Читать книгу The Greatest Adventures of Robert E. Howard (80+ Titles in One Edition) - Robert E. Howard - Страница 84

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THE storm had spent its fury. Full dawn rose in a clear blue rain-washed sky. As the sun rose in a blaze of fresh gold, bright- hued birds lifted a swelling chorus from the trees on whose broad leaves beads of water sparkled like diamonds, quivering in the gentle morning breeze.

At a small stream which wound over the sands to join the sea, hidden beyond a fringe of trees and bushes, a man bent to lave his hands and face. He performed his ablutions after the manner of his race, grunting lustily and splashing like a buffalo. But in the midst of these splashing he lifted his head suddenly, his tawny hair dripping and water running in rivulets over his brawny shoulders. He crouched in a listening attitude for a split second, then was on his feet and facing inland, sword in hand, all in one motion. And there he froze, glaring wide-mouthed.

A man as big as himself was striding toward him over the sands, making no attempt at stealth; and the pirate's eyes widened as he stared at the close-fitting silk breeches, high flaring-topped boots, wide-skirted coat and head-gear of a hundred years ago. There was a broad cutlass in the stranger's hand and unmistakable purpose in his approach.

The pirate went pale, as recognition blazed in his eyes.

'You!' he ejaculated unbelievingly. 'By Mitra! You!'

Oaths streamed from his lips as he heaved up his cutlass. The birds rose in flaming showers from the trees as the clang of steel interrupted their song. Blue sparks flew from the hacking blades, and the sand grated and ground under the stamping boot heels. Then the clash of steel ended in a chopping crunch, and one man went to his knees with a choking gasp. The hilt escaped his nerveless hand and he slid full-length on the sand which reddened with his blood. With a dying effort he fumbled at his girdle and drew something from it, tried to lift it to his mouth, and then stiffened convulsively and went limp. The conqueror bent and ruthlessly tore the stiffening fingers from the object they crumpled in their desperate grasp. Zarono and Valenso stood on the beach, staring at the driftwood their men were gathering—spars, pieces of masts, broken timbers. So savagely had the storm hammered Zarono's ship against the low cliffs that most of the salvage was match-wood. A short distance behind them stood Belesa, listening to their conversation, one arm about Tina. The girl was pale and listless, apathetic to whatever Fate held in store for her. She heard what the men said, but with little interest. She was crushed by the realization that she was but a pawn in the game, however it was to be played out—whether it was to be a wretched life dragged out on that desolate coast, or a return, effected somehow, to some civilized land. Zarono cursed venomously, but Valenso seemed dazed.

'This is not the time of year for storms from the west,' he muttered, staring with haggard eyes at the men dragging the wreckage up on the beach. 'It was not chance that brought that storm out of the deep to splinter the ship in which I meant to escape. Escape? I am caught like a rat in a trap, as it was meant. Nay, we are all trapped rats—'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' snarled Zarono, giving a vicious yank at his mustache. 'I've been unable to get any sense out of you since that flaxen-haired slut upset you last night with her wild tale of black men coming out of the sea. But I do know that I'm not going to spend my life on this cursed coast. Ten of my men went to hell in the ship, but I've got a hundred and sixty more. You've got a hundred. There are tools in your fort, and plenty of trees in yonder forest. We'll build a ship. I'll set men to cutting down trees as soon as they get this drift dragged up out of the reach of the waves.'

'It will take months,' muttered Valenso.

'Well, is there any better way in which we could employ our time? We're here—and unless we build a ship we'll never get away. We'll have to rig up some kind of a sawmill, but I've never encountered anything yet that balked me long. I hope that storm smashed Strom to bits—the Argossean dog! While we're building the ship we'll hunt for old Tranicos' loot.'

'We will never complete your ship,' said Valenso somberly.

'You fear the Picts? We have enough men to defy them.'

'I do not speak of the Picts. I speak of a black man.'

Zarono turned on him angrily. 'Will you talk sense? Who is this accursed black man?'

'Accursed indeed,' said Valenso, staring sea-ward. 'A shadow of mine own red- stained past risen up to hound me to hell. Because of him I fled Zingara, hoping to lose my trail in the great ocean. But I should have known he would smell me out at last.'

'If such a man came ashore he must be hiding in the woods,' growled Zarono. 'We'll rake the forest and hunt him out.' Valenso laughed harshly.

'Seek for a shadow that drifts before a cloud that hides the moon; grope in the dark for a cobra; follow a mist that steals out the swamp at midnight.'

Zarono cast him an uncertain look, obviously doubting his sanity.

'Who is this man? Have done with ambiguity.'

'The shadow of my own mad cruelty and ambition; a horror came out of the lost ages; no man of mortal flesh and blood, but—'

'Sail ho!' bawled the lookout on the north point.

Zarono wheeled and his voice slashed the wind.

'Do you know her?'

'Aye!' the reply came back faintly. 'It's the Red Hand!'

Zarono cursed like a wild man.

'Strom! The devil takes care of his own! How could he ride out that blow?' The buccaneer's voice rose to a yell that carried up and down the strand. 'Back to the fort, you dogs!'

Before the Red Hand, somewhat battered in appearance, nosed around the point, the beach was bare of human life, the palisade bristling with helmets and scarf-bound heads. The buccaneers accepted the alliance with the easy adaptability of adventurers, the henchmen with the apathy of serfs.

Zarono ground his teeth as a longboat swung leisurely in to the beach, and he sighted the tawny head of his rival in the bow. The boat grounded, and Strom strode toward the fort alone.

Some distance away he halted and shouted in a bull's bellow that carried clearly in the still morning. 'Ahoy, the fort! I want to parley!'

'Well, why in hell don't you?' snarled Zarono.

'The last time I approached under a flag of truce an arrow broke on my brisket!' roared the pirate. 'I want a promise it won't happen again!'

'You have my promise!' called Zarono sardonically.

'Damn your promise, you Zingaran dog! I want Valenso's word.'

A measure of dignity remained to the Count. There was an edge of authority to his voice as he answered: 'Advance, but keep your men back. You will not be fired upon.'

That's enough for me,' said Strom instantly. 'Whatever a Korzetta's sins, once his word is given, you can trust him.' He strode forward and halted under the gate, laughing at the hate-darkened visage Zarono thrust over at him. 'Well, Zarono,' he taunted, 'you are a ship shorter than you were when I last I saw you! But you Zingarans never were sailors.'

'How did you save your ship, you Messantian gutter-scum?' snarled the buccaneer.

'There's a cove some miles to the north protected by a high-ridged arm of land that broke the force of the gale,' answered Strom. 'I was anchored behind it. My anchors dragged, but they held me off the shore.'

Zarono scowled blackly. Valenso said nothing. He had not known of that cove. He had done scant exploring of his domain. Fear of the Picts and lack of curiosity had kept him and his men near the fort. The Zingarans were by nature neither explorers nor colonists.

'I come to make a trade,' said Strom, easily. '

We've naught to trade with you save sword-strokes,' growled Zarono.

'I think otherwise,' grinned Strom, thin-lipped. 'You tipped your hand when you murdered Galacus, my first mate, and robbed him. Until this morning I supposed that Valenso had Tranicos' treasure. But if either of you had it, you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of following me and killing my mate to get the map.'

'The map?' Zarono ejaculated, stiffening.

'Oh, don't dissemble!' laughed Strom, but anger blazed blue in his eyes. 'I know you have it. Picts don't wear boots!'

'But—' began the Count, nonplussed, but fell silent as Zarono nudged him.

'And if we have the map,' said Zarono, 'what have you to trade that we might require?'

'Let me come into the fort,' suggested Strom. 'There we can talk.'

He was not so obvious as to glance at the men peering at them from along the wall, but his two listeners understood. And so did the men. Strom had a ship. That fact would figure in any bargaining, or battle. But it would carry just so many, regardless of who commanded; whoever sailed away in it, there would be some left behind. A wave of tense speculation ran along the silent throng at the palisade.

'Your men will stay where they are,' warned Zarono, indicating both the boat drawn up on the beach, and the ship anchored out in the bay.

'Aye. But don't get the idea that you can seize me and hold me for a hostage!' He laughed grimly. 'I want Valenso's word that I'll be allowed to leave the fort alive and unhurt within the hour, whether we come to terms or not.'

'You have my pledge,' answered the Count.

'All right, then. Open that gate and let's talk plainly.' The gate opened and closed, the leaders vanished from sight, and the common men of both parties resumed their silent surveillance of each other: the men on the palisade, and the men squatting beside their boat, with a broad stretch of sand between; and beyond a strip of blue water, the carack, with steel caps glinting all along her rail.

On the broad stair, above the great hall, Belesa and Tina crouched, ignored by the men below. These sat about the broad table: Valenso, Galbro, Zarono and Strom. But for them the hall was empty.

Strom gulped wine and set the empty goblet on the table.

The frankness suggested by his bluff countenance was belied by the dancing lights of cruelty and treachery in his wide eyes. But he spoke bluntly enough.

'We all want the treasure old Tranicos hid somewhere near this bay,' he said abruptly. 'Each has something the others need. Valenso has laborers, supplies, and a stockade to shelter us from the Picts. You, Zarono, have my map. I have a ship.'

'What I'd like to know,' remarked Zarono, 'is this: if you've had that map all these years, why haven't you come after the loot sooner?'

'I didn't have it. It was that dog, Zingelito, who knifed the old miser in the dark and stole the map. But he had neither ship nor crew, and it took him more than a year to get them. When he did come after the treasure, the Picts prevented his landing, and his men mutinied and made him sail back to Zingara. One of them stole the map from him, and recently sold it to me.'

'That was why Zingelito recognized the bay,' muttered Valenso.

'Did that dog lead you here, Count? I might have guessed it. Where is he?'

'Doubtless in hell, since he was once a buccaneer. The Picts slew him, evidently while he was searching in the woods for the treasure.'

'Good!' approved Strom heartily. 'Well, I don't know how you knew my mate was carrying the map. I trusted him, and the men trusted him more than they did me, so I let him keep it. But this morning he wandered inland with some of the others, got separated from them, and we found him sworded to death near the beach, and the map gone. The men were ready to accuse me of killing him, but I showed the fools the tracks left by his slayer, and proved to them that my feet wouldn't fit them. And I knew it wasn't any one of the crew, because none of them wear boots that make that sort of track. And Picts don't wear boots at all. So it had to be a Zingaran.

'Well, you've got the map, but you haven't got the treasure. If you had it, you wouldn't have let me inside the stockade. I've got you penned up in this fort. You can't get out to look for the loot, and even if you did get it, you have no ship to get away in.

'Now here's my proposal: Zarono, give me the map. And you, Valenso, give me fresh meat and other supplies. My men are nigh to scurvy after the long voyage. In return I'll take you three men, the Lady Belesa and her girl, and set you ashore within reach of some Zingaran port—or I'll put Zarono ashore near some buccaneer rendezvous if he prefers, since doubtless a noose awaits him in Zingara. And to clinch the bargain I'll give each of you a handsome share in the treasure.'

The buccaneer tugged his mustache meditatively. He knew that Strom would not keep any such pact, if made. Nor did Zarono even consider agreeing to his proposal. But to refuse bluntly would be to force the issue into a clash of arms. He sought his agile brain for a plan to outwit the pirate. He wanted Strom's ship as avidly as he desired the lost treasure.

'What's to prevent us from holding you captive and forcing your men to give us your ship in exchange for you?' he asked. Strom laughed at him.

'Do you think I'm a fool? My men have orders to heave up the anchors and sail hence if I don't reappear within the hour, or if they suspect treachery. They wouldn't give you the ship, if you skinned me alive on the beach. Besides, I have the Count's word.'

'My pledge is not straw,' said Valenso somberly. 'Have done with threats, Zarono.'

Zarono did not reply, his mind wholly absorbed in the problem of getting possession of Strom's ship; of continuing the parley without betraying the fact that he did not have the map. He wondered who in Mitra's name did have the accursed map.

'Let me take my men away with me on your ship when we sail,' he said. 'I can not desert my faithful followers—'

Strom snorted.

'Why don't you ask for my cutlass to slit my gullet with? Desert your faithful—bah! You'd desert your brother to the devil if you could gain anything by it. No! You're not going to bring enough men aboard to give you a chance to mutiny and take my ship.'

'Give us a day to think it over,' urged Zarono, fighting for time.

Strom's heavy fist banged on the table, making the wine dance in the glasses.

'No, by Mitra! Give me my answer now!'

Zarono was on his feet, his black rage submerging his craftiness.

'You Barachan dog! I'll give you your answer—in your guts—'

He tore aside his cloak, caught at his sword-hilt. Strom heaved up with a roar, his chair crashing backward to the floor. Valenso sprang up, spreading his arms between them as they faced one another across the board, jutting jaws close together, blades half drawn, faces convulsed.

'Gentlemen, have done! Zarono, he has my pledge—'

'The foul fiends gnaw your pledge!' snarled Zarono.

'Stand from between us, my Lord,' growled the pirate, his voice thick with the killing lust. 'Your word was that I should not be treacherously treated. It shall be considered no violation of your pledge for this dog and me to cross swords in equal play.'

'Well spoken, Strom!' It was a deep, powerful voice behind them, vibrant with grim amusement. All wheeled and glared, open-mouthed. Up on the stair Belesa started up with an involuntary exclamation.

A man strode out from the hangings that masked a chamber door, and advanced toward the table without haste or hesitation. Instantly he dominated the group, and all felt the situation subtly charged with a new, dynamic atmosphere.

The stranger was as tall as either of the freebooters, and more powerfully built than either, yet for all his size he moved with pantherish suppleness in his high, flaring-topped boots. His thighs were cased in close-fitting breeches of white silk, his wide-skirted sky-blue coat open to reveal an open-necked white silken shirt beneath, and the scarlet sash that girdled his waist. There were silver acorn-shaped buttons on the coat, and it was adorned with gilt-worked cuffs and pocket-flaps, and a satin collar. A lacquered hat completed a costume obsolete by nearly a hundred years. A heavy cutlass hung at the wearer's hip.

'Conan!' ejaculated both freebooters together, and Valenso and Galbro caught their breath at that name.

'Who else?' The giant strode up to the table, laughing sardonically at their amazement.

'What—what do you here?' stuttered the seneschal. 'How come you here, uninvited and unannounced?'

'I climbed the palisade on the east side while you fools were arguing at the gate,' Conan answered. 'Every man in the fort was craning his neck westward. I entered the manor while Strom was being let in at the gate. I've been in that chamber there ever since, eavesdropping.'

'I thought you were dead,' said Zarono slowly. 'Three years ago the shattered hull of your ship was sighted off a reefy coast, and you were heard of on the Main no more.'

'I didn't drown with my crew,' answered Conan. 'It'll take a bigger ocean than that one to drown me.'

Up on the stair Tina was clutching Belesa in her excitement and staring through the balustrades with all her eyes.

'Conan! My Lady, it is Conan! Look! Oh, look!'

Belesa was looking; it was like encountering a legendary character in the flesh. Who of all the sea-folk had not heard the wild, bloody tales told of Conan, the wild rover who had once been a captain of the Barachan pirates, and one of the greatest scourges of the sea? A score of ballads celebrated his ferocious and audacious exploits. The man could not be ignored; irresistibly he had stalked into the scene, to form another, dominant element in the tangled plot. And in the midst of her frightened fascination, Belesa's feminine instinct prompted the speculation as to Conan's attitude toward her—would it be like Strom's brutal indifference, or Zarono's violent desire?

Valenso was recovering from the shock of finding a stranger within his very hall. He knew Conan was a Cimmerian, born and bred in the wastes of the far north, and therefore not amenable to the physical limitations which controlled civilized men. It was not so strange that he had been able to enter the fort undetected, but Valenso flinched at the reflection that other barbarians might duplicate that feat—the dark, silent Picts, for instance.

'What do you want here?' he demanded. 'Did you come from the sea?'

'I came from the woods.' The Cimmerian jerked his head toward the east.

'You have been living with the Picts?' Valenso asked coldly.

A momentary anger flickered bluely in the giant's eyes. 'Even a Zingaran ought to know there's never been peace between Picts and Cimmerians, and never will be,' he retorted with an oath. 'Our feud with them is older than the world. If you'd said that to one of my wilder brothers, you'd have found yourself with a split head. But I've lived among you civilized men long enough to understand your ignorance and lack of common courtesy—the churlishness that demands his business of a man who appears at your door out of a thousand-mile wilderness. Never mind that.' He turned to the two freebooters who stood staring glumly at him.

'From what I overheard,' quoth he, 'I gather there is some dissension over a map!'

'That is none of your affair,' growled Strom.

'Is this it?' Conan grinned wickedly and drew from his pocket a crumpled object—a square of parchment, marked with crimson lines.

Strom stared violently, paling. 'My map!' he ejaculated. 'Where did you get it?'

'From your mate, Galacus, when I killed him,' answered Conan with grim enjoyment.

'You dog!' raved Strom, turning on Zarono. 'You never had the map! You lied—'

'I didn't say I had it,' snarled Zarono. 'You deceived yourself. Don't be a fool. Conan is alone. If he had a crew he'd have already cut our throats. We'll take the map from him—'

'You'll never touch it!' Conan laughed fiercely. Both men sprang at him, cursing. Stepping back he crumpled the parchment and cast it into the glowing coals of the fireplace. With an incoherent bellow Strom lunged past him, to be met with a buffet under the ear that stretched him half-senseless on the floor. Zarono whipped out his sword but before he could thrust, Conan's cutlass beat it out of his hand.

Zarono staggered against the table, with all hell in his eyes. Strom dragged himself erect, his eyes glazed, blood dripping from his bruised ear. Conan leaned slightly over the table, his outstretched cutlass just touched the breast of Count Valenso.

'Don't call for your soldiers, Count,' said the Cimmerian softly. 'Not a sound out of you—or from you, either, dog-face!' His name for Galbro, who showed no intention of braving his wrath. 'The map's burned to ashes, and it'll do no good to spill blood. Sit down, all of you.'

Strom hesitated, made an abortive gesture toward his hilt, then shrugged his shoulders and sank sullenly into a chair. The others followed suit. Conan remained standing, towering over the table, while his enemies watched him with bitter eyes of hate.

'You were bargaining,' he said. 'That's all I've come to do.'

'And what have you to trade?' sneered Zarono.

'The treasure of Tranicos!'

'What?' All four men were on their feet, leaning toward him.

'Sit down!' he roared, banging his broad blade on the table. They sank back, tense and white with excitement. He grinned in huge enjoyment of the sensation his words had caused.

'Yes! I found it before I got the map. That's why I burned the map. I don't need it. And now nobody will ever find it, unless I show him where it is.'

They stared at him with murder in their eyes.

'You're lying,' said Zarono without conviction. 'You've told us one lie already. You said you came from the woods, yet you say you haven't been living with the Picts. All men know this country is a wilderness, inhabited only by savages. The nearest outposts of civilization are the Aquilonian settlements on Thunder River, hundreds of miles to eastward.'

'That's where I came from,' replied Conan imperturbably. 'I believe I'm the first white man to cross the Pictish Wilderness. I crossed Thunder River to follow a raiding party that had been harrying the frontier. I followed them deep into the wilderness, and killed their chief, but was knocked senseless by a stone from a sling during the melee, and the dogs captured me alive. They were Wolfmen, but they traded me to the Eagle clan in return for a chief of theirs the Eagles had captured. The Eagles carried me nearly a hundred miles westward to burn me in their chief village, but I killed their war-chief and three or four others one night, and broke away.

'I couldn't turn back. They were behind me, and kept herding me westward. A few days ago I shook them off, and by Crom, the place where I took refuge turned out to be the treasure trove of old Tranicos! I found it all: chests of garments and weapons—that's where I got these clothes and this blade—heaps of coins and gems and gold ornaments, and in the midst of all, the jewels of Tothmekri gleaming like frozen starlight! And old Tranicos and his eleven captains sitting about an ebon table and staring at the board, as they've stared for a hundred years!'

'What?'

'Aye!' he laughed. 'Tranicos died in the midst of his treasure, and all with him! Their bodies have not rotted nor shriveled. They sit there in their high boots and skirted coats and lacquered hats, with their wineglasses in their stiff hands, just as they have sat for a century!'

'That's an unchancy thing!' muttered Strom uneasily, but Zarono snarled: 'What boots it? It's the treasure we want. Go on, Conan.'

Conan seated himself at the board, filled a goblet and quaffed it before he answered.

'The first wine I've drunk since I left Conawaga, by Crom! Those cursed Eagles hunted me so closely through the forest I had hardly time to munch the nuts and roots I found. Sometimes I caught frogs and ate them raw because I dared not light a fire.'

His impatient hearers informed him profanely that they were not interested in his adventures prior to finding the treasure. He grinned hardly and resumed: 'Well, after I stumbled onto the trove I lay up and rested a few days, and made snares to catch rabbits, and let my wounds heal. I saw smoke against the western sky, but thought it some Pictish village on the beach. I lay close, but as it happens, the loot's hidden in a place the Picts shun. If any spied on me, they didn't show themselves.

'Last night I started westward, intending to strike the beach some miles north of the spot where I'd seen the smoke. I wasn't far from the shore when that storm hit. I took shelter under the lee of a rock and waited until it had blown itself out. Then I climbed a tree to look for Picts, and from it I saw your carack at anchor, Strom, and your men coming in to shore. I was making my way toward your camp on the beach when I met Galacus. I shoved a sword through him because there was an old feud between us. I wouldn't have known he had a map, if he hadn't tried to eat it before he died.

'I recognized it for what it was, of course, and was considering what use I could make of it, when the rest of you dogs came up and found the body. I was lying in a thicket not a dozen yards from you while you were arguing with your men over the matter. I judged the time wasn't ripe for me to show myself then!'

He laughed at the rage and chagrin displayed in Strom's face.

'Well, while I lay there, listening to your talk, I got a drift of the situation, and learned, from the things you let fall, that Zarono and Valenso were a few miles south of the beach. So when I heard you say that Zarono must have done the killing and taken the map, and that you meant to go and parley with him, seeking an opportunity to murder him and get it back—'

'Dog!' snarled Zarono. Strom was livid, but he laughed mirthlessly.

'Do you think I'd play fairly with a treacherous dog like you?—Go on, Conan.'

The Cimmerian grinned. It was evident that he was deliberately fanning the fires of hate between the two men.

'Nothing much, then. I came straight through the woods while you tacked along the coast, and raised the fort before you did. Your guess that the storm had destroyed Zarono's ship was a good one—but then, you knew the configuration of this bay.

'Well, there's the story. I have the treasure, Strom has a ship. Valenso has supplies. By Crom, Zarono, I don't see where you fit into the scheme, but to avoid strife I'll include you. My proposal is simple enough.

'We'll split the treasure four ways. Strom and I will sail away with our shares aboard the Red Hand. You and Valenso take yours and remain lords of the wilderness, or build a ship out of tree trunks, as you wish.'

Valenso blenched and Zarono swore, while Strom grinned quietly.

'Are you fool enough to go aboard the Red Hand alone with Strom?' snarled Zarono. 'He'll cut your throat before you're out of sight of land!'

Conan laughed with genuine enjoyment. 'This is like the problem of the sheep, the wolf and the cabbage,' he admitted. 'How to get them across the river without their devouring each other!'

'And that appeals to your Cimmerian sense of humor,' complained Zarono.

'I will not stay here!' cried Valenso, a wild gleam in his dark eyes. 'Treasure or no treasure, I must go!'

Conan gave him a slit-eyed glance of speculation. 'Well, then,' said he, 'how about this plan: we divide the loot as I suggested. Then Strom sails away with Zarono, Valenso, and such members of the Count's household as he may select, leaving me in command of the fort and the rest of Valenso's men, and all of Zarono's. I'll build my own ship.' Zarono looked slightly sick.

'I have the choice of remaining here in exile, or abandoning my crew and going alone on the Red Hand to have my throat cut?'

Conan's laughter rang gustily through the hall, and he smote Zarono jovially on the back, ignoring the black murder in the buccaneer's glare.

'That's it, Zarono!' quoth he. 'Stay here while Strom and I sail away, or sail away with Strom, leaving your men with me.'

'I'd rather have Zarono,' said Strom frankly. 'You'd turn my own men against me, Conan, and cut my throat before I raised the Barachans.'

Sweat dripped from Zarono's livid face. 'Neither I, the Count, nor his niece will ever reach the land alive if we ship with that devil,' said he. 'You are both in my power in this hall. My men surround it. What's to prevent me cutting you both down?'

'Not a thing,' Conan admitted cheerfully. 'Except the fact that if you do Strom's men will sail away and leave you stranded on this coast where the Picts will presently cut all your throats; and the fact that with me dead you'll never find the treasure; and the fact that I'll split your skull down to your chin if you try to summon your men.'

Conan laughed as he spoke, as if at some whimsical situation, but even Belesa sensed that he meant what he said. His naked cutlass lay across his knees, and Zarono's sword was under the table, out of the buccaneer's reach. Galbro was not a fighting rnan, and Valenso seemed incapable of decision or action.

'Aye!' said Strom with an oath. 'You'd find the two of us no easy prey. I'm agreeable to Conan's proposal. What do you say?'

'I must leave this coast!' whispered Valenso, staring blankly. 'I must hasten—I must go—go far—quickly!'

Strom frowned, puzzled at the Count's stranger manner and turned to Zarono, grinning wickedly: 'And you Zarono?'

'What can I say?' snarled Zarono. 'Let me take my three officers and forty men aboard the Red Hand, and the bargain's made.'

The officers and thirty men!'

There was no shaking of hands, or ceremonial drinking of wine to seal the pact. The two captains glared at each other like hungry wolves. The Count plucked his mustache with a trembling hand, rapt in his own somber thoughts. Conan stretched like a great cat, drank wine, and grinned on the assemblage, but it was the sinister grin of a stalking tiger. Belesa sensed the murderous purposes that reigned there, the treacherous intent that dominated each man's mind. Not one had any intention of keeping his part of the pact, Valenso possibly excluded. Each of the freebooters intended to possess both the ship and the entire treasure. Neither would be satisfied with less. But how? What was going on in each crafty mind? Belesa felt oppressed and stifled by the atmosphere of hatred and treachery. The Cimmerian, for all his ferocious frankness, was no less subtle than the others—and even fiercer. His domination of the situation was not physical alone, though his gigantic shoulders and massive limbs seemed too big even for the great hall. There was an iron vitality about the man that overshadowed even the hard vigor of the other freebooters.

'Lead us to the treasure!' Zarono demanded.

'Wait a bit,' answered Conan. 'We must keep our power evenly balanced, so one can't take advantage of the others. We'll work it this way: Strom's men will come ashore, all but half a dozen or so, and camp on the beach. Zarono's men will come out of the fort, and likewise camp on the strand, within easy sight of them. Then each crew can keep a check on the other, to see that nobody slips after us who go after the treasure, to ambush any of us. Those left aboard the Red Hand will take her out into the bay out of reach of either party. Valenso's men will stay in the fort, but will leave the gate open. Will you come with us, Count?'

'Go into that forest?' Valenso shuddered, and drew his cloak about his shoulders. 'Not for all the gold of Tranicos!'

'All right. It'll take about thirty men to carry the loot. We'll take fifteen from each crew and start as soon as possible.'

Belesa, keenly alert to every angle of the drama being played out beneath her, saw Zarono and Strom shoot furtive glaces at one another, then lower their gaze quickly as they lifted their glasses to hide the murky intent in their eyes. Belesa saw the fatal weakness in Conan's plan, and wondered how he could have overlooked it. Perhaps he was too arrogantly confident in his personal prowess. But she knew that he would never come out of that forest alive. Once the treasure was in their grasp, the others would form a rogues' alliance long enough to rid themselves of the man both hated. She shuddered, staring morbidly at the man she knew was doomed; strange to see that powerful fighting man sitting there, laughing and swilling wine, in full prime and power, and to know that he was already doomed to a bloody death.

The whole situation was pregnant with dark and bloody portents. Zarono would trick and kill Strom if he could, and she knew that Strom had already marked Zarono for death, and doubtless, also, her uncle and herself. If Zarono won the final battle of cruel wits, their lives were safe—but looking at the buccaneer as he sat there chewing his mustache, with all the stark evil of his nature showing naked in his dark face, she could not decide which was more abhorrent—death or Zarono.

'How far is it?' demanded Strom.

'If we start within the hour we can be back before midnight,' answered Conan. He emptied his glass, rose, adjusted his girdle, and glanced at the Count.

'Valenso,' he said, 'are you mad, to kill a Pict in his hunting paint?'

Valenso started.

'What do you mean?'

'Do you mean to say you don't know that your men killed a Pict hunter in the woods last night?'

The Count shook his head.

'None of my men was in the woods last night.'

'Well, somebody was,' grunted the Cimmerian, fumbling in a pocket. 'I saw his head nailed to a tree near the edge of the forest. He wasn't painted for war. I didn't find any boot-tracks, from which I judged that it had been nailed up there before the storm. But there were plenty of other signs—moccasin tracks on the wet ground. Picts have been there and seen that head. They were men of some other clan, or they'd have taken it down. If they happen to be at peace with the clan the dead man belonged to, they'll make tracks to his village to tell his tribe.'

'Perhaps they killed him,' suggested Valenso.

'No, they didn't. But they know who did, for the same reason that I know. This chain was knotted about the stump of the severed neck. You must have been utterly mad, to identify your handiwork like that.'

He drew forth something and tossed it on the table before the Count, who lurched up, choking, as his hand flew to his throat. It was the gold seal-chain he habitually wore about his neck.

'I recognized the Korzetta seal,' said Conan. 'The presence of that chain would tell any Pict it was the work of a foreigner.' Valenso did not reply. He sat staring at the chain as if at a venomous serpent.

Conan scowled at him, and glanced questioningly at the others. Zarono made a quick gesture to indicate the Count was not quite right in the head.

Conan sheathed his cutlass and donned his lacquered hat.

'All right; let's go.'

The captains gulped down their wine and rose, hitching at their sword-hilts. Zarono laid a hand on Valenso's arm and shook him slightly. The Count started and stared about him, then followed the others out, like a man in a daze, the chain dangling from his fingers. But not all left the hall.

Belesa and Tina, forgotten on the stair, peeping between the balusters, saw Galbro fall behind the others, loitering until the heavy door closed after them. Then he hurried to the fireplace and raked carefully at the smoldering coals. He sank to his knees and peered closely at something for a long space. Then he straightened, and with a furtive air stole out of the hall by another door.

'What did Galbro find in the fire?' whispered Tina. Belesa shook her head, then, obeying the promptings of her curiosity, rose and went down to the empty hall. An instant later she was kneeling where the seneschal had knelt, and she saw what he had seen.

It was the charred remnant of the map Conan had thrown into the fire. It was ready to crumble at a touch, but faint lines and bits of writing were still discernible upon it. She could not read the writing, but she could trace the outlines of what seemed to be the picture of a hill or crag, surrounded by marks evidently representing dense trees. She could make nothing of it, but from Galbro's actions, she believed he recognized it as portraying some scene or topographical feature familiar to him. She knew the seneschal had penetrated inland further than any other man of the settlement.