Part 21 (1/2)
”I'll sail with you,” he grunted, shaking the red drops froed like a bowstring ”Fetch herbs and dress youraboard the plunder and cast off”
As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shao of the ill-fated Argus was quickly shi+fted aboard the Tigress and stored in small cabins below deck Bodies of the crew and of fallen pirates were cast overboard to the swar sharks, while wounded blacks were laid in the waist to be bandaged Then the grappling-irons were cast off, and as the Argus sank silently into the blood-flecked waters, the Tigress moved off southward to the rhythlassy blue deep, Belit ca like those of a she-panther in the dark as she tore off her ornairdle and cast the on tiptoe, ar line of naked white, she cried to the desperate horde: ”Wolves of the blue sea, behold ye now the dance the s of Askalon!”
And she danced, like the spin of a desert ind, like the leaping of a quenchless flae of death Her white feet spurned the blood-stained deck and dying azed frozen at her Then, as the white stars gli body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Ci forainst the black plates of his corseleted breast
THE BLACK LOTUS
In that dead citadel of cru stone Her eyes were snared by that unholy sheen,
And curious madness took me by the throat, As of a rival lover thrust between
The Song of Belit
TheTigress ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered Toht, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found a mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion And survivors of butchered Stygian shi+ps named Belit with curse, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes re, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crirant wind, the Tigress cruised the southern coasts, until she anchored at the le-clouded walls of mystery
”This is the river Zarkheba, which is Death,” said Belit ”Its waters are poisonous See how dark and murky they run? Only venomous reptiles live in that river The black people shun it
Once a Stygian galley, fleeing from me, fled up the river and vanished I anchored in this very spot, and days later, the galley ca down the dark waters, its decks blood-stained and deserted Only one o was intact, but the crew had vanished into silence and mystery
”My lover, I believe there is a city soiant towers
129and walls glio part-way up the river We fear nothing: Conan, let us go and sack that city!”
Conan agreed He generally agreed to her plans Hers was the mind that directed their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas It ht, so long as they sailed and fought He found the life good
Battle and raid had thinned their crew; only so galley But Belit would not take the tidoerness for her latest venture; so the Tigress swung into the river-ly as she breasted the broad current
They rounded the ht of the sea, and sunset found the sand bars where strange reptiles coiled Not even a crocodile did they see, nor any four-legged beast or winged bird coh the blackness that preceded moonrise they drove, between banks that were solid palisades of darkness, whence calearim eyes And once an inhuman voice was lifted in awfulthat the souls of evil men were imprisoned in these manlike animals as punishold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which ht of the dehter that echoed frole
Then the le awoke in horrific bedlareet it Roars and howls and yells set the black warriors to tre, but all this noise, Conan noted, cale, as if the beasts no less thanabove the black denseness of the trees and above the waving fronds, thescintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shi+ning road of bursting jewels The oars dipped into the shi+ning water and came up sheathed in frosty silver The pluems on sword-hilts and harness sparkled frostily
The cold light struck icy fire from the jewels in Belit's clustered black locks as she stretched her lithe figure on a leopardskin thrown on the deck Supported on her elbows, her chin resting on her slied beside her, his blackin the faint breeze Belit's eyes were dark jewels burning in the ht
”Mystery and terror are about us, Conan, and we glide into the realm of horror and death,” she
130said ”Are you afraid?”
A shrug of his mailed shoulders was his only answer
”I am not afraid either,” she said meditatively ”I was never afraid I have looked into the naked fangs of Death too often Conan, do you fear the Gods?”
”I would not tread on their shadow,” answered the barbarian conservatively ”So to harm, others, to aid; at least so say their priests Mitra of the HyboriansGod, because his people have builded their cities over the world But even the Hyborians fear Set And Bel, God of thieves, is a good God When I was a thief in Zamora I learned of him”