Part 12 (2/2)

Conan did not deign to reply to the taunt, and the black, galled perhaps by his prisoner's silence, 's face It was an unfortunate move for the black Conan was seated on the floor, the chains about his waist; ankles and wrists locked to the ring in the wall He could neither rise, nor move more than a yard out from the wall But there was considerable slack in the chains that shackled his wrists, and before the bullet-shaped head could be withdrawn out of reach, the king gathered this slack in his hty hand and smote the black on the head The man fell like a butchered ox, and his co with his scalp laid open, and blood oozing from his nose and ears

But they atteent invitation to approach within reach of the bloody chain in his hand Presently, grunting in their ape-like speech, they lifted the senseless black and bore hi They used his key to lock the door behind theold chain that fastened it to his girdle They took the torch with them, and as they moved up the corridor the darkness slunk behind the footsteps died aith the glimmer of their torch, and darkness and silence reed

V

THE HAUNTER OF THE PITS

Conan lay still, enduring the weight of his chains and the despair of his position with the stoicism of the wilds that had bred hile of his chains, when he shi+fted his body, sounded startlingly loud in the darkness and stillness, and it was his instinct, born of a thousand wilderness-bred ancestors, not to betray his position in his helplessness This did not result fro process; he did not lie quiet because he reasoned that the darkness hid lurking dangers that ht discover him in his helplessness

Xaltotun had assured him that he was not to be harmed, and Conan believed that it was in theBut the instincts of the ere there, that had caused him in his childhood to lie hidden and silent while wild beasts prowled about his covert

Even his keen eyes could not pierce the solid darkness Yet after a while, after a period of tilow becaray beauely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even rille This puzzled him, until at last he realized the explanation He was far below ground, in the pits below the palace; yet for some reason a shaft had been constructed from somewhere above Outside, the ht slanted dimly down the shaft He reflected that in this hts

Perhaps the sun, too, would shi+ne down that shaft, though on the other hand it ht be closed by day Perhaps it was a subtle ht 109

or aze fell on the broken bones in the farther corner, gli dimly He did not tax his brain with futile speculation as to who the wretch had been and for what reason he had been doomed, but he wondered at the shattered condition of the bones They had not been broken on a rack Then, as he looked, another unsavory detail thwise, and there was but one explanation; they had been broken in that manner in order to obtain the marrow Yet what creature but man breaks bones for their marrow? Perhaps those remnants were mute evidence of a horrible, cannibalistic feast, of some wretch driven to madness by starvation Conan wondered if his own bones would be found at soht down the unreasoning panic of a trapped wolf

The Cimmerian did not curse, screaht have done But the pain and turreat limbs quivered with the intensity of his emotions Somewhere, far to the ard, the Neh the heart of his kingdom The small host of the Poitanians could not stand before theht be able to hold Tarantia for weeks, or months; but eventually, if not relieved, he reater nuainst the invaders But in the meanwhile he, Conan, must lie helpless in a darkened cell, while others led his spears and fought for his kingdoe

Then he stiffened as outside the farther door he heard a stealthy step Straining his eyes he rille There was a rasp of ainst metal, and he heard the clink of tuure uard, he supposed, trying the lock After a while he heard the sound repeated faintly so of a door, and then a swift scurry of softly shod feet retreated in the distance Then silence fell again

Conan listened for what see time, but which could not have been, for the moon still shone down the hidden shaft, but he heard no further sound He shi+fted his position at last, and his chains clanked Then he heard another, lighter footfall a soft step outside the nearer door, the door through which he had entered the cell An instant later a slender figure was etched di Conan!” a soft voice intoned urgently ”Oh, uardedly, twisting his head about to stare at the apparition

It was a girl who stood grasping the bars with her slender fingers The dih the wisp of silk twisted about her loins, and shone vaguely 110

on jeweled breast-plates Her dark eyes glealistened softly, like alabaster Her hair was a mass of dark foaht only hinted

”The keys to your shackles and to the farther door!” she whispered, and a slih the bars and dropped three objects with a clink to the flags beside hiaue, 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 li 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 111

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 here, only Mitra knows”

”I wonder if that could have been Tarascus who fuo?”

er!” she whispered, pressing soers closed on an object fah yonder door, turn to the left andthe cells until you come to a stone stair On your life do not stray from the line of the cells! Climb the stair and open the door at the top; one of the keys will fit it If it be the will of Mitra, I will await you there” Then she was gone, with a patter of light slippered feet

Conan shrugged his shoulders, and turned toward the farther grille This ing headlong into a snare was less abhorrent to Conan's te irl had given hiht be, she was proven by that dagger to be a person of practical intelligence It was no slender stiletto, selected because of a jeweled hilt or gold guard, fitted only for dainty ht poniard, a warrior's weapon, broad-bladed, fifteen inches in length, tapering to a diamond-sharp point