Part 5 (2/2)

'When did a priest keep an oath?' co the trend of the conversation 'Let me cut his throat; I want to see what color his blood is They say in The Maze that his heart is black, so his blood must be black too-'

'Be quiet,' whispered Murilo 'If he does not show us the way out of these pits, we may rot here Well, Nabonidus, what do you say?'

'What does a ith his leg in the trap say?' laughed the priest 'I am in your power and if we are to escape, we must aid one another I swear, if we survive this adventure, to forget all your shi+fty dealings I swear by the soul of Mitra!'

'I am satisfied,' muttered Murilo 'Even the Red Priest would not break that oath Now to get out of here My friend here entered by way of the tunnel, but a grille fell behind him and blocked the way Can you cause it to be lifted?'

'Not from these pits,' answered the priest 'The control lever is in the chamber above the tunnel There is only one other way out of these pits, which I will show you But tell me, how did you come here?'

Murilo told hi stiffly He limped down the corridor, which here widened into a sort of vast chamber, and approached the distant silver disk As they advanced the light increased, though it never beca but a dim shadowy radiance Near the disk they saw a narrow stair leading upward

'That is the other exit,' said Nabonidus 'And I strongly doubt if the door at the head is bolted But I have an idea that he ould go through that door had better cut his own throat first Look into the disk'

What had seereatsystem of copper-like tubes jutted out froles Glancing into these tubes, Murilo saw a bewildering array of ser mirror in the wall, and ejaculated in arunted

They seehted chaings between; there were silken couches, chairs of ebony and ivory, and curtained doorways leading off from the chamber And before one doorhich was not curtained, sat a bulky black object that contrasted grotesquely with the richness of the chaain as he looked at the horror which see directly into his eyes Involuntarily he recoiled from the mirror, while Conan thrust his head truculently forward, till his jaws al soue

'In Mitra's naasped Murilo, shaken, 'what is it?'

'That is Thak,' answered the priest, caressing his temple 'Some would call him an ape, but he is almost as different from a real ape as he is different from a real man His people dwell far to the east, in the e the eastern frontiers of Zamora There are not many of them, but if they are not exters, in perhaps a hundred thousand years They are in the fore; they are neither apes, as their remote ancestors were, nor h crags of well-nigh inaccessibleof shelter or gare of a sort, consisting runts and clicks

'I took Thak when he was a cub, and he learned what I taught hihly than any true aniuard and servant But I forgot that being partly a ed into a mere shadow of myself, like a true animal Apparently his semi-brain retained impressions of hate, resentment, and some sort of bestial ambition of its own

'At any rate, he struck when I least expected it Last night he appeared to go suddenly mad His actions had all the appearance of bestial insanity, yet I know that they

'I heard a sound of fighting in the garden, and going to investigate - for I believed it was yourself, being dragged down bywith blood Before I are of his intention, he sprang at me with an awful scream and struck me senseless I re soown and castinto the pit - for which reason, only the Gods can guess He arden, and after he struckdead in the house Joka would have coainst Thak, whom he always hated'

Murilo stared at the mirror at the creature which sat with such monstrous patience before the closed door He shuddered at the sight of the great black hands, thickly groith hair that was almost fur-like The body was thick, broad and stooped The unnaturally wide shoulders had burst the scarlet gown, and on these shoulders Murilo noted the sa from the scarlet hood was utterly bestial, and yet Murilo realized that Nabonidus spoke truth when he said that Thak was not wholly a beast There was so in the creature's clu that set it apart from the truly animal Thatawfully into sonized a faint and hideous kinshi+p between his kind and that squattingrealization of the abysses of bellowing bestiality up through which humanity had painfully toiled

'Surely he sees us,' e us? He could break this ith ease'

Murilo realized that Conan supposed the

'He does not see us,' answered the priest 'We are looking into the cha is the one at the head of these stairs It is siement of mirrors Do you see those mirrors on the walls? They transmit the reflection of the room into these tubes, dohich other ed scale in this great mirror'

Murilo realized that the priest eneration, to perfect such an invention; but Conan put it down to witchcraft, and troubled his head no more about it

'I constructed these pits for a place of refuge as well as a dungeon,' the priest was saying 'There are tih these htthat door?' derating in the tunnel It is connected with bells in the chambers above He knows so for him to coht hih that door, when I tugged at the rope that hangs on yonder wall, and he waits to mimic me'

'And while he waits, what are we to do?' deht we can do, except watch hi as he is in that chath of a true gorilla, and could easily tear us all to pieces But he does not need to exert histhat rope, and blast us into eternity'

'How?'

'I bargained to help you escape,' answered the priest; 'not to betray my secrets'

Murilo started to reply, then stiffened suddenly A stealthy hand had parted the curtains of one of the doorways Between thely on the squat form in the scarlet robe

Tetreus!' hissed Nabonidus 'Mitra, what a gathering of vultures this night is!'

The face remained framed between the parted curtains Over the intruder's shoulder other faces peered - dark, thin faces, alight with sinister eagerness

'What do they here?' h he knew they could not hear hi nationalists be doing in the house of the Red Priest?' laughed Nabonidus 'Look how eagerly they glare at the figure they think is their arch-ene to watch their expressions when they are disillusioned'

Murilo did not reply The whole affair had a distinctly unreal at the play of puppets, or as a dise the actions of the living, his presence unseen and unsuspected

He saw Petreus put his finger warningly to his lips, and nod to his fellow-conspirators The young nobleman could not tell if Thak were aware of the intruders The apeed, as he sat with his back toward the door through which the

'They had the sa at his ear 'Only their reasons were patriotic rather than selfish Easy to gain access tois dead Oh, what a chance to ridwhere Thak sits - a leap to the wall - a tug on that rope-'

Petreus had placed one foot lightly over the threshold of the cha dully Suddenly Thak rose and wheeled toward him The unexpected horror of his appearance, where they had thought to behold the hated but faht havoc with their nerves, as the saht upon Murilo With a shriek Petreus recoiled, carrying his companions backith him They stumbled and floundered over each other, and in that instant Thak, covering the distance in one prodigious, grotesque leap, caught and jerked powerfully at a thick velvet rope which hung near the doorway

Instantly the curtains whipped back on either hand, leaving the door clear, and down across it so flashed with a peculiar silvery blur

'He re 'The beast is half a man! He had seen the doom performed, and he remembered! Watch, now! Watch! Watch!'

Murilo saw that it was a panel of heavy glass that had fallen across the doorway Through it he saw the pallid faces of the conspirators Petreus, throwing out his hands as if to ward off a charge froestures, said so to his companions Now that the curtains were drawn back, the men in the pits could see all that took place in the chamber that contained the nationalists Completely unnerved, these ran across the chamber toward the door by which they had apparently entered, only to halt suddenly, as if stopped by an invisible wall

'The jerk of the rope sealed that chalass panels work in grooves in the doorways

Jerking the rope trips the spring that holds them They slide down and lock in place, and can only be worked frolass is unbreakable; a man with a mallet could not shatter it Ah!'

The trapped ht; they ran wildly fro vainly at the crystal walls, shaking their fists wildly at the implacable black shape which squatted outside Then one threw back his head, glared upward, and began to screa of his lips, while he pointed toward the ceiling

'The fall of the panels released the clouds of dooray lotus, from the Swamps of the Dead, beyond the land of Khitai'

In the old buds; these had opened like the petals of a great carven rose, and froray mist that swiftly filled the chaed from one of hysteria to one of er; they ran in drunken circles Froth dripped fro, they fell upon one another with daggers and teeth, slashi+ng, tearing, slaying in a holocaust of lad that he could not hear the screa Like pictures thrown on a screen, it was silent

Outside the chalee, tossing his long hairy ar like a fiend