broadcourts. From all sides except that toward the river, the jungle creptin, masking fallen columns and crumbling mounds with poisonous green.Here and there buckling towers reeled drunkenly against the morning sky,and broken pillars jutted up among the decaying walls. In the centerspace a marble pyramid was spired by a slim column, and on its pinnaclesat or squatted something that Conan supposed to be an image until hiskeen eyes detected life in it.
'It is a great bird,' said one of the warriors, standing in the bows.
'It is a monster bat,' insisted another.
'It is an ape,' said Belit.
Just then the creature spread broad wings and flapped off into thejungle.
'A winged ape,' said old N'Yaga uneasily. 'Better we had cut our throatsthan come to this place. It is haunted.'
Belit mocked at his superstitions and ordered the galley run inshore andtied to the crumbling wharfs. She was the first to spring ashore,closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinnedpirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyesrolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.
Over all brooded a silence as sinister as that of a sleeping serpent.Belit posed picturesquely among the ruins, the vibrant life in her lithefigure contrasting strangely with the desolation and decay about her.The sun flamed up slowly, sullenly, above the jungle, flooding thetowers with a dull gold that left shadows lurking beneath the totteringwalls. Belit pointed to a slim round tower that reeled on its rottingbase. A broad expanse of cracked, grass-grown slabs led up to it,flanked by fallen columns, and before it stood a massive altar. Belitwent swiftly along the ancient floor and stood before it.
'This was the temple of the old ones,' she said. 'Look--you can see thechannels for the blood along the sides of the altar, and the rains often thousand years have not washed the dark stains from them. The wallshave all fallen away, but this stone block defies time and theelements.'
'But who were these old ones?' demanded Conan.
She spread her slim hands helplessly. 'Not even in legendary is thiscity mentioned. But look at the handholes at either end of the altar!Priests often conceal their treasures beneath their altars. Four of youlay hold and see if you can lift it.'
She stepped back to make room for them, glancing up at the tower whichloomed drunkenly above them. Three of the strongest blacks had grippedthe handholes cut into the stone--curiously unsuited to humanhands--when Belit sprang back with a sharp cry. They froze in theirplaces, and Conan, bending to aid them, wheeled with a startled curse.
'A snake in the grass,' she said, backing away. 'Come and slay it; therest of you bend your backs to the stone.'
Conan came quickly toward her, another taking his place. As heimpatiently scanned the grass for the reptile, the giant blacks bracedtheir feet, grunted and heaved with their huge muscles coiling andstraining under their ebon skin. The altar did not come off the ground,but it revolved suddenly on its side. And simultaneously there was agrinding rumble above and the tower came crashing down, covering thefour black men with broken masonry.
A cry of horror rose from their comrades. Belit's slim fingers dug intoConan's arm-muscles. 'There was no serpent,' she whispered. 'It was buta ruse to call you away. I feared; the old ones guarded their treasurewell. Let us clear away the stones.'
With herculean labor they did so, and lifted out the mangled bodies ofthe four men. And under them, stained with their blood, the piratesfound a crypt carved in the solid stone. The altar, hinged curiouslywith stone rods and sockets on one side, had served as its lid. And atfirst glance the crypt seemed brimming with liquid fire, catching theearly light with a million blazing facets. Undreamable wealth lay beforethe eyes of the gaping pirates; diamonds, rubies, bloodstones,sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, opals, emeralds, amethysts, unknowngems that shone like the eyes of evil women. The crypt was filled to thebrim with bright stones that the morning sun struck into lambent flame.
With a cry Belit dropped to her knees among the blood-stained rubble onthe brink and thrust her white arms shoulder-deep into that pool ofsplendor. She withdrew them, clutching something that brought anothercry to her lips--a long string of crimson stones that were like clots offrozen blood strung on a thick gold wire. In their glow the goldensunlight changed to bloody haze.
Belit's eyes were like a woman's in a trance. The Shemite soul finds abright drunkenness in riches and material splendor, and the sight ofthis treasure might have shaken the soul of a sated emperor of Shushan.
'Take up the jewels, dogs!' her voice was shrill with her emotions.
'Look!' a muscular black arm stabbed toward the _Tigress_, and Belitwheeled, her crimson lips a-snarl, as if she expected to see a rivalcorsair sweeping in to despoil her of her plunder. But from the gunwalesof the ship a dark shape rose, soaring away over the jungle.
'The devil-ape has been investigating the ship,' muttered the blacksuneasily.
'What matter?' cried Belit with a curse, raking back a rebellious lockwith an impatient hand. 'Make a litter of spears and mantles to bearthese jewels--where the devil are you going?'
'To look to the galley,' grunted Conan. 'That bat-thing might haveknocked a hole in the bottom, for all we know.'
He ran swiftly down the cracked wharf and sprang aboard. A moment'sswift examination below decks, and he swore heartily, casting a cloudedglance in the direction the bat-being had vanished. He returned hastilyto Belit, superintending the plundering of the crypt. She had looped thenecklace about her neck, and on her naked white bosom the red clotsglimmered darkly. A huge naked black stood crotch-deep in thejewel-brimming crypt, scooping up great handfuls of splendor to passthem to eager hands above. Strings of frozen iridescence hung betweenhis dusky fingers; drops of red fire dripped from his hands, piled highwith starlight and rainbow. It was as if a black titan stoodstraddle-legged in the bright pits of hell, his lifted hands full ofstars.
'That flying devil has staved in the water-casks,' said Conan. 'If wehadn't been so dazed by these stones we'd have heard the noise. We werefools not to have left a man on guard. We can't drink this river water.I'll take twenty men and search for fresh water in the jungle.'
She looked at him vaguely, in her eyes the blank blaze of her strangepassion, her fingers working at the gems on her breast.
'Very well,' she said absently, hardly heeding him. 'I'll get the lootaboard.'
* * * * *
The jungle closed quickly about them, changing the light from gold togray. From the arching green branches creepers dangled like pythons. Thewarriors fell into single file, creeping through the primordialtwilights like black phantoms following a white ghost.
Underbrush was not so thick as Conan had anticipated. The ground wasspongy but not slushy. Away from the river, it sloped gradually upward.Deeper and deeper they plunged into the green waving depths, and stillthere was no sign of water, either running stream or stagnant pool.Conan halted suddenly, his warriors freezing into basaltic statues. Inthe tense silence that followed, the Cimmerian shook his head irritably.
'Go ahead,' he grunted to a sub-chief, N'Gora. 'March straight on untilyou can no longer see me; then stop and wait for me. I believe we'rebeing followed. I heard something.'
The blacks shuffled their feet uneasily, but did as they were told. Asthey swung onward, Conan stepped quickly behind a great tree, glaringback along the way they had come. From that leafy fastness anythingmight emerge. Nothing occurred; the faint sounds of the marchingspearmen faded in the distance. Conan suddenly realized that the air wasimpregnated with an alien and exotic scent. Something gently brushed histemple. He turned quickly. From a cluster of green, curiously leafedstalks, great black blossoms nodded at him. One of these had touchedhim. They seemed to beckon him, to arch their pliant stems toward him.They spread and rustled, though no wind blew.
He recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, andwhose scent brought dream-haunted slumber. But already he felt a subtlelethargy stealing over him. He sought to lift
his sword, to hew down theserpentine stalks, but his arm hung lifeless at his side. He opened hismouth to shout to his warriors, but only a faint rattle issued. The nextinstant, with appalling suddenness, the jungle waved and dimmed outbefore his eyes; he did not hear the screams that burst out awfully notfar away, as his knees collapsed, letting him pitch limply to the earth.Above his prostrate form the great black blossoms nodded in the windlessair.
Queen of the Black Coast Page 5