Part 22 (1/2)

She stepped back to make room for them, glancing up at the tower which loomed drunkenly above them. Three of the strongest blacks had gripped the handholds cut into the stone curiously unsuited to human hands when Belit sprang back with a sharp cry. They froze in their places, and Conan, bending to aid them, wheeled with a startled curse.

”A snake in the gra.s.s,” she said, backing away. ”Come and slay it; the rest of you bend your backs to the stone.”

133.

Conan came quickly toward her, another taking his place. As he impatiently scanned the gra.s.s for the reptile, the giant blacks braced their feet, grunted and heaved with their huge muscles coiling and straining under their ebon skin. The altar did not come off the ground, but it revolved suddenly on its side. And simultaneously there was a grinding rumble above and the tower came cras.h.i.+ng down, covering the four black men with broken masonry.

A cry of horror rose from their comrades. Belit's slim fingers dug into Conan's arm-muscles.

”There was no serpent,” she whispered. ”It was but a ruse to call you away. I feared; the old ones guarded their treasure well. Let us clear away the stones.”

With herculean labor they did so, and lifted out the mangled bodies of the four men. And under them, stained with their blood, the pirates found a crypt carved in the solid stone. The altar, hinged curiously with stone rods and sockets on one side, had served as its lid. And at first glance the crypt seemed br.i.m.m.i.n.g with liquid fire, catching the early light with a million blazing facets. Undreamable wealth lay before the eyes of the gaping pirates: diamonds, rubies, bloodstones, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, opals, emeralds, amethysts, unknown gems that shone like the eyes of evil women. The crypt was filled to the brim with bright stones that the morning sun struck into lambent flame.

With a cry Belit dropped to her knees among the blood-stained rubble on the brink and thrust her white arms shoulder-deep into that pool of splendor. She withdrew them, clutching something that brought another cry to her lips a long string of crimson stones that were like clots of frozen blood strung on a thick gold wire. In their glow the golden sunlight changed to b.l.o.o.d.y haze.

Belit's eyes were like a woman's in a trance. The Shemite soul finds a bright drunkenness in riches and material splendor, and the sight of this treasure might have shaken the soul of a sated emperor of Shushan.

”Take up the jewels, dogs!” her voice was shrill with her emotions.

”Look!” A muscular black arm stabbed toward the Tigress, and Belit wheeled, her crimson lips a-snarl, as if she expected to see a rival corsair sweeping in to despoil her of her plunder. But from the gunwales of the s.h.i.+p a dark shape rose, soaring away over the jungle.

”The devil-ape has been investigating the s.h.i.+p,” muttered the blacks uneasily.

”What matter?” cried Belit with a curse, raking back a rebellious lock with an impatient hand.

”Make a litter of spears and mantles to bear these jewels where the devil are you going?”

134.

”To look to the galley,” grunted Conan. ”That bat-thing might have knocked a hole in the bottom, for all we know.”

He ran swiftly down the cracked wharf and sprang aboard. A moment's swift examination below decks, and he swore heartily, casting a clouded glance in the direction the bat-being had vanished. He returned hastily to Belit, superintending the plundering of the crypt. She had looped the necklace about her neck, and on her naked white bosom the red clots glimmered darkly. A huge naked black stood crotch-deep in the jewel-br.i.m.m.i.n.g crypt, scooping up great handfuls of splendor to pa.s.s them to the eager hands above. Strings of frozen iridescence hung between his dusky fingers; drops of red fire dripped from his hands, piled high with starlight and rainbow. It was as if a black t.i.tan stood straddle-legged in the bright pits of h.e.l.l, his lifted hands full of stars.

”That flying devil has staved in the water-casks,” said Conan. ”If we hadn't been so dazed by these stones we'd have heard the noise. We were fools not to have left a man on guard. We can't drink this river water. I'll take twenty men and search for fresh water in the jungle.”

She looked at him vaguely, in her eyes the blank blaze of her strange pa.s.sion, her fingers working at the gems on her breast.

”Very well,” she said absently, hardly heeding him. ”I'll get the loot aboard.”

The jungle closed quickly about them, changing the light from gold to gray. From the arching green branches creepers dangled like pythons. The warriors fell into single file, creeping through the primordial twilights like black phantoms following a white ghost.

Underbrush was not so thick as Conan had antic.i.p.ated. The ground was spongy but not slushy.

Away from the river, it sloped gradually upward. Deeper and deeper they plunged into the green waving depths, and still there was no sign of water, either running stream or stagnant pool. Conan halted suddenly, his warriors freezing into basaltic statues. In the tense silence that followed, the Cimmerian shook his head irritably.

”Go ahead,” he grunted to a sub-chief, N'Gora. ”March straight on until you can no longer see me; then stop and wait for me. I believe we're being followed. I heard something.”

The blacks shuffled their feet uneasily, but did as they were told. As they swung onward, Conan stepped quickly behind a great tree, glaring back along the way they had come. From that leafy fastness anything might emerge. Nothing occurred; the faint sounds of the marching spearmen faded in the distance. Conan suddenly realized that the air was impregnated with an

135.alien and exotic scent. Something gently brushed his temple. He turned quickly. From a cl.u.s.ter of green, curiously leafed stalks, great black blossoms nodded at him. One of these had touched him. They seemed to beckon him, to arch their pliant stems toward him. They spread and rustled, though no wind blew.

He recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, and whose scent brought dream-haunted slumber. But already he felt a subtle lethargy stealing over him. He sought to lift his sword, to hew down the serpentine stalks, but his arm hung lifeless at his side. He opened his mouth to shout to his warriors, but only a faint rattle issued. The next instant, with appalling suddenness, the jungle waved and dimmed out before his eyes; he did not hear the screams that burst out awfully not far away, as his knees collapsed, letting him pitch limply to the earth. Above his prostrate form the great black blossoms nodded in the windless air.

THE HORROR IN THE JUNGLE.

Was it a dream the nighted lotus brought?