Title: Shadows in Zamboula

Author: Robert E. Howard

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Title: Shadows in Zamboula

Author: Robert E. Howard







Contents







1 A Drum Begins



2 The Night Skulkers



3 Black Hands Gripping



4 Dance, Girl, Dance!











A Drum Begins



"Peril hides in the house of Aram Baksh!"



The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-

nailed fingers clawed at Conan's mightily-muscled arm as he croaked

his warning. He was a wiry, sunburnt man with a straggling black

beard, and his ragged garments prolcaimed him a nomad. He looked

smaller and meaner than ever in contrast to the giant Cimmerian with

his black brows, broad chest, and powerful limbs. They stood in a

corner of the Sword Makers' Bazaar, and on either side of them flowed

past the many-tongued, many-colored stream of the Zamboulan streets,

which are exotic, hybrid, flamboyant, and clamorous.



Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped

Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step,

and frowned down at his importunate companion.



"What do you mean by peril?" he demanded.



The desert man glanced furtively over his shoulder before replying,

and lowered his voice.



"Who can say? But desert men and travelers have slept in the house of

Aram Baksh and never been seen or heard of again. What became of them?

He swore they rose and went their way--and it is true that no citizen

of the city has ever disappeared from his house. But no one saw the

travelers again, and men say that goods and equipment recognised as

theirs have been seen in the bazaars. If Aram did not sell them, after

doing away with their owners, how came they there?"



"I have no goods," growled the Cimmerian, touching the shagreen-bound

hilt of the broadsword that hung at his hip. "I have even sold my

horse."



"But it is not always rich strangers who vanish by night from the

house of Aram Baksh!" chattered the Zuagir. "Nay, poor desert men have

slept there--because his score is less than that of the other

taverns--and have been seen no more. Once a chief of the Zuagirs whose

son had thus vanished complained to the satrap, Jungir Khan, who

ordered the house searched by soldiers."



"And they found a cellar full of corpses?" asked Conan in good-humored

derision.



"Nay! They found naught! And drove the chief from the city with

threats and curses! But"--he drew closer to Conan and shivered--

"something else was found! At the edge of the desert, beyond the

houses, there is a clump of palm trees, and within that grove there is

a pit. And within that pit have been found human bones, charred and

blackened. Not once, but many times!"



"Which proves what?" grunted the Cimmerian.



"Aram Baksh is a demon! Nay, in this accursed city which Stygians

built and which Hyrkanians rule--where white, brown, and black folk

mingle together to produce hybrids of all unholy hues and breeds--who

can tell who is a man, and who is a demon in disguise? Aram Baksh is a

demon in the form of a man! At night he assumes his true guise and

carries his guests off into the desert, where his fellow demons from

the waste meet in conclave."



"Why does he always carry off strangers?" asked Conan skeptically.



"The people of the city would not suffer him to slay their people, but

they care nought for the strangers who fall into his hands. Conan, you

are of the West, and know not the secrets of this ancient land. But,

since the beginning of happenings, the demons of the desert have

worshipped Yog, the Lord of the Empty Abodes, with fire--fire that

devours human victims.



"Be warned! You have dwelt for many moons in the tents of the Zuagirs,

and you are our brother! Go not to the house of Aram Baksh!"



"Get out of sight!" Conan said suddenly. "Yonder comes a squad of the

city watch. If they see you they may remember a horse that was stolen

from the satrap's stable--"



The Zuagir gasped and moved convulsively. He ducked between a booth

and a stone horse trough, pausing only long enough to chatter: "Be

warned, my brother! There are demons in the house of Aram Baksh!" Then

he darted down a narrow alley and was gone.



Conan shifted his broad sword-belt to his liking and calmly returned

the searching stares directed at him by the squad of watchmen as they

swung past. They eyed him curiously and suspiciously, for he was a man

who stood out even in such a motley throng as crowded the winding

streets of Zamboula. His blue eyes and alien features distinguished

him from the Eastern swarms, and the straight sword at his hip added

point to the racial difference.



The watchmen did not accost him but swung on down the street, while

the crowd opened a lane for them. They were Pelishtim, squat, hook-

nosed, with blue-black beards sweeping their mailed breasts--

mercenaries hired for work the ruling Turanians considered beneath

themselves, and no less hated by the mongrel population for that

reason.



Conan glanced at the sun, just beginning to dip behind the flat-topped

houses on the western side of the bazaar, and hitching once more at

his belt, moved off in the direction of Aram Baksh's tavern.



With a hillman's stride he moved through the ever-shifting colors of

the streets, where the ragged tunics of whining beggars brushed

against the ermine-trimmed khalats of lordly merchants, and the pearl-

sewn satin of rich courtesans. Giant black slaves slouched along,

jostling blue-bearded wanders from the Shemitish cities, ragged nomads

from the surrounding deserts, traders and adventureers from all the

lands of the East.



The native population was no less hetrogeneous. Here, centuries ago,

the armies of Stygia had come, carving an empire out of the eastern

desert. Zamboula was but a small trading town then, lying amidst a

ring of oases, and inhabited by descendants of nomads. The Stygians

built it into a city and settled it with their own people, and with

Shemite and Kushite slaves. The ceaseless caravans, threading the

desert from east to west and back again, brought riches and more

mingling of races. Then came the conquering Turanians, riding out of

the East to thrust back the boundaries of Stygia, and now for a

generation Zamboula had been Turan's westernmost outpost, ruled by a

Turanian satrap.



The babel of a myriad tongues smote on the Cimmerian's ears as the

restless pattern of the Zamboulan streets weaved about him--cleft now

and then by a squad of clattering horsemen, the tall, supple warriors

of Turan, with dark hawk-faces, clinking metal, and curved swords. The

throng scampered from under their horses' hoofs, for they were the

lords of Zamboula. But tall, somber Stygians, standing back in the

shadows, glowered darkly, rememebering their ancient glories. The

hybrid population cared little whether the king who controlled their

destinies dwelt in dark Khemi or gleaming Aghrapur. Jungir Khan ruled

Zamboula, and men whispered that Nafertari, the satrap's mistress,

ruled Jungir Khan; but the people went their way, flaunting their

myriad colors in the streets, bargaining, disputing, gambling,

swilling, loving, as the people of Zamboula have done for all the

centuries its towers and minarets have lifted over the sands of the

Kharamun.



Bronze lanterns, carved with leering dragons, had been lighted in the

streets before Conan reached the house of Aram Baksh. The tavern was

the last occupied house on the street, which ran west. A wide garden,

enclosed by a wall, where date palms grew thick, separated it from the

houses farther east. To the west of the inn stood another grove of

palms, through which the street, now become a road, wound out into the

desert. Across the road from the tavern stood a row of deserted huts,

shaded by straggling palm trees and occupied only by bats and jackals.

As Conan came down the road, he wondered why the beggars, so plentiful

in Zamboula, had not appropriated these empty houses for sleeping

quarters. The lights ceased some distance behind him. Here were no

lanterns, except the one hanging before the tavern gate: only the

stars, the soft dust of the road underfoot, and the rustle of the palm

leaves in the desert breeze.



Aram's gate did not open upon the road but upon the alley which ran

between the tavern and the garden of the date palms. Conan jerked

lustily at the rope which dangled from the bell beside the lantern,

augmenting its clamor by hammering on the iron-bound teakwood gate

with the hilt of his sword. A wicket opened in the gate, and a black

face peered through.



"Open, blast you," requested Conan. "I'm a guest. I've paid Aram for a

room, and a room I'll have, by Crom!"



The black craned his neck to stare into the starlit road behind Conan;

but he opened the gate without comment and closed it again behind the

Cimmerian, locking it and bolting it. The wall was unusually high; but

there were many thieves in Zamboula, and a house on the edge of the

desert might have to be defended against a nocturnal nomad raid. Conan

strode through a garden, where great pale blossoms nodded in the

starlight, and entered the taproom, where a Stygian with the shaven

head of a student sat at a table brooding over nameless mysteries, and

some nondescripts wrangled over a game of dice in a corner.



Aram Baksh came forward, walking softly, a portly man, wih a black

beard that swept his breast, a jutting hooknose, and small black eyes

which were never still.



"You wish food?" he asked. "Drink?"



"I ate a joint of beef and a loaf of bread in the suk," grunted Conan.

"Bring me a tankard of Ghazan wine--I've got just enough left to pay

for it."  He tossed a copper coin on the wine-splashed board.



"You did not win at the gaming tables?"



"How could I, with only a handful of silver to begin with? I paid you

for the room this morning, because I knew I'd probably lose. I wanted

to be sure I had a roof over my head tonight. I notice nobody sleeps

in the streets of Zamboula. The very beggars hunt a niche they can

barricade before dark. The city must be full of a particularly

bloodthirsty band of thieves."



He gulped the cheap wine with relish and then followed Aram out of the

taproom. Behind him the players halted their game to stare after him

with a cryptic speculation in their eyes. They said nothing, but the

Stygian laughed, a ghastly laugh of inhuman cynicism and mockery. The

others lowered their eyes uneasily, avoiding one another's glance. The

arts studied by a Stygian scholar are not calculated to make him share

the feelings of a normal being.



Conan followed Aram down a corridor lighted by copper lamps, and it

did not please him to note his host's noiseless tread. Aram's feet

were clad in soft slippers and the hallway was carpeted with thick

Turanian rugs; but there was an unpleasant suggestion of stealthiness

about the Zamboulan.



At the end of the winding corridor, Aram halted at a door, across

which a heavy iron bar rested in powerful metal brackets. This Aram

lifted and showed the Cimmerian into a well-appointed chamber, the

windows of which, Conan instantly noted, were small and strongly set

with twisted bars of iron, tastefully gilded. There were rugs on the

floor, a couch, after the Eastern fashion, and ornately carven stools.

It was a much more elaborate chamber than Conan could have procured

for the price nearer the center of the city--a fact that had first

attracted him, when, that morning, he discoverd how slim a purse his

roistering for the past few days had left him. He had ridden into

Zamboula from the desert a week before.



Aram had lighted a bronze lamp, and he now called Conan's attention to

the two doors. Both were provided with heavy bolts.



"You may sleep safely tonight, Cimmerian," said Aram, blinking over

his bushy beard from the inner doorway.



Conan grunted and tossed his naked broadsword on the couch.



"Your bolts and bars are strong; but I always sleep with steel by my

side."



Aram made no reply; he stood fingering his thick beard for a moment as

he stared at the grim weapon. Then silently he withdrew, closing the

door behind him. Conan shot the bolt into place, crossed the room,

opened the opposite door, and looked out. The room was on the side of

the house that faced the road running west from the city. The door

opened into a small court that was enclosed by a wall of its own. The

end walls, which shut it off from the rest of the tavern compound,

were high and without entrances; but the wall that flanked the road

was low, and there was no lock on the gate.



Conan stood for a moment in the door, the glow of the bronze lamps

behind him, looking down the road to where it vanished among the dense

palms. Their leaves rustled together in the faint breeze; beyond them

lay the naked desert. Far up the street, in the other direction,

lights gleamed and the noises of the city came faintly to him. Here

was only starlight, the whispering of the palm leaves, and beyond that

low wall, the dust of the road and the deserted huts thrusting their

flat roofs against the low stars. Somewhere beyond the palm groves a

drum began.



The garbled warnings of the Zuagir returned to him, seeming somewhow

less fantastic than they had seemed in the crowded, sunlit streets. He

wondered again at the riddle of those empty huts. Why did the beggars

shun them? He turned back into the chamber, shut the door, and bolted

it.



The light began to flicker, and he investigated, swearing when he

found the palm oil in the lamp was almost exhausted. He started to

shout for Aram, then shrugged his shoulders and blew out the light. In

the soft darkness he stretched himself fully clad on the couch, his

sinewy hand by instinct searching for and closing on the hilt of his

broadsword. Glancing idly at the stars framed in the barred windows,

with the murmur of the breeze though the palms in his ears, he sank

into slumber with a vague consciousness of the muttering drum, out on

the desert--the low rumble and mutter of a leather-covered drum,

beaten with soft, rhythmic strokes of an open black hand . . .







The Night Skulkers



It was the stealthy opening of a door which awakened the Cimmerian. He

did not awake as civilized men do, drowsy and drugged and stupid. He

awoke instantly, with a clear mind, recognizing the sound that had

interruped his sleep. Lying there tensely in the dark he saw the outer

door slowly open. In a widening crack of starlit sky he saw framed a

great black bulk, broad, stooping shoulders, and a misshapen head

blocked out against the stars.



Conan felt the skin crawl between his shoulders. He had bolted that

door securely. How could it be opening now, save by supernatural

agency? And how could a human being possess a head like that outlined

against the stars? All the tales he had heard in the Zuagir tents of

devils and goblins came back to bead his flesh with clammy sweat. Now

the monster slid noiselessly into the room, with a crouching posture

and a shambling gait; and a familiar scent assailed the Cimmerian's

nostrils, but did not reassure him, since Zuagir legendry represented

demons as smelling like that.



Noiselessly Conan coiled his long legs under him; his naked sword was

in his right hand, and when he struck it was as suddenly and

murderously as a tiger lunging out of the dark. Not even a demon could

have avoided that catapulting charge. His sword met and clove through

flesh and bone, and something went heavily to the floor with a

strangling cry. Conan crouched in the dark above it, sword dripping in

his hand. Devil or beast or man, the thing was dead there on the

floor. He sensed death as any wild thing senses it. He glared through

the half-open door into the starlit court beyond. The gate stood open,

but the court was empty.



Conan shut the door but did not bolt it. Groping in the darkness he

found the lamp and lighted it. There was enough oil in it to burn for

a minute or so. An instant later he was bending over the figure that

sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood.



It was a gigantic black man, naked but for a loin cloth. One hand

still grasped a knotty-headed budgeon. The fellow's kinky wool was

built up into hornlike spindles with twigs and dried mud. This

barbaric coiffure had given the head its misshapen appearance in the

starlight. Provided with a clue to the riddle, Conan pushed back the

thick red lips and grunted as he stared down at teeth filed to points.



He understood now the mystery of the strangers who had disappeared

from the house of Aram Baksh; the riddle of the black drum thrumming

out there beyond the palm groves, and of that pit of charred bones--

that pit where strange meat might be roasted under the stars, while

black beasts squatted about to glut a hideous hunger. The man on the

floor was a cannibal slave from Darfar.



There were many of his kind in the city. Cannibalism was not tolerated

openly in Zamboula. But Conan knew now why people locked themselves in

so securely at night, and why even beggars shunned the open alley and

doorless ruins. He grunted in disgust as he visualized brutish black

shadows skulking up and down the nighted streets, seeking human prey--

and such men as Aram Baksh to open the doors to them. The innkeeper

was not a demon; he was worse. The slaves from Darfar were notorious

thieves; there was no doubt that some of their pilfered loot found its

way into the hands of Aram Baksh. And in return he sold them human

flesh.



Conan blew out the light, stepped to the door and opened it, and ran

his hand over the ornaments on the outer side. One of them was movable

and worked the bolt inside. The room was a trap to catch human prey

like rabbits. But this time, instead of a rabbit, it had caught a

saber-toothed tiger.



Conan returned to the other door, lifted the bolt, and pressed against

it. It was immovable, and he remembered the bolt on the other side.

Aram was taking no chances either with his victims or the men with

whom he dealt. Buckling on his sword belt, the Cimmerian strode out

into the court, closing the door behind him. He had no intention of

delaying the settlement of his reckoning with Aram Baksh. He wondered

how many poor devils had been bludgeoned in their sleep and dragged

out of that room and down the road that ran through the shadowed palm

groves to the roasting pit.



He halted in the court. The drum was still muttering, and he caught

the reflection of a leaping red glare through the groves. Cannibalism

was more than a perverted appetite with the black men of Darfar; it

was an integral element of their ghastly cult. The black vultures were

already in conclave. But whatever flesh filled their bellies that

night, it would not be his.



To reach Aram Baksh, he must climb one of the walls which separated

the small enclosure from the main compound. They were high, meant to

keep out the man-eaters; but Conan was no swamp-bred black man; his

thews had been steeled in boyhood on the sheer cliffs of his native

hills. He was standing at the foot of the nearer wall when a cry

echoed under the trees.



In an instant Conan was crouching at the gate, glaring down the road.

The sound had come from the shadows of the huts across the road. He

heard a frantic choking and gurgling such as might result from a

desperate attempt to shriek, with a black hand fastened over the

victim's mouth. A close-knit clump of figures emerged from the shadows

beyond the huts and started down the road--three huge black men

carrying a slender, struggling figure between them. Conan caught the

glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a

convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal

fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as

the day she was born. Conan saw her plainly before she ran out of the

road and into the shadows between the huts. The blacks were at her

heels, and back in the shadows the figures merged and an intolerable

scream of anguish and horror rang out.



Stirred to red rage by the ghoulishness of the episode, Conan raced

across the road.



Neither victim nor abductors were aware of his presence until the soft

swish of the dust about his feet brought them about; and then he was

almost upon them, coming with the gusty fury of a hill wind. Two of

the blacks turned to meet him, lifting their bludgeons. But they

failed to estimate properly the speed at which he was coming. One of

them was down, disemboweled, before he could strike, and wheeling

catlike, Conan evaded the stroke of the other's cudgel and lashed in a

whistling counter-cut. The black's head flew into the air; the

headless body took three staggering steps, spurting blood and clawing

horribly at the air with groping hands, and then slumped to the dust.



The remaining cannibal gave back with a strangled yell, hurling his

captive from him. She tripped and rolled in the dust, and the black

fled in panic toward the city. Conan was at his heels. Fear winged the

black feet, but before they reached the easternmost hut, he sensed

death at his back, and bellowed like an ox in the slaughter yards.



"Black dog of Hell!" Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders

with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length

from the black breast. With a choking cry the black stumbled headlong,

and Conan braced his feet and dragged out his sword as his victim

fell.



Only the breeze disturbed the leaves. Conan shook his head as a lion

shakes its mane and growled his unsatiated blood lust. But no more

shapes slunk from the shadows, and before the huts the starlit road

stretched empty. He whirled at the quick patter of feet behind him,

but it was only the girl, rushing to throw herself on him and clasp

his neck in a desperate grasp, frantic from terror of the abominable

fate she had just escaped.



"Easy, girl," he grunted. "You're all right. How did they catch you?"



She sobbed something unintelligible. He forgot all about Aram Baksh as

he scrutinized her by the light of the stars. She was white, though a

very definite brunette, obviously one of Zamboula's many mixed breeds.

She was tall, with a slender, supple form, as he was in a good

position to observe. Admiration burned in his fierce eyes as he looked

down on her splendid bosom and her lithe limbs, which still quivered

from fright and exertion. He passed an arm around her flexible waist

and said, reassuringly: "Stop shaking, wench; you're safe enough."



His touch seemed to restore her shaken sanity. She tossed back her

thick, glossy locks and cast a fearful glance over her shoulder, while

she pressed closer to the Cimmerian as if seeking security in the

contact.



"They caught me in the streets," she muttered, shuddering. "Lying in

wait, beneath a dark arch--black men, like great, hulking apes! Set

have mercy on me! I shall dream of it!"



"What were you doing out on the streets this time of night?" he

inquired, fascinated by the satiny feel of her sleek skin under his

questing fingers.



She raked back her hair and stared blankly up into his face. She did

not seem aware of his caresses.



"My lover," she said. "My lover drove me into the streets. He went mad

and tried to kill me. As I fled from him I was seized by those

beasts."



"Beauty like yours might drive a man mad," quoth Conan, running his

fingers experimentally through the glossy tresses.



She shook her head, like one emerging from a daze. She no longer

trembled, and her voice was steady.



"It was the spite of a priest--of Totrasmek, the high priest of

Hanuman, who desires me for himself--the dog!"



"No need to curse him for that," grinned Conan. "The old hyena has

better taste than I thought."



She ignored the bluff compliment. She was regaining her poise swiftly.



"My lover is a--a young Turanian soldier. To spite me, Totrasmek gave

him a drug that drove him mad. Tonight he snatched up a sword and came

at me to slay me in his madness, but I fled from him into the streets.

The Negroes seized me and brought me to this--what was that?"



Conan had already moved. Soundlessly as a shadow he drew her behind

the nearest hut, beneath the straggling palms. They stood in tense

stillness, while the low muttering both had heard grew louder until

voices were distinguishable. A group of Negroes, some nine or ten,

were coming along the road from the direction of the city. The girl

clutched Conan's arm and he felt the terrified quivering of her supple

body against his.



Now they could understand the gutturals of the black men.



"Our brothers are already assembled at the pit," said one. "We have

had no luck. I hope they have enough for us."



"Aram promised us a man," muttered another, and Conan mentally

promised Aram something.



"Aram keeps his word," grunted yet another. "Many a man we have taken

from his tavern. But we pay him well. I myself have given him ten

bales of silk I stole from my master. It was good silk, by Set!"



The blacks shuffled past, bare splay feet scuffing up the dust, and

their voices dwindled down the road.



"Well for us those corpses are lying behind these huts," muttered

Conan. "If they look in Aram's death room they'll find another. Let's

begone."



"Yes, let us hasten!" begged the girl, almost hysterical again. "My

lover is wandering somewhere in the streets alone. The Negroes may

take him."



"A devil of a custom this is!" growled Conan, as he led the way toward

the city, paralleling the road but keeping behind the huts and

straggling trees. "Why don't the citizens clean out these black dogs?"



"They are valuable slaves," murmured the girl. "There are so many of

them they might revolt if they were denied the flesh for which they

lust. The people of Zamboula know they skulk the streets at night, and

all are careful to remain within locked doors, except when something

unforseen happens, as it did to me. The blacks prey on anything they

can catch, but they seldom catch anybody but strangers. The people of

Zamboula are not concerned with the strangers that pass through the

city.



"Such men as Aram Baksh sell these strangers to the blacks. He would

not dare attempt such a thing with a citizen."



Conan spat in disgust, and a moment later led his companion out into

the road which was becoming a street, with still, unlighted houses on

each side. Slinking in the shadows was not congenial to his nature.



"Where did you want to go?" he asked. The girl did not seem to object

to his arm around her waist.



"To my house, to rouse my servants," she answered. "To bid them search

for my lover. I do not wish the city--the priests--anyone--to know of

his madness. He--he is a young officer with a promising future.

Perhaps we can drive this madness from him if we can find him."



"If we find him?" rumbled Conan. "What makes you think I want to spend

the night scouring the streets for a lunatic?"



She cast a quick glance into his face, and properly interpreted the

gleam in his blue eyes. Any woman could have known that he would

follow her wherever she led--for a while, at least. But being a women,

she concealed her knowledge of that fact.



"Please," she began with a hint of tears in her voice, "I have no one

else to ask for help--you have been kind --"



"All right!" he grunted. "All right! What's the young reprobate's

name?"



"Why--Alafdhal. I am Zabibi, a dancing-girl. I have danced often

before the satrap, Jungir Khan, and his mistress Nafertari, and before

all the lords and royal ladies of Zamboula. Totrasmek desired me and,

because I repulsed him, he made me the innocent tool of his vengeance

against Alafdhal. I asked a love potion of Totrasmek, not suspecting

the depth of his guile and hate. He gave me a drug to mix with my

lover's wine, and he swore that when Alafdhal drank it, he would love

me even more madly than ever and grant my every wish. I mixed the drug

secretly with my lover's wine. But having drunk, my lover went raving

mad and things came about as I have told you. Curse Totrasmek, the

hybrid snake--ahhh!"



She caught his arm convulsively and both stopped short. They had come

into a district of shops and stalls, all deserted and unlighted, for

the hour was late. They were passing an alley, and in its mouth a man

was standing, motionless and silent. His head was lowered, but Conan

caught the wierd gleam of eery eyes regarding them unblinkingly. His

skin crawled, not with fear of the sword in the man's hand, but

because of the uncanny suggestion of his posture and silence. They

suggested madness. Conan pushed the girl aside and drew his sword.



"Don't kill him!" she begged. "In the name of Set, do not slay him!

You are strong--overpower him!"



"We'll see," he muttered, grasping his sword in his right hand and

clenching his left into a mallet-like fist.



He took a wary step toward the alley--and with a horrible moaning

laugh the Tauranian charged. As he came he swung his sword, rising on

his toes as he put all the power of his body behind the blows. Sparks

flashed blue as Conan parried the blade, and the next instant the

madman was stretched senseless in the dust from a thundering buffet of

Conan's left fist.



The girl ran forward.



"Oh, he is not--he is not --"



Conan bent swiftly, turned the man on his side, and ran quick fingers

over him.



"He's not hurt much," he grunted. "Bleeding at the nose, but anybody's

likely to do that, after a clout on the jaw. He'll come to after a

bit, and maybe his mind will be right. In the meantime I'll tie his

wrists with his sword belt--so. Now where do you want me to take him?"



"Wait!" She knelt beside the senseless figure, seized the bound hands,

and scanned them avidly. Then, shaking her head as if in baffled

disappointment, she rose. She came close to the giant Cimmerian and

laid her slender hands on his arching breast. Her dark eyes, like wet

black jewels in the starlight, gazed up into his.



"You are a man! Help me! Totrasmek must die! Slay him for me!"



"And put my neck into a Turanian noose?" he grunted.



"Nay!" The slender arms, strong as pliant steel, were around his

corded neck. Her supple body throbbed against his. "The Hyrkanians

have no love for Totrasmek. The priests of Set fear him. He is a

mongrel, who rules men by fear and superstition. I worship Set, and

the Turanians bow to Erlik, but Totrasmek sacrifices to Hanuman the

accursed! The Turanian lords fear his black arts and his power over

the hybrid popularion, and they hate him. Even Jungir Khan and his

mistress Nafertari fear and hate him. If he were slain in his temple

at night, they would not seek his slayer very closely."



"And what of his magic?" rumbled the Cimmerian.



"You are a fighting man," she answered. "To risk your life is part of

your profession."



"For a price," he admitted.



"There will be a price!" she breathed, rising on tiptoes, to gaze into

his eyes.



The nearness of her vibrant body drove a flame through his veins. The

perfume of her breath mounted to his brain. But as his arms closed

about her supple figure she avoided them with a lithe movement,

saying: "Wait! First serve me in this matter."



"Name your price."  He spoke with some difficulty.



"Pick up my lover," she directed, and the Cimmerian stooped and swung

the tall form easily to his broad shoulder. At the moment he felt as

if he could have toppled over Jungir Khan's palace with equal ease.

The girl murmured an endearment to the unconscious man, and there was

no hypocrisy in her attitude. She obviously loved Alafdhal sincerely.

Whatever business arrangement she made with Conan would have no

bearing on her relationship with Alafdhal. Women are more practical

about these things than men.



"Follow me!" She hurried along the street, while the Cimmerian strode

easily after her, in no way discomforted by his limp burden. He kept a

wary eye out for black shadows skulking under arches but saw nothing

suspicious. Doubtless the men of Darfar were all gathered at the

roasting pit. The girl turned down a narrow side street and presently

knocked cautiously at an arched door.



Almost instantly a wicket opened in the upper panel and a black face

glanced out. She bent close to the opening, whispering swiftly. Bolts

creaked in their sockets, and the door opened. A giant black man stood

framed against the soft glow of a copper lamp. A quick glance showed

Conan the man was not from Darfar. His teeth were unfiled and his

kinky hair was cropped close to his skull. He was from the Wadai.



At a word from Zabibi, Conan gave the limp body into the black's arms

and saw the young officer laid on a velvet divan. He showed no signs

of returning consciousness. The blow that had rendered him senseless

might have felled an ox. Zabibi bent over him for an instant, her

fingers nervously twining and twisting. Then she straightened and

beckoned the Cimmerian.



The door closed softly, the locks clicked behind them, and the closing

wicket shut off the glow of the lamps. In the starlight of the street

Zabibi took Conan's hand. Her own hand trembled a little.



"You will not fail me?"



He shook his maned head, massive against the stars.



"Then follow me to Hanuman's shrine, and the gods have mercy on our

souls."



Among the silent streets they moved like phantoms of antiquity. They

went in silence. Perhaps the girl was thinking of her lover lying

senseless on the divan under the copper lamps or was shrinking with

fear of what lay ahead of them in the demon-haunted shrine of Hanuman.

The barbarian was thinking only of the woman moving so supplely beside

him. The perfume of her scented hair was in his nostrils, the sensuous

aura of her presence filled his brain and left room for no other

thoughts.



Once they heard the clank of brass-shod feet, and drew into the

shadows of a gloomy arch while a squad of Pelishti watchmen swung

past. There were fifteen of them; they marched in close formation,

pikes at the ready, and the rearmost men had their broad, brass

shields slung on their backs, to protect them from a knife stroke from

behind. The skulking menace of the black maneaters was a threat even

to armed men.



As soon as the clang of their sandals had receded up the street, Conan

and the girl emerged from their hiding place and hurried on. A few

moments later, they saw the squat, flat-topped edifice they sought

looming ahead of them.



The temple of Hanuman stood alone in the midst of a broad square,

which lay silent and deserted beneath the stars. A marble wall

surrounded the shrine, with a broad opening directly before the

portico. This opening had no gate nor any sort of barrier.



"Why don't the blacks seek their prey here?" muttered Conan. "There's

nothing to keep them out of the temple."



He could feel the trembling of Zabibi's body as she pressed close to

him.



"They fear Totrasmek, as all in Zamboula fear him, even Jungir Khan

and Nafertari. Come! Come quickly, before my courage flows from me

like water!"



The girl's fear was evident, but she did not falter. Conan drew his

sword and strode ahead of her as they advanced through the open

gateway. He knew the hideous habits of the priests of the East and was

aware that an invader of Hanuman's shrine might expect to encounter

almost any sort of nightmare horror. He knew there was a good chance

that neither he nor the girl would ever leave the shrine alive, but he

had risked his life too many times before to devote much thought to

that consideration.



They entered a court paved with marble which gleamed whitely in the

starlight. A short flight of broad marble steps led up to the pillared

portico. The great bronze doors stood wide open as they had stood for

centuries. But no worshippers burnt incense within. In the day men and

women might come timidly into the shirne and place offerings to the

ape-god on the black altar. At night the people shunned the temple of

Hanuman as hares shun the lair of the serpent.



Burning censers bathed the interior in a soft, weird glow that created

an illusion of unreality. Near the rear wall, behind the black stone

altar, sat the god with his gaze fixed for ever on the open door,

through which for centuries his victims had come, dragged by chains of

roses. A faint groove ran from the sill to the altar, and when Conan's

foot felt it, he stepped away as quickly as if he had trodden upon a

snake. That groove had been worn by the faltering feet of the

multitude of those who had died screaming on that grim altar.



Bestial in the uncertain light, Hanuman leered with his carven mask.

He sat, not as an ape would crouch, but cross-legged as a man would

sit, but his aspect was no less simian for that reason. He was carved

from black marble, but his eyes were rubies, which glowed red and

lustful as the coals of hell's deepest pits. His great hands lay upon

his lap, palms upward, taloned fingers spread and grasping. In the

gross emphasis of his attributes, in the leer of his satyr-

countenance, was reflected the abominable cynicism of the degererate

cult which deified him.



The girl moved around the image, making toward the back wall, and when

her sleek flank brushed against a carven knee, she shrank aside and

shuddered as if a reptile had touched her. There was a space of

several feet between the broad back of the idol and the marble wall

with its frieze of gold leaves. On either hand, flanking the idol, an

ivory door under a gold arch was set in the wall.



"Those doors open into each end of a hairpin-shaped corridor," she

said hurriedly. "Once I was in the interior of the shrine--once!" She

shivered and twitched her slim shoulders at a memory both terrifying

and obscene. "The corridor is bent like a horseshoe, with each horn

opening into this room. Totrasmek's chambers are enclosed within the

curve of the corridor and open into it. But there is a secret door in

this wall which opens directly into an inner chamber--"



She began to run her hands over the smooth surface, where no crack or

crevice showed. Conan stood beside her, sword in hand, glancing warily

about him. The silence, the emptiness of the shrine, with imagination

picturing what might lie behind that wall, made him feel like a wild

beast nosing a trap.



"Ah!" The girl had found a hidden spring at last; a square opening

gaped blackly in the wall. Then: "Set!" she screamed, and even as

Conan leaped toward her, he saw that a great misshapen hand has

fastened itself in her hair. She was snatched off her feet and jerked

headfirst through the opening. Conan, grabbing ineffectually at her,

felt his fingers slip from a naked limb, and in an instant she had

vanished and the wall showed black as before. Only from beyond it came

the muffled sounds of a struggle, a scream, faintly heard, and a low

laugh that made Conan's blood congeal in his veins.







Black Hands Gripping



With an oath the Cimmerian smote the wall a terrible blow with the

pommel of his sword, and the marble cracked and chipped. But the

hidden door did not give way, and reason told him that doubtless it

had been bolted on the other side of the wall. Turning, he sprang

across the chamber to one of the ivory doors.



He lifted his sword to shatter the panels, but on a venture tried the

door first with is left hand. It swung open easily, and he glared into

a long corridor that curved away into dimness under the weird light of

censers similar to those in the shrine. A heavy gold bolt showed on

the jamb of the door, and he touched it lightly with his fingertips.

The faint warmness of the metal could have been detected only by a man

whose faculties were akin to those of a wolf. That bolt had been

touched--and therefore drawn--within the last few seconds. The affair

was taking on more and more of the aspect of a baited trap. He might

have known Totrasmek would know when anyone entered the temple.



To enter the corridor would undoubtedly be to walk into whatever trap

the priest had set for him. But Conan did not hesitate. Somewhere in

that dim-lit interior Zabibi was a captive, and, from what he knew of

the characteristics of Hanuman's priests, he was sure that she needed

help badly. Conan stalked into the corridor with a pantherish tread,

poised to strike right or left.



On his left, ivory, arched doors opened into the corridor, and he

tried each in turn. All were locked. He had gone perhaps seventy-five

feet when the corridor bent sharply to the left, describing the curve

the girl had mentioned. A door opened into this curve, and it gave

under his hand.



He was looking into a broad, square chamber, somewhat more clearly

lighted than the corridor. Its walls were of white marble, the floor

of ivory, the ceiling of fretted silver. He saw divans of rich satin,

gold-worked footstools of ivory, a disk-shaped table of some massive,

metal-like substance. On one of the divans a man was reclining,

looking toward the door. He laughed as he met the Cimmerian's startled

glare.



This man was naked except for a loin cloth and high-strapped sandals.

He was brown-skinned, with close-cropped black hair and restless black

eyes that set off a broad, arrogant face. In girth and breadth he was

enormous, with huge limbs on which the great muscles swelled and

rippled at each slightest movement. His hands were the largest Conan

had ever seen. The assurance of gigantic physical strength colored his

every action and inflection.



"Why not enter, barbarian?" he called mockingly, with an exaggerated

gesture of invitation.



Conan's eyes began to smolder ominously, but he trod warily into the

chamber, his sword ready.



"Who the devil are you?" he growled.



"I am Baal-pteor," the man answered. "Once, long ago and in another

land, I had another name. But this is a good name, and why Totrasmek

gave it to me, any temple wench can tell you."



"So you're his dog!" grunted Conan. "Well, curse your brown hide,

Baal-pteor, where's the wench you jerked through the wall?"



"My master entertains her!" laughed Baal-pteor. "Listen!"



From beyond a door opposite the one by which Conan had entered there

sounded a woman's scream, faint and muffled in the distance.



"Blast your soul!" Conan took a stride toward the door, then wheeled

with his skin tingling, Baal-pteor was laughing at him, and that laugh

was edged with menace that made the hackles rise on Conan's neck and

sent a red wave of murder-lust driving across his vision.



He started toward Baal-pteor, the knuckles on his swordhand showing

white. With a swift motion the brown man threw something at him--a

shining crystal sphere that glistened in the weird light.



Conan dodged instinctively, but, miraculously, the globe stopped short

in midair, a few feet from his face. It did not fall to the floor. It

hung suspended, as if by invisible filaments, some five feet above the

floor. And as he glared in amazement, it began to rotate with growing

speed. And as it revolved it grew, expanded, became nebulous. It

filled the chamber. It enveloped him. It blotted out furniture, walls,

the smiling countenance of Baal-pteor. He was lost in the midst of a

blinding bluish blur of whirling speed. Terrific winds screamed past

Conan, tugging at him, striving to wrench him from his feet, to drag

him into the vortex that spun madly before him.



With a choking cry Conan lurched backward, reeled, felt the solid wall

against his back. At the contact the illusion ceased to be. The

whirling, titanic sphere vanished like a bursting bubble. Conan reeled

upright in the silver-ceilinged room, with a gray mist coiling about

his feet, and saw Baal-pteor lolling on the divan, shaking with silent

laughter.



"Son of a slut!" Conan lunged at him. But the mist swirled up from the

floor, blotting out that giant brown form. Groping in a rolling cloud

that blinded him, Conan felt a rending sensation of dislocation--and

then room and mist and brown man were gone together. He was standing

alone among the high reeds of a marshy fen, and a buffalo was lunging

at him, head down. He leaped aside from the ripping scimitar-curved

horns and drove his sword in behind the foreleg, through ribs and

heart. And then it was not a buffalo dying there in the mud, but the

brown-skinned Baal-pteor. With a curse Conan struck off his head; and

the head soared from the ground and snapped beastlike tusks into his

throat. For all his mighty strength he could not tear it loose--he was

choking--strangling; then there was a rush and roar through space, the

dislocating shock of an immeasurable impact, and he was back in the

chamber with Baal-pteor, whose head was once more set firmly on his

shoulders, and who laughed silently at him from the divan.



"Mesmerism!" muttered Conan, crouching and digging his toes hard

against the marble.



His eyes blazed. This brown dog was playing with him, making sport of

him! But this mummery, this child's play of mists and shadows of

thought, it could not harm him. He had but to leap and strike and the

brown acolyte would be a mangled corpse under his heel. This time he

would not be fooled by shadows of illusion--but he was.



A blood-curdling snarl sounded behind him, and he wheeled and struck

in a flash at the panther crouching to spring on him from the metal-

colored table. Even as he struck, the apparition vanished and his

blade clashed deafeningly on the adamantine surface. Instantly he

sensed something abnormal. The blade stuck to the table! He wrenched

at it savagely. It did not give. This was no mesmeristic trick. The

table was a giant magnet. He gripped the hilt with both hands, when a

voice at his shoulder brought him about, to face the brown man, who

had at last risen from the divan.



Slightly taller than Conan and much heavier, Baal-pteor loomed before

him, a daunting image of muscular development. His mighty arms were

unnaturally long, and his great hands opened and closed, twitching

convulsively. Conan released the hilt of his imprisoned sword and fell

silent, watching his enemy thorugh slitted lids.



"Your head, Cimmerian!" taunted Baal-pteor. "I shall take it with my

bare hands, twisting it from your shoulders as the head of a fowl is

twisted! Thus the sons of Kosala offer sacrifice to Yajur. Barbarian,

you look upon a strangler of Yota-pong. I was chosen by the priests of

Yajur in my infancy, and throughout childhood, boyhood, and youth I

was trained in the art of slaying with the naked hands--for only thus

are the sacrifices enacted. Yajur loves blood, and we waste not a drop

from the victim's veins. When I was a child they gave me infants to

throttle; when I was a boy I strangled young girls; as a youth, women,

old men, and young boys. Not until I reached my full manhood was I

given a strong man to slay on the altar of Yota-pong.



"For years I offered the sacrifices to Yajur. Hundreds of necks have

snapped between these fingers--" he worked them before the Cimmerian's

angry eyes. "Why I fled from Yota-pong to become Totrasmek's servant

is no concern of yours. In a moment you will be beyond curiosity. The

priests of Kosala, the stranglers of Yajur, are strong beyond the

belief of men. And I was stronger than any. With my hands, barbarian,

I shall break your neck!"



And like the stroke of twin cobras, the great hands closed on Conan's

throat. The Cimmerian made no attempt to dodge or fend them away, but

his own hands darted to the Kosalan's bull-neck. Baal-pteor's black

eyes widened as he felt the thick cords of muscles that protected the

barbarian's throat. With a snarl he exerted his inhuman strength, and

knots and lumps and ropes of thews rose along his massive arms. And

then a choking gasp burst from him as Conan's fingers locked on his

throat. For an instant they stood there like statues, their faces

masks of effort, veins beginning to stand out purply on their temples.

Conan's thin lips drew back from his teeth in a grinning snarl. Baal-

pteor's eyes were distended and in them grew an awful surprise and the

glimmer of fear. Both men stood motionless as images, except for the

expanding of their muscles on rigid arms and braced legs, but strength

beyond common conception was warring there--strength that might have

uprooted trees and crushed the skulls of bullocks.



The wind whistled suddenly from between Baal-pteor's parted teeth. His

face was growing purple. Fear flooded his eyes. His thews seemed ready

to burst from his arms and shoulders, yet the muscles of the

Cimmerian's thick neck did not give; they felt like masses of woven

iron cords under his desperate fingers. But his own flesh was giving

way under the iron fingers of the Cimmerian which ground deeper and

deeper into the yielding throat muscles, crushing them in upon jugular

and windpipe.



The statuesque immobility of the group gave way to sudden, frenzied

motion, as the Kosalan began to wrench and heave, seeking to throw

himself backward. He let go of Conan's throat and grasped his wrists,

trying to tear away those inexorable fingers.



With a sudden lunge Conan bore him backward until the small of his

back crashed against the table. And still farther over its edge Conan

bent him, back and back, until his spine was ready to snap.



Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel.



"You fool!" he all but whispered. "I think you never saw a man from

the West before. Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able

to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles

like rotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull

before you call yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown

man--like this!"



And with a savage wrench he twisted Baal-pteor's head around until the

ghastly face leered over the left shoulder, and the vertebrae snapped

like a rotten branch.



Conan hurled the flopping corpse to the floor, turned to the sword

again, and gripped the hilt with both hands, bracing his feet against

the floor. Blood trickled down his broad breast from the wounds Baal-

pteor's finger nails had torn in the skin of his neck. His black hair

was damp, sweat ran down his face, and his chest heaved. For all his

vocal scorn of Baal-pteor's strength, he had almost met his match in

the inhuman Kosalan. But without pausing to catch his breath, he

exerted all his strength in a mighty wrench that tore the sword from

the magnet where it clung.



Another instant and he had pushed open the door from behind which the

scream had sounded, and was looking down a long straight corridor,

lined with ivory doors. The other end was masked by a rich velvet

curtain, and from beyond that curtain came the devilish strains of

such music as Conan had never heard, not even in nightmares. It made

the short hairs bristle on the back of his neck. Mingled with it was

the panting, hysterical sobbing of a woman. Grasping his sword firmly,

he glided down the corridor.







Dance, Girl, Dance!



When Zabibi was jerked head-first through the aperture which opened in

the wall behind the idol, her first, dizzy, disconnected thought was

that her time had come. She instinctively shut her eyes and waited for

the blow to fall. But instead she felt herself dumped unceremoniously

onto the smooth marble floor, which bruised her knees and hip. Opening

her eyes, she stared fearfully around her, just as a muffled impact

sounded from beyond the wall. She saw a brown-skinned giant in a loin

cloth standing over her, and, across the chamber into which she had

come, a man sat on a divan, with his back to a rich black velvet

curtain, a broad, fleshy man, with fat white hands and sanky eyes. And

her flesh crawled, for this man was Totrasmek, the priest of Hanuman,

who for years had spun his slimy webs of power throughout the city of

Zamboula.



"The barbarian seeks to batter his way through the wall," said

Totrasmek sardonically, "but the bolt will hold."



The girl saw that a heavy golden bolt had been shot across the hidden

door, which was plainly discernible from this side of the wall. The

bolt and its sockets would have resisted the charge of an elephant.



"Go open one of the doors for him, Baal-pteor," ordered Totrasmek.

"Slay him in the square chamber at the other end of the corridor."



The Kosalan salaamed and departed by the way of a door in the side

wall of the chamber. Zabibi rose, staring fearfully at the priest,

whose eyes ran avidly over her splendid figure. To this she was

indifferent. A dancer of Zamboula was accustomed to nakedness. But the

cruelty in his eyes started her limbs to quivering.



"Again you come to me in my retreat, beautiful one," he purred with

cynical hypocrisy. "It is an unexpected honor. You seemed to enjoy

your former visit so little, that I dared not hope for you to repeat

it. Yet I did all in my power to provide you with an interesting

experience."



For a Zamboulan dancer to blush would be an impossibility, but a

smolder of anger mingled with the fear in Zabibi's dilated eyes.



"Fat pig! You know I did not come here for love of you."



"No," laughed Totrasmek, "you came like a fool, creeping through the

night with a stupid barbarian to cut my throat. Why should you seek my

life?"



"You know why!" she cried, knowing the futility of trying to

dissemble.



"You are thinking of your lover," he laughed. "The fact that you are

here seeking my life shows that he quaffed the drug I gave you. Well,

did you not ask for it? And did I not send what you asked for, out of

the love I bear you?"



"I asked you for a drug that would make him slumber harmlessly for a

few hours," she said bitterly. "And you--you sent your servant with a

drug that drove him mad! I was a fool ever to trust you. I might have

known your protestations of friendship were lies, to disguise your

hate and spite."



"Why did you wish your lover to sleep?" he retorted. "So you could

steal from him the only thing he would never give you--the ring with

the jewel men call the Star of Khorala--the star stolen from the queen

of Ophir, who would pay a roomful of gold for its return. He would not

give it to you willingly, because he knew that it holds a magic which,

when properly controlled, will enslave the hearts of any of the

opposite sex. You wished to steal it from him, fearing that his

magicians would discover the key to that magic and he would forget you

in his conquests of the queens of the world. You would sell it back to

the queen of Ophir, who understands its power and would use it to

enslave me, as she did before it was stolen."



"And why do you want it?" she demanded sulkily.



"I understand its powers. It would increase the power of my arts."



"Well," she snapped, "you have it now!"



"I have the Star of Khorala? Nay, you err."



"Why bother to lie?" she retorted bitterly. "He had it on his finger

when he drove me into the streets. He did not have it when I found him

again. Your servant must have been watching the house, and have taken

it from him, after I escaped him. To the devil with it! I want my

lover back sane and whole. You have the ring; you have punished us

both. Why do you not restore his mind to him? Can you?"



"I could," he assured her, in evident enjoyment of her distress. He

drew a phial from among his robes. "This contains the juice of the

golden lotus. If your lover drank it, he would be sane again. Yes, I

will be merciful. You have both thwarted and flouted me, not once but

many times; he has constantly opposed my wishes. But I will be

merciful. Come and take the phial from my hand."



She stared at Totrasmek, trembling with eagerness to seize it, but

fearing it was but some cruel jest. She advanced timidly, with a hand

extended, and he laughed heartlessly and drew back out of her reach.

Even as her lips parted to curse him, some instinct snatched her eyes

upward. From the gilded ceiling four jade-hued vessels were falling.

She dodged, but they did not strike her. They crashed to the floor

about her, forming the four corners of a square. And she screamed, and

screamed again. For out of each ruin reared the hooded head of a

cobra, and one struck at her bare leg. Her convulsive movement to

evade it brought her within reach of the one on the other side and

again she had to shift like lightning to avoid the flash of its

hideous head.



She was caught in a frightful trap. All four serpents were swaying and

striking at foot, ankle, calf, knee, thigh, hip, whatever portion of

her voluptuous body chanced to be nearest to them, and she could not

spring over them or pass between them to safety. She could only whirl

and spring aside and twist her body to avoid the strokes, and each

time she moved to dodge one snake, the motion brought her within range

of another, so that she had to keep shifting with the speed of light.

She could move only a short space in any direction, and the fearful

hooded crests were menacing her every second. Only a dancer of

Zamboula could have lived in that grisly square.



She became, herself, a blur of bewildering motion. The heads missed

her by hair's breadths, but they missed, as she pitted her twinkling

feet, flickering limbs, and perfect eye against the blinding speed of

the scaly demons her enemy had conjured out of thin air.



Somewhere a thin, whining music struck up, mingling with the hissing

of the serpents, like an evil night wind blowing through the empty

sockets of a skull. Even in the flying speed of her urgent haste she

realized that the darting of the serpents was no longer at random.

They obeyed the grisly piping of the eery music. They struck with a

horrible rhythm, and perforce her swaying, writhing, spinning body

atturned itself to their rhythm. Her frantic motions melted into the

measures of a dance compared to which the most obscene tarantella of

Zamora would have seemed sane and restrained. Sick with shame and

terror Zabibi heard the hateful mirth of her merciless tormenter.



"The Dance of the Cobras, my lovely one!" laughed Totrasmek. "So

maidens danced in the sacrifice to Hanuman centuries ago--but never

with such beauty and suppleness. Dance, girl, dance! How long can you

avoid the fangs of the Poison People? Minutes? Hours? You will weary

at last. Your swift, sure feet will stumble, your legs falter, your

hips slow in their rotations. Then the fangs will begin to sink deep

into your ivory flesh--"



Behind him the curtain shook as if struck by a gust of wind, and

Totrasmek screamed. His eyes dilated and his hands caught convulsively

at the length of bright steel which jutted suddenly from his breast.



The music broke off short. The girl swayed dizzily in her dance,

crying out in dreadful anticipation of the flickering fangs--and then

only four wisps of harmless blue smoke curled up from the floor about

her, as Totrasmek sprawled headlong from the divan.



Conan came from behind the curtain, wiping his broad blade. Looking

through the hangings he had seen the girl dancing desperately between

four swaying spirals of smoke, but he had guessed that their

appearance was very different to her. He knew he had killed Totrasmek.



Zabibi sank down on the floor, panting, but even as Conan started

toward her, she staggered up again, though her legs trembled with

exhaustion.



"The phial!" she gasped. "The phial!"



Totrasmek still grasped it in his stiffening hand. Ruthlessly she tore

it from ihs locked fingers and then began frantically to ransack his

garments.



"What the devil are you looking for?" Conan demanded.



"A ring--he stole it from Alafdhal. He must have, while my lover

walked in madness through the streets. Set's devils!"



She had convinced herself that it was not on the person of Totrasmek.

She began to cast about the chamber, tearing up divan covers and

hangings and upsetting vessels.



She paused and raked a damp lock of hair out of her eyes.



"I forgot Baal-pteor!"



"He's in Hell with his neck broken," Conan assured her.



She expressed vindictive gratification at the news, but an instant

later swore expressively.



"We can't stay here. It's not many hours until dawn. Lesser priests

are likely to visit the temple at any hour of the night, and if we're

discovered here with his corpse, the people will tear us to pieces.

The Turanians could not save us."



She lifted the bolt on the secret door, and a few moments later they

were in the streets and hurrying away from the silent square where

brooded the age-old shrine of Hanuman.



In a winding street a short distance away, Conan halted and checked

his companion with a heavy hand on her naked shoulder.



"Don't forget there was a price--"



"I have not forgotten!" She twisted free. "But we must go to--to

Alafdhal first!"



A few minutes later the black slave let them through the wicket door.

The young Turanian lay upon the divan, his arms and legs bound with

heavy velvet ropes. His eyes were open, but they were like those of a

mad dog, and foam was thick on his lips. Zabibi shuddered.



"Force his jaws open!" she commanded, and Conan's iron fingers

accomplished the task.



Zabibi emptied the phial down the maniac's gullet. The effect was like

magic. Instantly he became quiet. The glare faded from his eyes; he

stared up at the girl in a puzzled way, but with recognition and

intelligence. Then he fell into a normal slumber.



"When he awakes he will be quite sane," she whispered, motioning to

the silent slave.



With a deep bow he gave into her hands a small leater bag and drew

about her shoulders a silken cloak. Her manner had subtly changed when

she beckoned Conan to follow her out of the chamber.



In an arch that opened on the street, she turned to him, drawing

herself up with a new regality.



"I must now tell you the truth," she said. "I am not Zabibi. I am

Nafertari. And he is not Alafdhal, a poor captain of the guardsmen. He

is Jungir Khan, satrap of Zamboula."



Conan made no comment; his scarred dark countenance was immobile.



"I lied to you because I dared not divulge the truth to anyone," she

said. "We were alone when Jungir Khan went mad. None knew of it but

myself. Had it been known that the satrap of Zamboula was a madman,

there would have been instant revolt and rioting, even as Totrasmek

planned, who plotted our distruction.



"You see now how impossible is the reward for which you hoped. The

satrap's mistress is not--cannot be for you. But you shall not go

unrewarded. Here is a sack of gold."



She gave him the bag she had received from the slave.



"Go now, and when the sun is up come to the palace. I will have Jungir

Khan make you captain of his guard. But you will take your orders from

me, secretly. Your first duty will be to march a squad to the shrine

of Hanuman, ostensibly to search for clues of the priest's slayer; in

reality to search for the Star of Khorala. It must be hidden there

somewhere. When you find it, bring it to me. You have my leave to go

now."



He nodded, still silent, and strode away. The girl, watching the swing

of his broad shoulders, was piqued to note that there was nothing in

his bearing to show that he was in any way chagrined or abashed.



When he had rounded a corner, he glanced back, and then changed his

direction and quickened his pace. A few moments later he was in the

quarter of the city containing the Horse Market. There he smote on a

door until from the window above a bearded head was thrust to demand

the reason for the disturbance.



"A horse," demanded Conan. "The swiftest steed you have."



"I open no gates at this time of night," grumbled the horse trader.



Conan rattled his coins.



"Dog's son knave! Don't you see I'm white, and alone? Come down,

before I smash your door!"



Presently, on a bay stallion, Conan was riding toward the house of

Aram Baksh.



He turned off the road into the alley that lay between the tavern

compound and the date-palm garden, but he did not pause at the gate.

He rode on to the northeast corner of the wall, then turned and rode

along the north wall, to halt within a few paces of the northwest

angle. No trees grew near the wall, but there were some low bushes. To

one of these he tied his horse and was about to climb into the saddle

again, when he heard a low muttering of voices beyond the corner of

the wall.



Drawing his foot from the stirrup he stole to the angle and peered

around it. Three men were moving down the road toward the palm groves,

and from their slouching gait he knew they were Negroes. They halted

at his low call, bunching themselves as he strode toward them, his

sword in his hand. Their eyes gleamed whitely in the starlight. Their

brutish lust shone in their ebony faces, but they knew their three

cudgels could not prevail against his sword, just as he knew it.



"Where are you going?" he challenged.



"To bid our brothers put out the fire in the pit beyond the groves,"

was the sullen gutteral reply. "Aram Baksh promised us a man, but he

lied. We found one of our brothers dead in the trap-chamber. We go

hungry this night."



"I think not," smiled Conan. "Aram Baksh will give you a man. Do you

see that door?"



He pointed to a small, iron-bound portal set in the midst of the

western wall.



"Wait there. Aram Baksh will give you a man."



Backing warily away until he was out of reach of a sudden bludgeon

blow, he turned and melted around the northwest angle of the wall.

Reaching his horse he paused to ascertain that the blacks were not

sneaking after him, and then he climbed into the saddle and stood

upright on it, quieting the uneasy steed with a low word. He reached

up, grasped the coping of the wall and drew himself up and over. There

he studied the grounds for an instant. The tavern was built in the

southwest corner of the enclosure, the remaining space of which was

occupied by groves and gardens. He saw no one in the grounds. The

tavern was dark and silent, and he knew all the doors and windows were

barred and bolted.



Conan knew that Aram Baksh slept in a chamber that opened into a

cypress-bordered path that led to the door in the western wall. Like a

shadow he glided among the trees, and a few moments later he rapped

lightly on the chamber door.



"What is it?" asked a rumbling, sleepy voice from within.



"Aram Baksh!" hissed Conan. "The blacks are stealing over the wall!"



Almost instantly the door opened, framing the tavern-keeper, naked but

for his shirt, with a dagger in his hand.



He craned his neck to stare into the Cimmerian's face.



"What tale is this--you!"



Conan's vengeful fingers strangled the yell in his throat. They went

to the floor together and Conan wrenched the dagger from his enemy's

hand. The blade glinted in the starlight, and blood spurted. Aram

Baksh made hideous noises, gasping and gagging on a mouthful of blood.

Conan dragged him to his feet and again the dagger slashed, and most

of the curly beard fell to the floor.



Still gripping his captive's throat--for a man can scream incoherently

even with his throat slit--Conan dragged him out of the dark chamber

and down the cypress-shadowed path, to the iron-bound door in the

outer wall. With one hand he lifted the bolt and threw the door open,

disclosing the three shadowy figures which waited like black vultures

outside. Into their eager arms Conan thrust the innkeeper.



A horrible, blood-choked scream rose from the Zamboulan's throat, but

there was no response from the silent tavern. The people there were

used to screams outside the wall. Aram Baksh fought like a wild man,

his distended eyes turned frantically on the Cimmerian's face. He

found no mercy there. Conan was thinking of the scores of wretches who

owed their bloody doom to this man's greed.



In glee the Negroes dragged him down the road, mocking his frenzied

gibberings. How could they recognize Aram Baksh in this half-naked,

bloodstained figure, with the grotesquely shorn beard and

unintelligible babblings? The sounds of the struggle came back to

Conan, standing beside the gate, even after the clump of figures had

vanished among the palms.



Closing the door behind him, Conan returned to his horse, mounted, and

turned westward, toward the open desert, swinging wide to skirt the

sinister belt of palm groves. As he rode, he drew from his belt a ring

in which gleamed a jewel that snared the starlight in a shimmering

iridescence. He held it up to admire it, turning it this way and that.

The compact bag of gold pieces clinked gently at his saddle bow, like

a promise of the greater riches to come.



"I wonder what she'd say if she knew I recognized her as Nafetari and

him as Jungir Khan the instant I saw them," he mused. "I knew the Star

of Khorala, too. There'll be a fine scene if she ever guesses that I

slipped it off his finger while I was tying him with his sword belt.

But they'll never catch me, with the start I'm getting."



He glanced back at the shadowy palm groves, among which a red glare

was mounting. A chanting rose to the night, vibrating with savage

exultation. And another sound mingled with it, a mad incoherent

screaming, a frenzied gibbering in which no words could be

distinguished. The noise followed Conan as he rode westward beneath

the paling stars.







THE END

