Part 26 (2/2)

Over the cloak that was drawn about his lower features, the Stygian's piercing eyes regarded Conan sharply With his left hand he esture On a venture Conan iesture was expected; the Stygian's right hand caleam of steel and his murderous stab would have pierced the heart of an ordinarywith one whose theere nerved to the quickness of a jungle cat Even as the dagger flashed in the diht the dusky wrist and sian's jaw The ainst the stone ith a dull crunch that told of a fractured skull

Standing for an instant above hi vague shadows about the door Nothing stirred in the blackness beyond, though far away and below hiong

He stooped and dragged the body behind the great bronze door which stood wide, opened inward, and then the Cimmerian arily but swiftly down the corridor, tohat dooone far when he halted, baffled The corridor split in two branches, and he had no way of knohich the masked priests had taken At a venture he chose the left The floor slanted slightly doard and orn smooth as by htht Conan wondered uneasily for what purpose these colossal piles had been reared, in what forgotten age This was an ancient, ancient land No ia had looked against the stars

Narrow black arches opened occasionally to right and left, but he kept to the h a conviction that he had taken the wrong branch was growing in him Even with their start on hirowing nervous The silence was like a tangible thing, and yet he had a feeling that he was not alone More than once, passing a nighted arch he seelare of unseen eyes fixed upon him He paused, half minded to turn back to where the corridor had first branched He wheeled abruptly, knife lifted, every nerve tingling

A girl stood at thefixedly at hiian of some ancient noble family, and like all such woreat pile of black foa ruby

But for her velvet sandals and broad jewel-crusted girdle about her supple waist she was quite nude

'What do you here?' she dein He reure in the hideous ht the shadows behind her and found the-men within her call

She advanced toward hih with suspicion

'You are not a priest,' she said 'You are a fighting-man Even with that mask that is plain There is as much difference between you and a priest as there is between asuddenly, her eyes flaring wide 'I do not believe you are even a Stygian!'

With a movement too quick for the eye to follow, his hand closed about her round throat, lightly as a caress

'Not a sound out of you!' he muttered

Her smooth ivory flesh was cold as marble, yet there was no fear in the wide, dark, arded him

'Do not fear,' she answered caler and a foreigner, to the forbidden te for the priest Thutothmes,' he answered 'Is he in this temple?'

'Why do you seek hi of mine which was stolen'

'I will lead you to him,' she volunteered so promptly that his suspicions were instantly roused

'Don't play with rowled

'I do not play with you I have no love for Thutothmes'

He hesitated, then made up his mind; after all, he was as much in her power as she was in his

'Walk beside rasp from her throat to her wrist 'But ith care If you make a suspicious move--'