Part 14 (1/2)

'It is the King or His Ghost!'

Many ates of Tarantia between sunset and ht--belated travelers, merchants from afar with heavily ladenfarms and vineyards Now that Valerius was supreid scrutiny of the folk who flowed in a steady streaates Discipline had been relaxed The Neuard were half drunk, and irls and rich merchants who could be bullied to notice workmen or dusty travelers, even one tall wayfarer whose worn cloak could not conceal the hard lines of his powerful fraressive bearing that was too natural for hireat patch covered one eye, and his leather coif, dra over his brows, shadowed his features With a long thick staff in his h the arch where the torches flared and guttered, and, ignored by the tipsy guardsed upon the wide streets of Tarantia

Upon these well-lighted thoroughfares the usual throngs went about their business, and shops and stalls stood open, with their wares displayed

One thread ran a constant thely or in clu their ith studied arrogance Women scurried from their path, and men stepped aside with darkened brows and clenched fists The Aquilonians were a proud race, and these were their hereditary enemies

The knuckles of the tall traveler knotted on his staff, but, like the others, he stepped aside to let thethe motley and varied crowd he did not attract arments But once, as he passed a sword-seller's stall and the light that streaht he felt an intense stare upon hi quickly, saw ahim fixedly This man turned aith undue haste, and vanished in the shi+fting throng But Conan turned into a narrow by-street and quickened his pace It ht have been rim Iron Tower stood apart fro houses where thea space from which the more fastidious shrank, had invaded a portion of the city ordinarily alien to them The Toas in reality a castle, an ancient, formidable pile of heavy stone and black iron, which had itself served as the citadel in an earlier, ruder century

Not a long distance frole of partly deserted tenements and warehouses, stood an ancient watchtower, so old and forgotten that it did not appear on the inal purpose had been forgotten, and nobody, of such as saw it at all, noticed that the apparently ancient lock which kept it froars and thieves, was in reality couised into an appearance of rusty antiquity Not half a dozen dom had ever known the secret of that tower

No keyhole showed in the ers, stealing over it, pressed here and there knobs invisible to the casual eye The door silently opened inward and he entered solid blackness, pushi+ng the door shut behind hiht would have showed the tower empty, a bare, cylindrical shaft ofin a corner with the sureness of fa on a slab of the stone that composed the floor Quickly he lifted it, and without hesitation lowered himself into the aperture beneath His feet felt stone steps leading doard into what he kneas a narrow tunnel that ran straight toward the foundations of the Iron Tower, three streets away

The bell on the citadel, which tolled only at the , boohted chaed into a corridor The interior of the Toas as forbidding as its external appearance Its s of the floor orn deep by generations of faltering feet, and the vault of the ceiling was glooht of torches set in niches

The ris He was a tall, powerfully builtblack silk Over his head was drawn a black hood which fell about his shoulders, having two holes for his eyes Fro a loose black cloak, and over one shoulder he bore a heavy ax, the shape of which was that of neither tool nor weapon

As he went down the corridor, a figure ca under the weight of his pike and a lantern he bore in one hand

'You are not as proruone to milady's cell They await you'

'The tones of the bell still echo a the towers,' answered the executioner 'If I am not so quick to leap and run at the beck of Aquilonians as was the dog who held this office before me, they shall find my arm no less ready Get you to your duties, old watchman, and leave me to mine I think mine is the sweeter trade, by Mitra, for you traeon doors, while I lop off the fairest head in Tarantia this night'

The watch, and the headsman resumed his leisurely way A few strides carried him around a turn in the corridor, and he absently noted that at his left a door stood partly open If he had thought, he would have known that that door had been opened since the watch the unlocked door before he realized that aught was aerish step and the rustle of a cloak warned him, but before he could turn, a heavy ar the cry before it could reach his lips In the brief instant that was allowed hith of his attacker, against which his own brawny theere helpless He sensed without seeing the poised dagger

'Ne!' muttered a voice thick with passion in his ear 'You've cut off your last Aquilonian head!'

And that was the last thing he ever heard

In a dank dungeon, lighted only by a guttering torch, threewo wildly up at theolden hair fell in lustrous ripples about her white shoulders, and her wrists were bound behind her Even in the uncertain torchlight, and in spite of her disheveled condition and pallor of fear, her beauty was striking She kneltide eyes up at her tormenters The men were closely masked and cloaked Such a deed as this needed masks, even in a conquered land She knew them all nevertheless; but what she kneould harn offers you one more chance, Countess,' said the tallest of the three, and he spoke Aquilonian without an accent 'He bids me say that if you soften your proud, rebellious spirit, he will still open his arrim wooden block in the center of the cell It was blackly stained, and showed h so substance, had sunk into the wood

Albiona shuddered and turned pale, shrinking back Every fiber in her vigorous young body quivered with the urge of life Valerius was young, too, and handso with herself for life But she could not speak the word that would ranso ax She could not reason the ht of the clasp of Valerius' arreater than the fear of death She shook her head helplessly, compelled by an impulsion more irresistible than the instinct to live

'Then there is no more to be said!' exclaimed one of the others impatiently, and he spoke with a Nemedian accent 'Where is the headseon door opened silently, and a great figure stood framed in it, like a black shadow from the underworld