Olivia, half fainting, saw the ape heaving, thrashing and writhing, gripping, man-like, the hilt that jutted from its body. A sickening 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 monster’s shaggy hand.
`Crom!’ he panted. `I feel as if I’d been racked! I’d rather fight a dozen men. Another instant and he’d have bitten off my head. Blast him, he’s torn a handful of my hair out by the roots.’
Gripping his hilt with both hands he tugged and worked it free. Olivia stole close to clasp his arm and stare down wide-eyed at the sprawling monster.
`What – what is it?’ she whispered.
`A gray man-ape,’ he grunted. `Dumb, and man-eating. They 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 was when we 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 seldom emerge. What brought him into the open, I can’t say, but it was lucky for us; I’d have had no chance with him among the trees.’
`It followed me,’ she shivered. `I saw it climbing the 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 must have been great, to have driven him to attack us finally in the open. What-‘
He started and wheeled back toward the way they had come. The night had been split by an awful scream. It came from the ruins.
Instantly there followed a mad medley of yells, shrieks and cries of blasphemous agony. Though accompanied by a ringing of steel, the sounds were of massacre rather than battle.
Conan stood frozen, the girl 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 rim of the plateau, with its fringe of moon-limned trees. Olivia’s legs were trembling so that she could not walk; so he carried her, and her heart calmed its frantic pounding as she nestled into his cradling 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 murmured slumberously. The yells of slaughter dwindled behind them, masked in the distance to a confused jumble of sound. Somewhere a parrot called, like an eery echo: `Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!’ So they came to the tree-fringed water’s edge and saw the galley lying at anchor, her sail shining white in the moonlight. Already the stars were paling for dawn.
4
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 them, and they were a cowed and demoralized band. With panting haste they plunged into the water and began to wade toward the galley, when a stern challenge brought them up standing.
Etched against the whitening sky they saw Conan the Cimmerian standing in the bows, sword in hand, his black mane tossing in the dawn wind.
`Stand!’ he ordered. `Come no nearer. What would you have, dogs?’
`Let us come aboard!’ croaked a hairy rogue fingering a bloody stump of ear. `We’d be gone from this devil’s island.’
`The first man who tries to climb over the side, I’ll split his skull,’ promised Conan.
They were forty-four to one, but he held the whip-hand. The fight had been hammered out of them.
`Let us come aboard, good Conan,’ whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods. `We have been so mauled, bitten, scratched and rended, and are so weary from fighting and running, that not one of us can lift a sword.’
`Where is that dog Aratus?’ demanded Conan.
`Dead, with the others! It was devils fell upon us! They were rending us to pieces before we could awake – a dozen good rovers died in their sleep. The ruins were full of flame-eyed shadows, with tearing fangs and sharp talons.’
`Aye! put in another corsair. `They were the demons of the isle, which took the forms of molten images, to befool us. Ishtar! We lay down to sleep among them. We are no cowards. We fought them as long as mortal man may strive against the powers of darkness. Then we broke away and left them tearing at the corpses like jackals. But surely they’ll pursue us.’
`Aye, let us come aboard!’ clamored a lean Shemite. `Let us come in peace, or we must come sword in hand, and though we be so weary you will doubtless slay many of us, yet you can not prevail against us many.’
`Then I’ll knock a hole in the planks and sink her,’ answered Conan grimly. A frantic chorus of expostulation rose, which Conan silenced with a lion-like roar.
`Dogs! Must I aid my enemies? Shall I let you come aboard and cut out my heart?’
`Nay, nay!’ they cried eagerly. `Friends – friends, Conan. We are thy comrades! We be all lusty rogues together. We hate the king of Turan, not each other.’
Their gaze hung on his brown, frowning face.
`Then if I am one of the Brotherhood,’ he grunted, `the laws of the Trade apply to me; and since I killed your chief in fair fight, then I am your captain!’
There was no dissent. The pirates were too cowed and battered to have any thought except a desire to get away from that island of fear. Conan’s gaze sought out the bloodstained figure of the Corinthian.
`How, Ivanos!’ he challenged. `You took my part, once. Will you uphold my claims again?’
`Aye, by Mitra!’ The pirate, sensing the trend of feeling, was eager to ingratiate himself with the Cimmerian. `He is right, lads; he is our lawful captain!’
A medley of acquiescence rose, lacking enthusiasm perhaps, but with sincerity accentuated by the feel of the silent woods behind them which might mask creeping ebony devils with red eyes and dripping talons.
`Swear by the hilt,’ Conan demanded.
Forty-four sword-hilts were lifted toward him, and forty-four voices blended in the corsair’s oath of allegiance.
Conan grinned and sheathed his sword. `Come aboard, my bold swashbucklers, and take the oars.’
He turned and lifted Olivia to her feet, from where she had crouched shielded by the gunwales.
`And what of me, sir?’ she asked.
`What would you?’ he countered, watching her narrowly.
`To go with you, wherever your path may lie!’ she cried, throwing her white arms about his bronzed neck.
The pirates, clambering over the rail, gasped in amazement.
`To sail a road of blood and slaughter?’ he questioned. `This keel will stain the blue waves crimson wherever it plows.’
`Aye, to sail with you on blue seas or red,’ she answered passionately. `You are a barbarian, and I am an outcast, denied by my people. We are both pariahs, wanderers of earth. Oh, take me with you!’
With a gusty laugh he lifted her to his fierce lips.
`I’ll make you Queen of the Blue Sea! Cast off there, dogs! We’ll scorch King Yildiz’s pantaloons yet, by Crom!’