Part 20 (1/2)

”I a e to which I uardsmen pursue you?” asked tito ”Not that it's any ofto conceal,” replied the Ci you civilized peoples, your ways are still beyond ht in a tavern, a captain in the king's guard offered violence to the sweetheart of a young soldier, who naturally ran hiainst killing guardsirl fled away It was bruited about that I was seen with thee asked one I replied that since he was a friend of mine, I could not betray hireat deal about s I did not understand, and badewrathful myself, for I had explained my position

”But I choked e squalled that I had shown conteeon to rot until I betrayedthey were all e's skull; then I cut h constable's stallion tied near by, I rode for the wharfs, where I thought to find a shi+p bound for foreign parts”

”Well,” said tito hardily, ”the courts have fleeced me too often in suits with rich merchants for me to owe them any love I'll have questions to answer if I ever anchor in that port again, but I can prove I acted under compulsion You may as well put up your sword We're peaceable sailors, and have nothing against you Besides, it's as well to have a fighting-man like yourself on board Come up to the poop-deck and we'll have a tankard of ale”

”Good enough,” readily responded the Cius was a s-craft which ply between the ports of Zingara and Argos and the southern coasts, hugging the shoreline and seldoh of stern, with a tall curving prow; broad in the waist, sloping beautifully to ste sweep from the poop, and propulsion was furnished mainly by the broad striped silk sail, aided by a jibsail The oars were for use in tacking out of creeks and bays, and during calms There were ten to the side, five fore and five aft of the so was lashed under this deck, and under the fore-deck The men slept on deck or between the rowers' benches, protected, in bad weather, by canopies With twenty men at the oars, three at the sweep, and the shi+pus pushed steadily southward, with consistently fair weather The sun beat down from day to day with fiercer heat, and the canopies were run up striped silken cloths that old-work on the prow and along the gunwales

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They sighted the coast of She meadowlands with the white crowns of the towers of cities in the distance, and horsemen with blue-black beards and hooked noses, who sat their steeds along the shore and eyed the galley with suspicion She did not put in; there was scant profit in trade with the sons of Shem

Nor did master tito pull into the broad bay where the Styx river eantic flood into the ocean, and the massive black castles of Khemi loomed over the blue waters shi+ps did not put unasked into this port, where dusky sorcerers wove awful spells in theeternally from blood-stained altars where naked women screamed, and where Set, the Old Serpent, arch-deians, was said to writhe his shi+ning coils aave that drealass-floored bay a wide berth, even when a serpent-prowed gondola shot from behind a castellated point of land, and naked dusky woreat red blossoms in their hair, stood and called to his sailors, and posed and postured brazenly

Now notowers rose inland They had passed the southern borders of Stygia and were cruising along the coasts of Cush The sea and the ways of the sea were never-ending h hills of the northern uplands The wanderer was no less of interest to the sturdy seamen, fehom had ever seen one of his race

They were characteristic Argosean sailors, short and stockily built Conan towered above theth They were hardy and robust, but his was the endurance and vitality of a wolf, his thews steeled and his nerves whetted by the hardness of his life in the world's wastelands He was quick to laugh, quick and terrible in his wrath He was a valiant trencher drink was a passion and a weakness with him Naive as a child in many ways, unfamiliar with the sophistry of civilization, he was naturally intelligent, jealous of his rights, and dangerous as a hungry tiger Young in years, he was hardened in warfare and wandering, and his sojourns in many lands were evident in his apparel His horned helolden-haired aesir of Nordheireaves were of the finest work-s was of Nereat Aquilonian broadsword; and his gorgeous scarlet cloak could have been spun nowhere but in Ophir

So they beat southward, and es of the black people But they found only s ruins on the shore of a bay, littered with naked black bodies tito swore

”I had good trade here, aforetime This is the work of pirates”

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”And if we reat blade in its scabbard

”Mine is no warshi+p We run, not fight Yet if it caht do it again; unless it were Belit's Tigress”

”Who is Belit?”

”The wildest she-devil unhanged Unless I read the signs a-wrong, it was her butchers who destroyed that village on the bay May I so from the yard-arm! She is called the queen of the black coast She is a Shemite wo and have sent ood tradesman to the bottoht out quilted jerkins, steel caps, bows and arrows

”Little use to resist if we're run down,” he grunted ”But it rasps the soul to give up life without a struggle”

It was just at sunrise when the lookout shouted a warning Around the long point of an island off the starboard bow glided a long lethal shape, a slender serpentine galley, with a raised deck that ran from steh the water, and the low rail swarmed with naked blacks that chanted and clashed spears on oval shi+elds Fro cri ”Yare! Put her about! Into that creek-mouth! If we can beach her before they run us doe have a chance to escape with our lives!”

So, veering sharply, the Argus ran for the line of surf that boo back and forth, exhorting the panting rowers to greater efforts The lared

”Give me a bow,” requested Conan ”It's notthe Hyrkanians, and it will go hard if I can't feather aon the poop, he watched the serpent-like shi+p skih he was, it was evident to hius would never win that race

Already arrows, arching fro with a hiss into the sea, not twenty paces astern