Part 7 (1/2)

'What gaue, and I have no friends in Nemedia What deviltry is your master up to now?

Has he sent you here toviolently Her bracelets and breast-plates clinked against the bars she grasped 'I swear by Mitra! I stole the keys from the black jailers They are the keepers of the pits, and each bears a key which will open only one set of locks I made them drunk The one whose head you broke was carried away to a leech, and I could not get his key But the others I stole Oh, please do not loiter! Beyond these dungeons lie the pits which are the doors to hell'

So to hter But he was galvanized to discover that one, indeed, loosed hi not only the lock that held the, but the locks on his liht, exulting fiercely in his corille, and his fingers closed about a bar and the slender wrist that was pressed against it, i the owner, who lifted her face bravely to his fierce gaze

'Who are you, girl?' he demanded 'Why do you do this?'

'I am only Zenobia,' she ht; 'only a girl of the king's seraglio'

'Unless this is so me these keys'

She bowed her dark head, and then lifted it and looked full into his suspicious eyes Tears sparkled like jewels on her long dark lashes

'I alio,' she said, with a certain proud hulanced at s that gnaw the bones in his banquet hall

'But I am no painted toy; I am of flesh and blood I breathe, hate, fear, rejoice and love And I have loved you, King Conan, ever since I saw you riding at the head of your knights along the streets of Belverus when you visited King Nis to leap from my bosom and fall in the dust of the street under your horse's hoofs'

Color flooded her countenance as she spoke, but her dark eyes did not waver Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish ofof a woman's naked soul

She bent her head then, and pressed her red lips to the fingers that i up her head as if in sudden recollection of their position, and terror flared in her dark eyes

'Haste!' she whispered urgently 'It is past one'

'But won't they skin you alive for stealing these keys?'

'They'll never know If the black ave them the wine, they will not dare admit the keys were stolen from them while they were drunk The key that I could not obtain is the one that unlocks this door You h the pits

What awful perils lurk beyond that door I cannot even guess But greater danger lurks for you if you re Tarascus has returned--'

'What? Tarascus?'

'Aye! He has returned, in great secrecy, and not long ago he descended into the pits and then careat hazard I heard him whisper to his squire, Arideus, that despite Xaltotun you should die'

'What of Xaltotun?' murmured Conan

He felt her shudder

'Do not speak of him!' she whispered 'Demons are often summoned by the sound of their names The slaves say that he lies in his cha the dreams of the black lotus I believe that even Tarascus secretly fears him, or he would slay you openly But he has been in the pits tonight, and what he did there, only Mitra knows'