Part 15 (2/2)

How long she lay there, she did not know Across the plateau she saw the pirates reach the ruins and enter, dragging their captive She saw the into the heaps of debris, and cla about the walls After awhile a score of the the trees on the western riius after them, presumably to cast into the sea About the ruins the others were cutting down trees and securing ible in the distance, and she heard the voices of those who had gone into the woods, echoing a casks of liquor and leathern sacks of food They headed for the ruins, cursing lustily under their burdens

Of all this Olivia was but ht brain was almost ready to collapse Left alone and unprotected, she realized how much the protection of the Ciuely a wonderhter of a king the companion of a red-handed barbarian With it came a revulsion toward her own kind Her father, and Shah Amurath, they were civilizedShe had never encountered any civilized man who treated her with kindness unless there was an ulterior motive behind his actions Conan had shi+elded her, protected her, and - so far - de her head in her rounded arms she wept, until distant shouts of ribald revelry roused her to her own danger

She glanced froures, sered, to the dusky depths of the green forest Even if her terrors in the ruins the night before had been only dreareen leafy depths beloas no fightmare Were Conan slain or carried away captive, her only choice would lie between giving herself up to the hu alone on that devil-haunted island

As the full horror of her situation swept over her, she fell forward in a swoon

3

The sun was hanging lohen Olivia regained her senses A faint afted to her ears distant shouts and snatches of ribald song Rising cautiously, she looked out across the plateau She saw the pirates clustered about a great fire outside the ruins, and her heart leaped as a group e soainst the wall, still evidently bound fast, and there ensued a long discussion, with ed hiuzzling Olivia sighed; at least she knew that the Cimmerian still lived Fresh deterht fell, she would steal to those grim ruins and free him or be taken herself in the attempt And she kneas not selfish interest alone which prompted her decision

With this in e to pluck and eat nuts which grew sparsely near at hand She had not eaten since the day before It hile so occupied that she was troubled by a sensation of being watched She scanned the rocks nervously, then, with a shuddering suspicion, crept to the north edge of the cliff and gazed down into the waving green ; it was ie, by anything lurking in those woods Yet she distinctly felt the glare of hidden eyes, and felt that so ani-place

Stealing back to her rocky eyrie, she lay watching the distant ruins until the dusk of nightflaily

Then she rose It was time to e of the cliffs, and looked down into the woods that bordered the beach And as she strained her eyes in the diht, she stiffened, and an icy hand touched her heart

Far below her so ulf of shadows below her It ue bulk, shapeless in the seled with the screa, she fled down the southern slope

That flight down the shadowed cliffs was a nighted rocks with cold fingers As she tore her tender skin and bruised her soft lihtly lifted her, she realized again her dependence on the iron-thewed barbarian But this thought was but one in a fluttering ht

The descent seerassy levels, and in a very frenzy of eagerness she sped away toward the fire that burned like the red heart of night Behind her, as she fled, she heard a shower of stones rattle down the steep slope, and the sound lent wings to her heels What grisly clied those stones she dared not try to think

Strenuous physical action dissipated her blind terror somewhat and before she had reached the ruin, her h her limbs trembled froled along on her belly until, from behind a small tree that had escaped the axes of the pirates, she watched her ene, dipping pewter oblets into the broken heads of the wine-casks Sorass, while others had staggered into the ruins Of Conan she saw nothing She lay there, while the dew forrass about her and the leaves overhead, and the ued There were only a few about the fire; one into the ruins to sleep

She lay watching the, the flesh crawling between her shoulders at the thought of whatup behind her Tied on leaden feet One by one the revellers sank down in drunken slu fire

Olivia hesitated - then was galvanized by a distant glow rising through the trees The asp she rose and hurried toward the ruins Her flesh crawled as she tiptoed a portal Inside were many more; they shi+fted and lided a them A sob of joy rose to her lips as she saw Conan The Cilea fire outside

Picking her way ahtly as she had come, he had heard her; had seen her when first frarin touched his hard lips

She reached hi of her heart against his breast Through a broad crevice in the wall stole a beaed with subtle tension Conan felt it and stiffened Olivia felt it and gasped The sleepers snored on Bending quickly, she drew a dagger from its senseless owner's belt, and set to work on Conan's bonds They were sail cords, thick and heavy, and tied with the craft of a sailor She toiled desperately, while the tide of ht crept slowly across the floor toward the feet of the crouching black figures between the pillars

Her breath cas were still bound fast She glanced fleetingly at the figures along the walls - waiting, waiting They seemed to watch her with the awful patience of the undead The drunkards beneath her feet began to stir and groan in their sleep Thethe black feet The cords fell froer frole quick slash He stepped out froony of returning circulation Olivia crouched against hiht that touched the eyes of the black figures with fire, so that they glimmered redly in the shadows?

Conanup his sword from where it lay in a stack of weapons near by, he lifted Olivia lightly froaped in the ivy-groall

No word passed between the her in his arms he set off swiftly across the moon-bathed sward Her ar her dark curly head against his massive shoulder A delicious sense of security stole over her

In spite of his burden, the Ci her eyes, saw that they were passing under the shadow of the cliffs

'So cli behind runted

'I ahed

'You were not afraid when you came to free me, either,' he answered 'Cro I never heard I'm nearly deaf Aratus wished to cut out my heart, and Ivanos refused, to spite Aratus, who they snarled and spat at one another, and the crew quickly grew too drunk to vote either way-'

He halted suddenly, an iesture he tossed the girl lightly to one side and behind hi to her knees on the soft sward, she screamed at what she saw

Out of the shadows of the cliffsbulk - an anthropoeneral outline it was not unlike a ht, was bestial, with close-set ears, flaring nostrils, and a great flabby-lipped s It was covered with shaggy grayish hair, shot with silver which shone in thenearly to the earth Its bulk was tres, its bullet-head rose above that of the iant shoulders was breathtaking; the huge arht scene swaht This, then, was the end of the trail - for what hu could withstand the fury of that hairy mountain of thews and ferocity? Yet as she stared in wide-eyed horror at the bronzed figure facing the onists that was alle between man and beast than a conflict between two creatures of the wild, equally merciless and ferocious With a flash of white tusks, the hty arly quick for all his vast bulk and stunted legs

Conan's action was a blur of speed Olivia's eye could not follow She only saw that he evaded that deadly grasp, and his sword, flashi+ng like a jet of white lightning, sheared through one of those reat spout of blood deluged the sward as the severedhorribly, but even as the sword bit through, the other malformed hand locked in Conan's black mane

Only the iron neck-muscles of the Cimmerian saved him from a broken neck that instant His left hand darted out to clamp on the beast's squat throat, his left knee was jaan a terrific struggle, which lasted only seconds, but which seeirl

The apehiht The Ciid as iron, while the sword in his right hand, wielded like a butcher-knife, sank again and again into the groin, breast and belly of his captor The beast took its punishment in awful silence, apparently unweake-ned by the blood that gushed froth of the anthropoid overcae of braced arm and knee Inexorably Conan's arm bent under the strain; nearer and nearer he was drawn to the slavering jaws that gaped for his life Now the blazing eyes of the barbarian glared into the bloodshot eyes of the ape But as Conan tugged vainly at his sword, wedged deep in the hairy body, the frothing jaws snapped spasmodically shut, an inch from the Ci convulsions of the , thrashi+ng and writhing, gripping,instant of this, then the great bulk quivered and lay still

Conan rose and limped over to the corpse The Cimmerian breathed heavily, and walked like a man whose joints and muscles have been wrenched and twisted almost to their limit of endurance He felt his bloody scalp and swore at the sight of the long black red-stained strands still grasped in the y hand

'Croht a dozen men Another instant and he'd have bitten off my head Blast him, he's torn a handful ofhis hilt with both hands he tugged and worked it free Olivia stole close to clasp his ar rayThey dwell in the hills that border the eastern shore of this sea How this one got to this island, I can't say Maybe he floated here on driftwood, blown out from the mainland in a storm'

'And it was he that threw the stone?'

'Yes; I suspected what it e stood in the thicket and I saw the boughs bending over our heads These creatures always lurk in the deepest woods they can find, and seldoht him into the open, I can't say, but it was lucky for us; I'd have had no chance with hi the trees'

'It followedthe cliffs'

'And following his instinct, he lurked in the shadow of the cliff, instead of following you out across the plateau His kind are creatures of darkness and the silent places, haters of sun and moon'

'Do you suppose there are others?'

'No, else the pirates had been attacked when they went through the woods The gray ape is wary, for all his strength, as shown by his hesitancy in falling upon us in the thicket His lust for you reat, to have driven him to attack us finally in the open What-'

He started and wheeled back toward the way they had coht had been split by an awful scream It came from the ruins

Instantly there followed a ony Though acco of steel, the sounds were of irl clinging to him in a frenzy of terror The clamor rose to a crescendo of madness, and then the Cimmerian turned and went swiftly toward the rie ofso that she could not walk; so he carried her, and her heart cal arms

They passed under the shadowy forest, but the clusters of blackness held no terrors, the rifts of silver discovered no grisly shape Night-birds hter dwindled behind them, masked in the distance to a confused jumble of sound Sokoolan yok tha, xuthalla? So they ca at anchor, her sail shi+ning white in thefor dawn

In the ghastly whiteness of dawn a handful of tattered, bloodstained figures staggered through the trees and out on to the narrow beach There were forty-four of the haste they plunged into the water and began to wade toward the galley, when a stern challenge brought the