to
the door, opened it, then hesitated and turned back for another word.
"This is a foul place, white man, and maybe you hate me the more for
chaining you here. Maybe in Nakari's beautiful throneroom, with wealth
and luxury spread before you, you will look upon her with more favor.
Very soon I shall send for you, but first I will leave you here awhile
to reflect. Remember--love Nakari and the kingdom of the world is
yours; hate her--this cell is your realm."
The bronze door clanged sullenly, but more hateful to the imprisoned
Englishman was the venomous, silvery laugh of Nakari.
* * * * *
Time passed slowly in the darkness. After what seemed a long time the
door opened again, this time to admit a huge black who brought food and
a sort of thin wine. Kane ate and drank ravenously and afterward slept.
The strain of the last few days had worn him greatly, mentally and
physically, but when he awoke he felt fresh and strong.
Again the door opened and two great black warriors entered. In the
light of the torches they bore, Kane saw that they were giants, clad
in loin-cloths and ostrich plume headgear, and bearing long spears in
their hands.
"Nakari wishes you to come to her, white man," was all they said, as
they took off his shackles. He arose, exultant in even brief freedom,
his keen brain working fiercely for a way of escape.
Evidently the fame of his prowess had spread, for the two warriors
showed great respect for him. They motioned him to precede them, and
walked carefully behind him, the points of their spears boring into
his back. Though they were two to one, and he was unarmed, they were
taking no chances. The gazes they directed at him were full of awe and
suspicion, and Kane decided that Nakari had told the truth when she had
said that he was the first white man to come to Negari.
Down a long dark corridor they went, his captors guiding him with
light prods of their spears, up a narrow winding stair, down another
passageway, up another stair, and then they emerged into the vast maze
of gigantic pillars into which Kane had first come. As they started
down this huge hall, Kane's eyes suddenly fell on a strange and
fantastic picture painted on the wall ahead of him. His heart gave a
sudden leap as he recognized it. It was some distance in front of him
and he edged imperceptibly toward the wall until he and his guards
were walking along very close to it. Now he was almost abreast of the
picture and could even make out the mark his dagger had made upon it.
The warriors following Kane were amazed to hear him gasp suddenly like
a man struck by a spear. He wavered in his stride and began clutching
at the air for support. They eyed each other doubtfully and prodded
him, but he cried out like a dying man, and slowly crumpled to the
floor, where he lay in a strange unnatural position, one leg doubled
back under him and one arm half supporting his lolling body. The
blacks looked at him fearfully. To all appearances he was dying, but
there was no wound upon him. They threatened him with their spears but
he paid no heed. Then they lowered their weapons uncertainly and one of
them bent over him.
Then it happened. The instant the black stooped forward, Kane came
up like a steel spring released. His right fist following his motion
curved up from his hip in a whistling half-circle and crashed against
the black giant's jaw. Delivered with all the power of arm and
shoulder, propelled by the upthrust of the powerful legs as Kane
straightened, the blow was like that of a slung-shot. The negro slumped
to the floor, unconscious before his knees gave way.
The other warrior plunged forward with a bellow, but even as his victim
fell, Kane twisted aside and his frantic hand found the secret spring
in the painting and pressed. All happened in the breath of a second.
Quick as the warrior was, Kane was quicker, for he moved with the
dynamic speed of a famished wolf. For an instant the falling body of
the senseless black hindered the other warrior's thrust, and in that
instant Kane felt the hidden door give way. From the corner of his eye
he saw a long gleam of steel shooting for his heart. He twisted about
and hurled himself against the door, vanishing through it even as the
stabbing spear slit the skin on his shoulder.
To the dazed and bewildered warrior, who stood with weapon upraised
for another thrust, it seemed as if the white man had simply vanished
through a solid wall, for only a fantastic picture met his gaze and
this did not give to his efforts.
[Illustration: "The dynamic quickness of Solomon Kane was such as few
men could match."]
_5. "For a Thousand Years----"_
"The blind gods roar and rave and dream
Of all cities under the sea."
--Chesterton.
Kane slammed the hidden door shut behind him, jammed down the spring
and for a moment leaned against it, every muscle tensed, expecting to
hold it against the efforts of a horde of spearmen. But nothing of the
sort materialized. He heard the black warrior fumbling outside for a
time; then that sound, too, ceased. It seemed impossible that these
people should have lived in this palace as long as they had without
discovering the secret doors and passages, but it was a conclusion
which forced itself upon Kane's mind.
At last he decided that he was safe from pursuit for the time being,
and turning, started down the long, narrow corridor with its eon-old
dust and its dim gray light. He felt baffled and furious, though he
was free from Nakari's shackles. He had no idea how long he had been
in the palace; it seemed ages. It must be day now, for it was light
in the outer halls, and he had seen no torches after they had left
the subterranean dungeons. He wondered if Nakari had carried out her
threat of vengeance on the helpless girl, and swore passionately. Free
for the time being, yes; but unarmed and hunted through this infernal
palace like a rat. How could he aid either himself or Marylin? But
his confidence never faltered. He was in the right and some way would
present itself.
Suddenly a narrow stairway branched off the main passageway, and up
this he went, the light growing stronger and stronger until he stood in
the full glare of the African sunlight. The stair terminated in a sort
of small landing directly in front of which was a tiny window, heavily
barred. Through this he saw the blue sky, tinted gold with the blazing
sunlight. The sight was like wine to him and he drew in deep breaths of
fresh, untainted air, breathing deep as if to rid his lungs of the aura
of dust and decayed grandeur through which he had been passing.
He was looking out over a weird and bizarre landscape. Far to the right
and the left loomed up great black crags and beneath them there reared
castles and towers of stone, of strange architecture--it was as if
giants from some other planet had thrown them up in a wild and chaotic
debauch of creation. These buildings were backed solidly against the
cliffs, and Kane knew that Nakari's palace also must be built into
the wall of the crag behind it. He seemed to be in the front of that
palace in a sort of minaret built on the outer wall. But there was only
one window in it and his view was limited. Far below him through the
winding and narrow streets of that strange city, swarms of black people
went to and fro, seeming like black ants to the watcher above. East,
north and south, the cliffs formed a natural bulwark; only to the west
was a built wall.
The sun was sinking west. Kane turned reluctantly from the barred
window and went down the stairs again. Again he paced down the narrow
gray corridor, aimlessly and planlessly, for what seemed miles and
miles. He descended lower and lower into passages that lay below
passages. The light grew dimmer, and a dank slime appeared on the
walls. Then Kane halted, a faint sound from beyond the wall arresting
him. What was that? A faint rattle--the rattle of chains.
Kane leaned close to the wall, and in the semi-darkness his hand
encountered a rusty spring. He worked at it cautiously and presently
felt the hidden door it betokened swing inward. He gazed out warily.
He was looking into a cell, the counterpart of the one in which he had
been confined. A smoldering torch was thrust into a niche on the wall,
and by its lurid and flickering light he made out a form on the floor,
shackled wrist and ankle as he had been shackled. A man; at first Kane
thought him to be a negro but a second glance made him doubt. The hair
was too straight, the features too regular. Negroid, yes, but some
alien blood in his veins had sharpened those features and given the
man that high magnificent forehead, and those hard vibrant eyes which
stared at Kane so intensely. The skin was dark, but not black.
The man spoke in an unfamiliar dialect, one which was strangely
distinct and clear-cut in contrast to the guttural jargon of the black
people with whom Kane was familiar. The Englishman spoke in English,
and then in the language of the river tribes.
"You who come through the ancient door," said the other, in the latter
dialect, "who are you? You are no black man--at first I thought you one
of the Old Race, but now I see you are not as they. Whence come you?"
"I am Solomon Kane," said the Puritan, "a prisoner in this devil-city.
I come from far across the blue salt sea."
The man's eyes lighted at the word.
"The sea! The ancient and everlasting! The sea which I never saw but
which cradled the glory of my ancestors! Tell me, stranger, have you,
like they, sailed across the breast of the great blue monster, and have
your eyes looked on the golden spires of Atlantis and the crimson walls
of Mu?"
"Truly," answered Solomon uncertainly, "I have sailed the seas, even to
Hindostan and Cathay, but of the countries you mention I know nothing."
"Nay," the other sighed, "I dream--I dream. Already the shadow of the
great night falls across my brain and my words wander. Stranger, there
have been times when these cold walls and floor have seemed to melt
into green surging deeps and my soul was filled with the deep booming
of the everlasting sea. I who have never seen the sea!"
Kane shuddered involuntarily. Surely this man was insane. Suddenly the
other shot out a withered claw-like hand and gripped his arm, despite
the hampering chain.
"You whose skin is so strangely white! Have you seen Nakari, the
she-fiend who rules this crumbling city?"
"I have seen her," said Kane grimly, "and now I flee like a hunted rat
from her murderers."
"You hate her!" the other cried. "Ha, I know! You seek Mara, the white
girl who is her slave?"
"Aye."
"Listen, white man," the shackled one spoke with strange solemnity; "I
am dying. Nakari's rack has done its work. I die and with me dies the
shadow of the glory that was my nation's. For I am the last of my race.
In all the world there is none like me. Hark now, to the voice of a
dying race."
And Kane leaning there in the flickering semi-darkness of the cell
heard the strangest tale to which man has ever listened, brought out
of the mist of the dim dawn ages by the lips of delirium. Clear and
distinct the words fell from the dying man and Kane alternately burned
and froze as vista after gigantic vista of time and space swept up
before him.
* * * * *
"Long eons ago--ages, ages ago--the empire of my race rose proudly
above the waves. So long ago was it that no man remembers an ancestor
who remembered it. In a great land to the west our cities rose. Our
golden spires split the stars; our purple-prowed galleys broke the
waves around the world, looting the sunset for its treasure and the
sunrise for its wealth. Our legions swept forth to the north and to the
south, to the west and the east, and none could stand before them. Our
cities banded the world; we sent our colonies to all lands to subdue
all savages, red, white or black, and enslave them. They toiled for us
in the mines and at the galley's oars. All over the world the brown
people of Atlantis reigned supreme. We were a sea-people and we delved
the deeps of all the oceans. The mysteries were known to us, and the
secret things of land and sea and sky. We read the stars and were wise.
Sons of the sea, we exalted him above all others.
"We worshipped Valka and Hotah, Honen and Golgor. Many virgins, many
strong youths, died on their altars and the smoke of the shrines
blotted out the sun. Then the sea rose and shook himself. He thundered
from his abyss and the thrones of the world fell before him! New
lands rose from the deep and Atlantis and Mu were swallowed up by the
gulf. The green sea roared through the fanes and the castles, and the
sea-weed encrusted the golden spires and the topaz towers. The empire
of Atlantis vanished and was forgotten, passing into the everlasting
gulf of time and oblivion. Likewise the colony cities in barbaric
lands, cut off from their mother kingdom, perished. The black savages
and the white savages rose and burned and destroyed until in all the
world only the colony city of Negari remained as a symbol of the lost
empire.
"Here my ancestors ruled as kings, and the ancestors of Nakari--the
she-cat!--bent the knee of slavery to them. Years passed, stretching
into centuries. The empire of Negari dwindled. Tribe after tribe rose
and flung off the chains, pressing the lines back from the sea, until
at last the sons of Atlantis gave way entirely and retreated into the
city itself--the last stronghold of the race. Conquerors no longer,
hemmed in by ferocious tribes, yet they held those tribes at bay for
a thousand years. Negari was invincible from without; her walls held
firm; but within evil influences were at work.
"The sons of Atlantis had brought their black slaves into the city with
them. The rulers were warriors, scholars, priests, artizans; they did
no menial work. For that they depended upon the slaves. There were more
of these slaves than there were masters. And they increased while the
brown people dwindled.
"They mixed with each other more and more as the race degenerated until
at last only the priestcraft was free of the taint of black blood.
Rulers sat on the throne of Negari who were nearly pure negro, and
these allowed more and more wild tribesmen to enter the city in the
guise of servants, mercenaries and friends.
"Then came a day when these fierce slaves revolted and slew all who
bore a trace of brown blood, except the priests and their families.
These they imprisoned as 'fetish people.' For a thousand years black
men have ruled in Negari, their kings guided by the captive brown
priests, who though prisoners, were yet the masters of kings."
Kane listened enthralled. To his imaginative mind, the tale burned and
lived with strange fire from cosmic time and space.
"After all the sons of Atlantis, save the priests, were dead, there
rose a great black king on the defiled throne of ancient Negari. He was
a tiger and his warriors were like leopards. They called themselves
Negari, ravishing even the name of their former masters, and none could
stand before them. They swept the land from sea to sea, and the smoke
of destruction put out the stars. The great river ran red and the black
lords of Negari strode above the corpses of their black foes. Then
the great king died and the black empire crumbled, even as the brown
kingdom of Negari had crumbled. They were skilled in war--the dead sons
of Atlantis, their masters, had trained them in the ways of battle, and
against the wild tribesmen they were invincible. But only the ways of
war had they learned, and the empire was torn with civil strife. Murder
and intrigue stalked red-handed through the palaces and the streets,
and the boundaries of the empire dwindled and dwindled. All the while
black kings with red, frenzied brains sat on the throne, and behind
the curtains, unseen but greatly feared, the brown priests guided the
nation, holding it together, keeping it from absolute destruction.
"Prisoners in the city were we, for there was nowhere else in the
world to go, but we moved like ghosts through the secret passages in
the walls and under the earth, spying on intrigue and doing secret
magic. We upheld the cause of the royal family--the descendants of that
tiger-like king of long ago--against all plotting chiefs, and grim are
the tales which these silent walls could tell. For these black people
are not as other negroes. A latent insanity lurks in the brains of
every one. They have tasted so deeply and so long of slaughter and
victory that they are as human leopards, for ever thirsting for blood.
On their myriad wretched slaves they have sated all lusts and desires
until they have become foul and terrible beasts, for ever seeking some
new sensation, for ever quenching their fearful thirsts in blood.
"Like a lion have they lurked in these crags for a thousand years,
to rush forth and ravage the jungle and river people, enslaving and
destroying. They are still invincible from without, though their
possessions have dwindled to the very walls of this city, and their
former great conquests and invasions have dwindled to raids for slaves.
"But as they faded, so too faded their masters, the brown priests. One
by one they died, until only I remained. In the last century they too
mixed with their rulers and slaves, and now--oh, black the shame upon
me!--I, the last son of Atlantis, bear in my veins the taint of negro
blood. They died; I remained, doing magic and guiding the black kings,
I the last brown man of Negari. Then the she-fiend, Nakari, arose."
Kane leaned forward with quickened interest. New life surged into the
tale as it touched upon his own time.
"Nakari!" the name was spat as a snake hisses; "slave and the daughter
of a slave! Yet she prevailed when her hour came and all the royal
family died.
"And me, the last son of Atlantis, me she prisoned and chained. She
feared not the silent brown priests, for she was the daughter of a
Satellite--one of the lesser priests, black men who did the menial work
of the brown masters--performing the lesser sacrifices, divining from
the livers of fowls and serpents and keeping the holy fires for ever
burning. Much she knew of us and our ways, and evil ambition burned in
her.
"As a child she danced in the March of the New Moon, and as a young
girl she was one of the Star-maidens. Much of the lesser mysteries was
known to her, and more she learned, spying upon the secret rites of
the priests who enacted hidden rituals that were old when the earth
was young. For the remnants of Atlantis secretly kept alive the old
worships of Valka and Hotah, Honen and Golgor, long forgotten and not
to be understood by these black people whose ancestors died screaming
on their altars. Alone of all the black Negari she feared us not and
she not only overthrew the king and set herself on the throne, but she
dominated the priests--the black Satellites and the few brown masters
who were left. All these last, save me, died beneath the daggers of
her assassins or on her racks. She alone of all the myriad black
thousands who have lived and died between these walls guessed at the
hidden passages and subterranean corridors, secrets which we of the
priestcraft had guarded jealously from the people for a thousand years.
"Ha! Ha! Blind, black fools! To pass an ageless age in this city,
yet never to learn of the secrets thereof! Black apes--fools! Not
even the lesser black priests know of the long gray corridors, lit by
phosphorescent ceilings, through which in bygone ages strange forms
have glided silently. For our ancestors built Negari as they built
Atlantis--on a mighty scale and with an unknown art. Not for men alone
did we build, but for the gods who moved unseen among us. And deep the
secrets these ancient walls hold!
"Torture could not wring these secrets from our lips, but shackled in
her dungeons, we trod our hidden corridors no more. For years the dust
has gathered there, untouched by human foot, while we, and finally I
alone, lay chained in these foul cells. And among the temples and the
dark, mysterious shrines of old, move vile black Satellites, elevated
by Nakari to glories that were once mine--for I am the last Atlantean
high priest. Black be their doom, and red their ruin! Valka and
Golgor, gods lost and forgotten, whose memory shall die with me, strike
down their walls and humble them unto the dust! Break the altars of
their blind pagan gods----"
Kane realized that the man was wandering in his mind. The keen brain
had begun to crumble at last.
"Tell me," said he; "you mentioned the white girl, Mara. What do you
know of her?"
* * * * *
"She was brought to Negari years ago by raiders," the other answered,
"only a few years after the rise of the black queen, whose slave she
is. Little of her I know, for shortly after her arrival, Nakari turned
on me--and the years that lie between have been grim black years, shot
red with torture and agony. Here I have lain, hampered by my chains
from escape which lay in that door through which you entered--and for
the knowledge of which Nakari has torn me on racks and suspended me
over slow fires."
Kane shuddered. "You know not if they have so misused the white girl?
Her eyes are haunted and she has wasted away."
"She has danced with the Star-maidens at Nakari's command, and has
looked on the bloody and terrible rites of the Black Temple. She has
lived for years among a people with whom blood is cheaper than water,
who delight in slaughter and foul torture, and such sights as she has
looked upon would blast the eyes and wither the flesh of strong men.
She has seen the victims of Nakura die amid horrid torments, and the
sight is burned for ever in the brain of the beholder. The rites of
the Atlanteans the blacks took whereby to honor their crude gods, and
though the essence of those rites is lost in the wasting years, yet
even as Nakari's black apes perform them, they are not such as men can
look on, unshaken."
Kane was thinking: "A fair day for the world when this Atlantis sank,
for most certainly it bred a race of strange and unknown evil." Aloud
he said: "Who is this Master of whom Nakari spake, and what meant she
by calling Mara his bride?"
"Nakura--Nakura. The skull of evil, the symbol of Death that they
worship. What know these savages of the gods of sea-girt Atlantis? What
know they of the dread and unseen gods whom their masters worshipped
with majestic and mysterious rites? They understand not of the unseen
essence, the invisible deity that reigns in the air and the elements;
they must worship a material object, endowed with human shape. Nakura
was the last great wizard of Atlantean Negari. A brown renegade he
was, who conspired against his own people and aided the revolt of the
black beasts. In life they followed him and in death they deified him.
High in the Tower of Death his fleshless skull is set, and on that
skull hinge the brains of all the people of Negari. Nay, we of Atlantis
worshipped Death, but we likewise worshipped Life. These people worship
only Death and call themselves Sons of Death. And the skull of Nakura
has been to them for a thousand years the symbol of their power, the
evidence of their greatness."
"Do you mean," Kane broke in impatiently on these ramblings, "that they
will sacrifice the girl to their god?"
"In the Moon of Skulls she will die on the Black Altar."
"What in God's name is this Moon of Skulls?" Kane cried passionately.
"The full moon. At the full of each moon, which we name the Moon of
Skulls, a virgin dies on the Black Altar before the Tower of Death,
where centuries ago, virgins died in honor of Golgor, the god of
Atlantis. Now from the face of the tower that once housed the glory of
Golgor, leers down the skull of the renegade wizard, and the people
believe that his brain still lives therein to guide the star of the
city. For look ye, stranger, when the full moon gleams over the rim
of the tower and the chant of the priests falls silent, then from the
skull of Nakura thunders a great voice, raised in an ancient Atlantean
chant, and the black people fall on their faces before it.
"But hark, there is a secret way, a stair leading up to a hidden niche
behind the skull, and there a priest lurks and chants. In days gone by
one of the sons of Atlantis had this office, and by all rights of men
and gods it should be mine this day. For though we sons of Atlantis
worshipped our ancient gods in secret, the black people would have none
of them and to hold our power we were devotees to their foul gods and
we sang and sacrificed to him whose memory we cursed.
"But Nakari discovered the secret, known before only to the brown
priests, and now one of her black Satellites mounts the hidden
stair and yammers forth the strange and terrible chant which is but
meaningless gibberish to him, as to those who hear it. I, and only I,
know its grim and fearful meaning."
Kane's brain whirled in his efforts to formulate some plan of action.
For the first time during the whole search for the girl, he felt
himself against a blank wall. This palace was a labyrinth, a maze
in which he could decide no direction. The corridors seemed to run
without plan or purpose, and how could he find Marylin, prisoned as
she doubtless was in one of the myriad chambers or cells? Or had she
already passed over the borderline of life, or succumbed to the brutal
torture-lust of Nakari?
He scarcely heard the ravings and mutterings of the dying man.
"Stranger, do you indeed live or are you but one of the ghosts which
have haunted me of late, stealing through the darkness of my cell?
Nay, you are flesh and blood--but you are a white savage, as Nakari's
race are black savages--eons ago when your ancestors were defending
their caves against the tiger and the mammoth, with crude spears of
flint, the gold spires of my people split the stars! They are gone and
forgotten, and the world is a waste of barbarians, white and black. Let
me, too, pass as a dream that is forgotten in the mists of the ages----"
Kane rose and paced the cell. His fingers closed like steel talons as
on a sword hilt and a blind red wave of fury surged through his brain.
Oh God! to get his foes before the keen blade that had been taken from
him--to face the whole city, one man against them all----
Kane pressed his hands against his temples.
"The moon was nearly full when last I saw it. But I know not how long
ago that was. I know not how long I have been in this accursed palace,
or how long I lay in that dungeon where Nakari threw me. The time of
full moon may be past, and--oh merciful God!--Marylin may be dead
already."
"Tonight is the Moon of Skulls," muttered the other; "I heard one of my
jailers speak of it."
Kane gripped the dying man's shoulder with unconscious force.
"If you hate Nakari or love mankind, in God's name tell me how to save
the child."
"Love mankind?" the priest laughed insanely. "What has a son of
Atlantis and a priest of forgotten Golgor to do with love? What are
mortals but food for the jaws of the black gods? Softer girls than
your Mara have died screaming beneath these hands and my heart was as
iron to their cries. Yet hate"--the strange eyes flamed with fearful
light--"for hate I will tell you what you wish to know!
"Go to the Tower of Death when the moon is risen. Slay the black priest
who lurks behind the skull of Nakura, and then when the chanting of the
worshippers below ceases, and the masked slayer beside the Black Altar
raises the sacrificial dagger, speak in a loud voice that the people
can understand, bidding them set free the victim and offer up instead,
Nakari, queen of Negari!
"As for the rest, afterward you must rely on your own craft and prowess
if you come free."
Kane shook him.
"Swift! Tell me how I am to reach this tower!"
"Go back through the door whence you came." The man was sinking fast,
his words dropped to whispers. "Turn to the left and go a hundred
paces. Mount the stair you come to, as high as it goes. In the corridor
where it ceases go straight for another hundred paces, and when
you come to what seems a blank wall, feel over it until you find a
projecting spring. Press this and enter the door which will open. You
will then be out of the palace and in the cliffs against which it is
built, and in the only one of the secret corridors known to the people
of Negari. Turn to your right and go straight down the passage for five
hundred paces. There you will come to a stair which leads up to the
niche behind the skull. The Tower of Death is built into the cliff and
projects above it. There are two stairs----"
Suddenly the voice trailed out. Kane leaned forward and shook the man
but he suddenly rose up with a great effort. His eyes blazed with a
wild and unearthly light and he flung his shackled arms wide.
"The sea!" he cried in a great voice. "The golden spires of Atlantis
and the sun on the deep blue waters! I come!"
And as Kane reached to lay him down again, he slumped back, dead.
_6. The Shattering of the Skull_
"By thought a crawling ruin,
By life a leaping mire,
By a broken heart in the breast of the world,
And the end of the world's desire."
--Chesterton.
Kane wiped the cold sweat from his pale brow as he hurried down the
shadowy passage. Outside this horrible palace it must be night. Even
now the full moon--the grim Moon of Skulls--might be rising above the
horizon. He paced off a hundred paces and came upon the stair the dying
priest had mentioned. This he mounted, and coming into the corridor
above, he measured off another hundred paces and brought up short
against what appeared to be a doorless wall. It seemed an age before
his frantic fingers found a piece of projecting metal. There was a
creak of rusty hinges as the hidden door swung open and Kane looked
into a passageway darker than the one in which he stood.
He entered, and when the door shut behind him he turned to his right
and groped his way along for five hundred paces. There the corridor was
lighter; light sifted in from without, and Kane discerned a stairway.
Up this he went for several steps, then halted, baffled. At a sort of
landing the stairway became two, one leading away to the left, the
other to the right. Kane cursed. He felt that he could not afford to
make a mistake--time was too precious--but how was he to know which
would lead him to the niche where the priest hid?
The Atlantean had been about to tell him of these stairs when struck by
the delirium which precedes death, and Kane wished fervently that he
had lived only a few moments longer.
At any rate, he had no time to waste; right or wrong, he must chance
it. He chose the right hand stair and ran swiftly up it. No time for
caution now. He felt instinctively that the time of the sacrifice
was close at hand. He came into another passage and discerned by the
change in masonry that he was out of the cliffs again and in some
building--presumably the Tower of Death. He expected any moment to come
upon another stair, and suddenly his expectations were realized--but
instead of up, it led down. From somewhere in front of him Kane
heard a vague, rhythmic murmur and a cold hand gripped his heart. The
chanting of the worshippers before the Black Altar!
He raced forward recklessly, rounded a turn in the corridor, brought
up short against a door and looked through a tiny aperture. His heart
sank. He had chosen the wrong stair and had wandered into some other
building adjoining the Tower of Death.
He looked upon a grim and terrible scene. In a wide open space before
a great black tower whose spire rose above the crags behind it, two
long lines of black dancers swayed and writhed. Their voices rose in
a strange meaningless chant, and they did not move from their tracks.
From their knees upward their bodies swayed in fantastic rhythmical
motions, and in their hands torches tossed and whirled, shedding a
lurid shifting red light over the scene. Behind them were ranged a vast
concourse of people who stood silent. The dancing torchlight gleamed on
a sea of glittering eyes and black faces. In front of the dancers rose
the Tower of Death, gigantically tall, black and horrific. No door or
window opened in its face, but high on the wall in a sort of ornamented
frame there leered a grim symbol of death and decay. The skull of
Nakura! A faint eery glow surrounded it, lit somehow from within the
tower, Kane knew, and wondered by what strange art the priests had kept
the skull from decay and dissolution so long.
But it was neither the skull nor the tower which gripped the Puritan's
horrified gaze and held it. Between the converging lines of yelling,
swaying worshippers there rose a great black altar. On this altar lay a
slim white shape.
"Marylin!" the word burst from Kane's lips in a great sob.
For a moment he stood frozen, helpless, struck blind. No time now to
retrace his steps and find the niche where the skull priest lurked.
Even now a faint glow was apparent behind the spire of the tower,
etching that spire blackly against the sky. The moon had risen. The
chant of the dancers soared up to a frenzy of sound and from the
silent watchers behind them began a sinister low rumble of drums. To
Kane's dazed mind it seemed that he looked on some red debauch of a
lower Hell. What ghastly worship of past eons did these perverted and
degenerate rites symbolize? Kane knew that these black people aped the
rituals of their former masters in their crude way, and even in his
despair he found time to shudder at the thought of what those original
rites must have been.
Now a fearful shape rose up beside the altar where lay the silent girl.
A tall black man, entirely naked save for a hideous painted mask on his
face and a great head-dress of waving plumes. The drone of the chant
sank low for an instant, then rose up again to wilder heights. Was it
the vibrations of their song that made the floor quiver beneath Kane's
feet?
Kane with shaking fingers began to unbar the door. Naught to do now
but to rush out barehanded and die beside the girl he could not save.
Then his gaze was blocked by a giant form which shouldered in front of
the door. A huge black man, a chief by his bearing and apparel, leaned
idly against the wall as he watched the proceedings. Kane's heart gave
a great leap. This was too good to be true! Thrust in the black man's
girdle was the pistol he himself had carried! He knew that his weapons
must have been divided among his captors. This pistol meant nothing
to the chief, but he must have been taken by its strange shape and
was carrying it as savages will wear useless trinkets, or perhaps he
thought it a sort of war-club. At any rate, there it was. And again
floor and building seemed to tremble.
Kane pulled the door silently inward and crouched in the shadows behind
his victim like a great brooding tiger. His brain worked swiftly and
formulated his plan of action. There was a dagger in the girdle beside
the pistol; the black man's back was turned squarely to him and he must
strike from the left to reach the heart and silence him quickly. All
this passed through Solomon's brain in a flash as he crouched.
The black man was not aware of his foe's presence until Kane's lean
right hand shot across his shoulder and clamped on his mouth, jerking
him backward. At the same instant the Puritan's left hand tore the
dagger from the girdle and with one desperate plunge sank the keen
blade home. The black crumpled without a sound and in an instant Kane's
pistol was in its owner's hand. A second's investigation showed that it
was still loaded and the flint still in place.
No one had seen the swift murder. Those few who stood near the doorway
were all facing the Black Altar, enwrapped in the drama which was there
unfolding. As Kane stepped across the corpse, the chanting of the
dancers ceased abruptly. In the instant of silence which followed, Kane
heard, above the pounding of his own pulse, the nightwind rustle the
death-like plumes of the masked horror beside the altar. A rim of the
moon glowed above the spire.
Then from high up on the face of the Tower of Death a deep voice boomed
out in a strange chant. Mayhap the black priest who spoke behind the
skull knew not what his words meant, but Kane believed that he at least
mimicked the very intonation of those long-dead brown acolytes. Deep,
mystic, resonant the voice sounded out, like the endless flowing of
long tides on the broad white beaches.
The masked one beside the altar drew himself up to his great height and
raised a long glimmering blade. Kane recognized his own sword, even as
he leveled his pistol and fired--not at the masked priest but full at
the skull which gleamed in the face of the tower! For in one blinding
flash of intuition he remembered the dying Atlantean's words: "Their
brains hinge on the skull of Nakura!"
Simultaneously with the crack of the pistol came a shattering crash;
the dry skull flew into a thousand pieces and vanished, and behind
it the chant broke off short in a death shriek. The rapier fell from
the hand of the masked priest and many of the dancers crumpled to
the earth, the others halting short, spellbound. Through the deathly
silence which reigned for an instant, Kane rushed toward the altar;
then all Hell broke loose.
A babel of bestial screams rose to the shuddering stars. For
centuries only their faith in the dead Nakura had held together the
blood-drenched brains of the black Negari. Now their symbol had
vanished, had been blasted into nothing before their eyes. It was to
them as if the skies had split, the moon fallen and the world ended.
All the red visions which lurked at the backs of their corroded brains
leaped into fearful life, all the latent insanity which was their
heritage rose to claim its own, and Kane looked upon a whole nation
turned to bellowing maniacs.
Screaming and roaring they turned on each other, men and women, tearing
with frenzied fingernails, stabbing with spears and daggers, beating
each other with the flaming torches, while over all rose the roar of
frantic human beasts. With clubbed pistol Kane battered his way through
the surging, writhing ocean of flesh, to the foot of the altar stairs.
Nails raked him, knives slashed at him, torches scorched his garments
but he paid no heed.
Then as he reached the altar, a terrible figure broke from the
struggling mass and charged him. Nakari, queen of Negari, crazed as any
of her subjects, rushed upon the white man with dagger bared and eyes
horribly aflame.
"You shall not escape this time, white man!" she was screaming, but
before she reached him a great black giant, dripping blood and blind
from a gash across his eyes, reeled across her path and lurched into
her. She screamed like a wounded cat and struck her dagger into him,
and then the groping hands closed on her. The blind giant whirled her
on high with one dying effort, and her last scream knifed the din of
battle as Nakari, last queen of Negari, crashed against the stones of
the altar and fell shattered and dead at Kane's feet.
* * * * *
Kane sprang up the black steps, worn deep by the feet of myriad priests
and victims, and as he came, the masked figure, who had stood like one
turned to stone, came suddenly to life. He bent swiftly, caught up the
sword he had dropped and thrust savagely at the charging white man. But
the dynamic quickness of Solomon Kane was such as few men could match.
A twist and sway of his steely body and he was inside the thrust, and
as the blade slid harmlessly between arm and chest, he brought down the
heavy pistol barrel among the waving plumes, crashing head-dress, mask
and skull with one blow.
Then ere he turned to the fainting girl who lay bound on the altar, he
flung aside the shattered pistol and snatched his stolen sword from
the nerveless hand which still grasped it, feeling a fierce thrill of
renewed confidence at the familiar feel of the hilt.
Marylin lay white and silent, her death-like face turned blindly to the
light of the moon which shone calmly down on the frenzied scene. At
first Kane thought her to be dead, but his searching fingers detected a
faint flutter of pulse. He cut her bonds and lifted her tenderly--only
to drop her again and whirl as a hideous blood-stained figure of
insanity came leaping and gibbering up the steps. Full upon Kane's
out-thrust blade the creature ran, and toppled back into the red swirl
below, clawing beast-like at its mortal wound.
Then beneath Kane's feet the altar rocked; a sudden tremor hurled him
to his knees and his horrified eyes beheld the Tower of Death sway to
and fro. Some horror of Nature was taking place and this fact pierced
the crumbling brains of the fiends who fought and screamed below. A
new element entered into their shrieking, and then the Tower of Death
swayed far out with a terrible and awesome majesty--broke from the
rocking crags and gave way with a thunder of crashing worlds. Great
stones and shards of masonry came raining down, bringing death and
destruction to hundreds of screaming humans below. One of these stones
crashed to pieces on the altar beside Kane, showering him with dust.
"Earthquake!" he gasped, and smitten by this new terror he caught up
the senseless girl and plunged recklessly down the cracking steps,
hacking and stabbing a way through the crimson whirlpools of bestial
humanity that still tore and ravened.
The rest was a red nightmare, in which Kane's dazed brain refused to
record all its horrors. It seemed that for screaming crimson centuries
he reeled through narrow winding streets where bellowing, screeching
black demons battled and died, among titanic walls and black columns
that rocked against the sky and crashed to ruin about him, while the
earth heaved and trembled beneath his staggering feet and the thunder
of crashing towers filled the world.
Gibbering fiends in human shape clutched and clawed at him, to fade
before his flailing sword, and falling stones bruised and battered him.
He crouched as he reeled along, covering the girl with his body as best
he could, sheltering her alike from blind stone and blinder human. And
at last, when it seemed mortal endurance had reached its limit, he saw
the great black outer wall of the city loom before him, rent from earth
to parapet and tottering for its fall. He dashed through a crevice, and
gathering his efforts, made one last sprint. And scarce was he out of
reach than the wall crashed, falling inward like a great black wave.
The night wind was in his face and behind him rose the clamor of the
doomed city as Kane staggered down the hill path that trembled beneath
his feet.
_7. The Faith of Solomon_
"The last lost giant, even God,
Is risen against the world."
--Chesterton.
Dawn lay like a cool white hand on the brow of Solomon Kane. The
nightmares faded from his soul as he breathed deep of the morning wind
which blew up from the jungle far below his feet--a wind laden with
the musk of decaying vegetation; yet it was like the breath of life to
him, for the scents were those of the clean natural disintegration of
outdoor things, not the loathsome aura of decadent antiquity that lurks
in the walls of eon-old cities--Kane shuddered involuntarily.
He bent over the sleeping girl who lay at his feet, arranged as
comfortably as possible with the few soft tree branches he had
been able to find for her bed. Now she opened her eyes and stared
about wildly for an instant; then as her gaze met the face of
Solomon, lighted by one of his rare smiles, she gave a little sob of
thankfulness and clung to him.
"Oh, Captain Kane! Have we in truth escaped from yon fearful city? Now
it seems all like a dream--after you fell through the secret door in my
chamber Nakari later went to your dungeon--as she told me--and returned
in vile humor. She said you were a fool, for she had offered you the
kingdom of the world and you had but insulted her. She screamed and
raved and cursed like one insane and swore that she would yet, alone,
build a great empire of Negari. Then she turned on me and reviled me,
saying that you held me--a slave--in more esteem than a queen and all
her glory. And in spite of my pleas she took me across her knees and
whipped me until I swooned.
"Afterward I lay half senseless for a long time, and was only dimly
aware that men came to Nakari and said that you had escaped; they said
you were a sorcerer, for you faded through a solid wall like a ghost.
But Nakari killed the men who had brought you from the cell, and for
hours she was like a wild beast.
"How long I lay thus I know not. In those terrible rooms and corridors
where no natural sunlight ever entered, one lost all track of time.
But from the time you were captured by Nakari and the time that I was
placed on the altar, at least a day and a night and another day must
have passed. It was only a few hours before the sacrifice that word
came you had escaped.
"Nakari and her Star-maidens came to prepare me for the rite." At the
bare memory of that fearful ordeal she whimpered and hid her face in
her hands. "I must have been drugged--I only know that they clothed me
in the white robe of the sacrifice and carried me into a great black
chamber filled with horrid statues. There I lay for a space like one in
a trance while the women performed various strange and shameful rites
according to their grim religion. Then I fell into a swoon, and when I
emerged I was lying bound on the Black Altar--the torches were tossing
and the devotees chanting--behind the Tower of Death the rising moon
was beginning to glow--all this I knew faintly, as in a deep dream. And
as in a dream I saw the glowing skull high on the tower--and the gaunt
black naked priest holding a sword above my heart; then I knew no more.
What happened?"
"At about that moment," Kane answered, "I emerged from a building
wherein I had wandered by mistake, and blasted their hellish skull to
atoms with a pistol ball. Whereupon, all these people, being cursed
from birth by demons, and being likewise possessed of devils, fall
to slaying one another, and in the midst of the tumult an earthquake
cometh to pass which shakes the walls down. Then I snatch you up, and
running at random, come upon a rent in the outer wall and thereby
escape, carrying you, who seem in a swoon.
"Once only you awoke, after I had crossed the Bridge-Across-the-Sky,
as the black people called it, which was crumbling beneath our feet by
reason of the earthquake. After I had come to these cliffs, but dared
not descend them in the darkness, the moon being nigh to setting by
that time, you awoke and screamed and clung to me, whereupon I soothed
you as best I might, and after a time you fell into a natural sleep."
"And now what?" asked the girl.
"England!" Kane's deep eyes lighted at the word. "I find it hard to
remain in the land of my birth for more than a month at a time; yet
though I am cursed with the wanderlust, 'tis a name which ever rouses a
glow in my bosom. And how of you, child?"
"Oh heaven!" she cried, clasping her small hands. "Home! Something of
which to be dreamed--never attained, I fear. Oh Captain Kane, how shall
we gain through all the vast leagues of jungle which lie between this
place and the coast?"
"Marylin," said Kane gently, stroking her curly hair, "methinks you
lack somewhat in faith, both in Providence and in me. Nay, alone I am
a weak creature, having no strength or might in me; yet in times past
hath God made me a great vessel of wrath and a sword of deliverance.
And, I trust, shall do so again.
"Look you, little Marylin: in the last few hours as it were, we have
seen the passing of an evil race and the fall of a foul black empire.
Men died by thousands about us, and the earth rose beneath our feet,
hurling down towers that broke the heavens; yea, death fell about us
in a red rain, yet we escaped unscathed.
"Therein is more than the hand of man! Nay, a Power--the mightiest
Power! That which guided me across the world, straight to that demon
city--which led me to your chamber--which aided me to escape again and
led me to the one man in all the city who would give the information I
must have, the strange, evil priest of an elder race who lay dying in
a subterranean cell--and which guided me to the outer wall, as I ran
blindly and at random--for should I have come under the cliffs which
formed the rest of the wall, we had surely perished. That same Power
brought us safely out of the dying city, and safe across the rocking
bridge--which shattered and thundered down into the chasm just as my
feet touched solid earth!
"Think you that having led me this far, and accomplished such wonders,
the Power will strike us down now? Nay! Evil flourishes and rules in
the cities of men and the waste places of the world, but anon the great
giant that is God rises and smites for the righteous, and they lay
faith on him.
"I say this: this cliff shall we descend in safety, and yon dank jungle
traverse in safety, and it is as sure that in old Devon your people
shall clasp you again to their bosom, as that you stand here."
And now for the first time Marylin smiled, with the quick eagerness
of a normal young girl, and Kane sighed in relief. Already the ghosts
were fading from her haunted eyes, and Kane looked to the day when her
horrible experiences should be as a dimming dream. One glance he flung
behind him, where beyond the scowling hills the lost city of Negari lay
shattered and silent, amid the ruins of her own walls and the fallen
crags which had kept her invincible so long, but which had at last
betrayed her to her doom. A momentary pang smote him as he thought
of the myriad of crushed, still forms lying amid those ruins; then
the blasting memory of their evil crimes surged over him and his eyes
hardened.
"And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the
fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of
the pit shall be taken in the snare; for the windows from on high are
open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
"For Thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defended city a ruin; a
palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.
"Moreover, the multitude of Thy strangers shall be like small dust
and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth
suddenly away; yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.
"Stay yourselves and wonder; cry ye out and cry; they are drunken but
not with wine; they stagger but not with strong drink.
"Verily, Marylin," said Kane with a sigh, "with mine own eyes have I
seen the prophecies of Isaiah come to pass. They were drunken but not
with wine! Nay, blood was their drink and in that red flood they dipped
deep and terribly."
Then taking the girl by the hand he started toward the edge of the
cliff. At this very point had he ascended, in the night--how long ago
it seemed.
Kane's clothing hung in tatters about him. He was torn, scratched and
bruised. But in his eyes shone the clear calm light of serenity as the
sun came up, flooding cliffs and jungle with a golden light that was
like a promise of joy and happiness.