Part 42 (2/2)

”We'll take our chance with the desert,” said he. ”Thalis spoke of an oasis a day's march to the south, and gra.s.slands beyond that. If we reach the oasis we can rest until my wounds heal. This wine is like sorcery. A little while ago I was little more than a dead man; now I am ready for anything. Here is enough silk left for you to make a garment of.”

Natala had forgotten her nudity. The mere fact caused her no qualms, but her delicate skin would need protection from the desert sun. As she knotted the silk length about her supple body, Conan turned to the window and with a contemptuous wrench tore away the soft gold bars that guarded it. Then, looping the loose end of his silk rope about Natala's hips, and cautioning her to hold on with both hands, he lifted her through the window and lowered her the thirty-odd feet to the earth. She stepped out of the loop, and drawing it back up, he made fast the vessels of water and wine, and lowered them to her. He followed them, sliding down swiftly, hand over hand.

As he reached her side, Natala gave a sigh of relief. They stood alone at the foot of the great wall, the paling stars overhead and the naked desert about them. What perils yet confronted them she could not know, but her heart sang with joy because they were out of that ghostly, unreal city.

”They may find the rope,” grunted Conan, slinging the precious jars across his shoulders, wincing at the contact with his mangled flesh. ”They may even pursue us, but from what Thalis said, I doubt it. That way is south,” a bronze muscular arm indicated their course; ”so somewhere in that direction lies the oasis. Come!”

Taking her hand with a thoughtfulness unusual for him, Conan strode out across the sands, suiting his stride to the shorter legs of his companion. He did not glance back at the silent city, brooding dreamily and ghostlily behind them.

”Conan,” Natala ventured finally, ”when you fought the monster, and later, as you came up the corridor, did you see anything of of Thalis?”

236.

He shook his head. ”It was dark in the corridor; but it was empty.”

She shuddered. ”She tortured me yet I pity her.”

”It was a hot welcome we got in that accursed city,” he snarled. Then his grim humor returned.

”Well, they'll remember our visit long enough, I'll wager. There are brains and guts and blood to be cleaned off the marble tiles, and if their G.o.d still lives, he carries more wounds than I. We got off light, after all: we have wine and water and a good chance of reaching a habitable country, though I look as if I'd gone through a meat-grinder, and you have a sore ”

”It's all your fault,” she interrupted. ”If you had not looked so long and admiringly at that Stygian cat ”

”Crom and his devils!” he swore. ”When the oceans drown the world, women will take time for jealousy. Devil take their conceit! Did I tell the Stygian to fall in love with me? After all, she was only human!”

237.

The Pool of the Black One

The Pool of the Black One

Into the west, unknown of man,

s.h.i.+ps have sailed since the world began.

Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote,

With dead hands fumbling his silken coat;

And follow the s.h.i.+ps through the wind-blown wrack

Follow the s.h.i.+ps that come not back.

Sancha, once of Kordava, yawned daintily, stretched her supple limbs luxuriously, and composed herself more comfortably on the ermine-fringed silk spread on the carack's p.o.o.p- deck. That the crew watched her with burning interest from waist and forecastle she was lazily aware, just as she was also aware that her short silk kirtle veiled little of her voluptuous contours from their eager eyes. Wherefore she smiled insolently and prepared to s.n.a.t.c.h a few more winks before the sun, which was just thrusting his golden disk above the ocean, should dazzle her eyes.

But at that instant a sound reached her ears unlike the creaking of timbers, thrum of cordage and lap of waves. She sat up, her gaze fixed on the rail, over which, to her amazement, a dripping figure clambered. Her dark eyes opened wide, her red lips parted in an O of surprize.

The intruder was a stranger to her. Water ran in rivulets from his great shoulders and down his heavy arms. His single garment a pair of bright crimson silk breeks was soaking wet, as was his broad gold-buckled girdle and the sheathed sword it supported. As he stood at the rail, the rising sun etched him like a great bronze statue. He ran his fingers through his streaming black mane, and his blue eyes lit as they rested on the girl.

<script>