Part 14 (1/2)

'Huue I can't say'

'Nor I,' returned the girl 'Yet it azed into the leafy fastness and shuddered slighdy, without knohy

'Crorunted the Cimmerian 'I could eat a whole buffalo We'll look for fruit; but first I' in , he laid aside his sword, and wading out shoulder-deep into the blue water, went about his ablutions When he e black h they ser erish suppleness of lierous aspect of feature were not altered

Strapping on his sword once irl to follow hi under the leafy arches of the great branches Underfoot lay a short green shich cushi+oned their tread Between the trunks of the trees they caught glirunted in pleasure at the sight of golden and russet globes hanging in clusters airl should seat herself on a fallen tree, he filled her lap with the exotic delicacies, and then hiusto

'Ishtar!' said he, betweenout of the stinkingStill, it will serve if we eat enough'

Olivia was too busy to reply The sharp edge of the Ciaze at his fair co the lustrous clusters of her dark hair, the peach-bloom tints of her dainty skin, and the rounded contours of her lithe figure which the scanty silk tunic displayed to full advantage

Finishi+ng herhis burning, slit-eyed gaze, she changed color and the reers

Without coesture that they should continue their explorations, and rising, she followed hilade, the farther end of which was bounded by a dense thicket As they stepped into the open there was a ripping crash in this thicket, and Conan, bounding aside and carrying the girl with hih the air and struck a tree-trunk with a thunderous i out his sword, Conan bounded across the glade and plunged into the thicket Silence ensued, while Olivia crouched on the sward, terrified and bewildered Presently Conan e in that thicket,' he growled 'But there was so-'

He studied the runted incredulously, as if unable to credit his own senses It was a huge block of greenish stone which lay on the sward at the foot of the tree, whose wood its ie stone to find on an uninhabited island,' growled Conan

Olivia's lovely eyes dilated in wonder The stone was a symmetrical block, indisputably cut and shaped by huly rasped it with both hands, and with legs braced and theknots, he heaved it above his head and cast it fro every ounce of nerve and sinew It fell a few feet in front of hi could throw that rock across this glade It's a task for siege engines Yet here there are no onels or ballistas'

'Perhaps it was thrown by soested

He shook his head 'It didn't fall fros are broken? It was thrown as a ht throw a pebble But who? What? Come!'

She hesitantly followed hi of leafy brush, the undergroas less dense Utter silence brooded over all The springy sward gave no sign of footprint Yet from this mysterious thicket had hurtled that boulder, swift and deadly Conan bent closer to the sward, where the grass was crushed down here and there He shook his head angrily Even to his keen eyes it gave no clue as to what had stood or trodden there His gaze roved to the green roof above their heads, a solid ceiling of thick leaves and interwoven arches And he froze suddenly

Then rising, sword in hand, he began to back away, thrusting Olivia behind hiealed the girl's blood

'What is it? What do you see?'

'Nothing,' he answered guardedly, not halting his wary retreat

'But what is it, then? What lurks in this thicket?'

'Death!' he answered, his gaze still fixed on the brooding jade arches that shut out the sky

Once out of the thicket, he took her hand and led her swiftly through the thinning trees, until they ed upon a low plateau, where the grass grew taller and the trees were few and scattered And in thegreenish stone

They gazed in wonder No legends na on any island of Vilayet They approached it warily, seeing that aped to the sky On all sides lay bits and shards ofthe is rose there, perhaps a whole town But now only the long hall-like structure rose against the sky, and its walls leaned drunkenly auarded its portals had long rotted away Conan and his coht strea the interior a di his sword fir panther, sunken head and noiseless feet Olivia tiptoed after hirunted in surprize, and Olivia stifled a scream

'Look! Oh, look!'

'I see,' he answered 'Nothing to fear They are statues'

'But how life-like - and how evil!' she whispered, drawing close to hireat hall, whose floor was of polished stone, littered with dust and broken stones, which had fallen fro between the stones, masked the apertures The lofty roof, flat and undo in ron the sides of the walls And in each space between these coluure

They were statues, apparently of iron, black and shi+ning as if continually polished They were life-sized, depicting tall, lithely powerful men, with cruel hawk-like faces They were naked, and every swell, depression and contour of joint and sineas represented with incredible realism But the most life-like feature was their proud, intolerant faces These features were not cast in the same mold Each face possessed its own individual characteristics, though there was a tribal likeness between them all There was none of the monotonous uniformity of decorative art, in the faces at least

'They seeirl uneasily

Conan rang his hilt against one of the ies 'Iron,' he pronounced 'But Crom! In what ed his lanced tirown stones, the tendril-clasped pillars, with the dark figures brooding between theone, but the ie fascination for her companion He examined them in detail, and barbarian-like, tried to break off their limbs But their ure nor dislodge fro in his wonder

'What manner of e 'These figures are black, yet they are not like negroes I have never seen their like'

'Let us go into the sunlight,' urged Olivia, and he nodded, with a baffled glance at the brooding shapes along the walls

So they passed out of the dusky hall into the clear blaze of the summer sun She was surprized to note its position in the sky; they had spent uessed 'Let us take to the boat again,' she suggested 'I ae evil place We do not knoe may be attacked by whatever cast the rock'

'I think we're safe as long as we're not under the trees,' he answered 'Come'

The plateau, whose sides fell away toward the wooded shores on the east, west and south, sloped upward toward the north to abut on a tangle of rocky cliffs, the highest point of the island Thither Conan took his way, suiting his long stride to his colance rested inscrutably upon her, and she are of it

They reached the northern extre up the steep pitch of the cliffs Trees grew thickly along the ri to the precipitous incline Conan glanced at these trees suspiciously, but he began the ascent, helping his companion on the clies and boulders The Cimmerian, born in a hill country, could have run up it like a cat, but Olivia found the going difficult Again and again she felt herself lifted lightly off her feet and over soth to surrew at the sheer physical power of the nant There was a promise of protection in his iron clasp

At last they stood on the ulti in the sea wind From their feet the cliffs fell away sheerly three or four hundred feet to a narrow tangle of woodlands bordering the beach Looking southward they saw the whole island lying like a great ovaldoiftly into a rireen, except where it broke in the pitch of the cliffs As far as they could see, on all sides stretched the blue waters, still, placid, fading into dreahed Olivia 'Why should we not take up our journey again?'

Conan, poised like a bronze statue on the cliffs, pointed northward Straining her eyes, Olivia sahite fleck that see haze

'What is it?'

'A sail'

'Hyrkanians?'

'Who can tell, at this distance?'