Classic Audiobook Collection - Jewels of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard ~ Full Audiobook [fantasy]

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Jewels of Gwahlur by Robert E. Howard audiobook. Genre: fantasy Conan The Barbarian is after fabulous treasure in this exciting story. But he finds himself in more difficulties than he had counted on. Crafty and powerful human opponents seek to skin him alive, bestial mutations seek to rip his arms off, denizens of the deep want to devour him whole and scantily clad dusky beauties try to waylay him at every step. And all of this to find the Jewels of Gwahlur, the most fabulous treasure every hidden in a secret temple. Has Conan finally met his match? Will his evil enemies or the seductive women finally succeed in making him beg for mercy? Listen and find out. Caution: there is some sex, lots of (justified) violence and the women are all equally voluptuous, independent, yielding and very dangerous. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:34:12) Chapter 2 (00:58:17) Chapter 3 (01:24:04) Chapter 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jules of Gwaller by Robert Howard. Chapter 1 Paths of Intrigue The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone that glinted jade blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved away and away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds and leaves. It looked insurmountable, That giant palisade with its sheer curtains of solid rock, in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in the sunlight.

But the man who was working his tedious way upward was already halfway to the top. He came of a race of hillman accustomed to scaling forbidden crags, and he was a man of unusual strength and agility. His only garment was a pair of short red silk breeks, and his sandals were slung to his back out of the way, as were his sword and dagger. The man was powerfully built, supple as a panther. His skin was bronzed by the sun, his square-cut black mane, confined by a silver band about his temples.

His iron muscles, quick eye, and sure feet served him well here, for it was acclimed to test these qualities to the utmost. A hundred and fifty feet below him waved the jungle. An equal distance above him the rim of the cliffs was etched against the morning sky. He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste. Yet he was forced to move at a snail's pace, clinging like a fly on a wall. His groping hands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holes at best, and sometimes he virtually hung by his fingernails, yet upward he went, clawing, squirming, fighting

for every foot. At times he paused to rest his aching muscles, and, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, twisted his head to stare searchingly out over the jungle, combing the green expanse for any trace of human life or motion. Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed. only a few feet above his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instant later he had reached it, a small cavern just below the edge of the rim. As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung there, his elbows hooked over the lip. The cave

was so tiny that it was little more than a niche cut in the stone, a teld and occupant. A shrivelled, cross-legged, arms folded on the withered breast, upon which the shrunken head was sunk, sat in the little cavern. The limbs were bound in place with rawhide thongs, which had become mere rotted wisps. If the farm had ever been clothed, the ravages of time had long ago reduced the garments to dust. But thrust between the crossed arms and the shrunken breast, there was a little. was a roll of parchment, yellowed with age to the color of old ivory. The climber stretched

forth a long arm and wrenched away this cylinder. Without investigation he thrust it into his girdle and hauled himself up until he was standing in the opening of the niche. A spring upward and he caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself up and over almost with the same motion. There he halted, panting and stared downward. It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by a circular stone wall. The floor of the bowl was covered with trees and denser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungle denseness of the outer forest.

The cliffs marched around it without a break and of uniform height. It was a freak of nature, not to be parallel. perhaps in the whole world, a vast, natural amphitheater, a circular bit of forested plain, three or four miles in diameter, cut off from the rest of the world, and confined within the ring of those palisaded cliffs. But the man on the cliffs did not devote his thoughts to marveling at the topographical phenomenon. With tense eagerness he searched the treetops below him, and exhaled a gusty sigh.

when he caught the glint of marble domes amid the twinkling green. It was no myth, then. Below him lay the fabulous and deserted palace of Alkmenon. Conan, the Samarian, late of the Baraka Isles of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Kishan, following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the horde of the Turanian kings.

Kishan was a barbaric kingdom lying in the eastern hinterlands of Kush, where the broad grasslands merge with the forests that roll up from the south. The people were a mixed race, a dusky nobility ruling a population that was largely pure negro. The rulers, princes and high priests, claimed descent from a white race which, in a myth of age, had ruled a kingdom whose capital city was Alkminon. Conflicting legends sought to explain the reason for that race's eventual downfall and the abandonment of the city by the survivors. Equally nebulous were the tales of the Teeth of Gwalor, the treasure of Alkminon. But these

misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Kishon over vast distances of plain, river-laced jungle and mountains. He had found Kishan, which itself was considered mythical by many northern and western nations, and he had heard enough to confirm the rumors of the treasure that men called the Teeth of Gwalor, but its hiding-place he could not learn, and he was confronted with the necessity of explaining his presence in Kishan. Unattached strangers were not welcome there. But he was not nonplussed. With cool assurance he made his offer to the stately plumed, suspicious grondees of the barbarically magnificent court. He was a professional fighting man. In search of employment, he said, he had come to Kishan. For a price he would train the armies

of Kishan and lead them against Punt, their hereditary enemy, whose recent successes in the field had aroused the fury of Qishan's irascible king. This proposition was not so audacious as it might seem. Conan's fame had preceded him even into distant Qishan. His exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired, and feared throughout the black kingdoms. He did not refuse tests devised by the dust. skirmishes along the borders were incessant, affording the Samarian plenty of opportunities

to demonstrate his ability at hand-to-hand fighting. His reckless ferocity impressed the lords of Kishan, already aware of his reputation as a leader of men, and the prospects seemed favorable. All Conan secretly desired was employment to give him legitimate excuse for remaining in Kishan long enough to locate the high-house. hiding-place of the teeth of Gwalore. Then there came an interruption. Thutmerqui came to Kishan at the head of an embassy from Zimbabwe. Thutmerki was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had recommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdom, which lay many days march to the east. He and the Samarian knew each other of old,

and without love. But Mercury likewise had a proposition to make to the king of Kishan, and it also concerned the conquest of Punt, which kingdom incidentally, lying east of Kishan, had recently expelled the Zimbabwean traders and burned their fortresses. His offer outweighed even the prestige of Conan. He pledged himself to invade Punt from the east with a host of black spearmen, shemite-ish archers, and mercenary swordsmen, and to aid the

king of Kishan to annex the hostile kingdom. The benevolent kings of Zimbabwe desired only a monopoly of the trade of Kishan and her tributaries, and as a pledge of good faith some of the teeth of Gwalor. These would be put to no base usage. Thutmerichy hastened to explain to the suspicious chieftains, they would be placed in the temple of Zimbabwe beside the squat gold idols of Dagon and Durkito, sacred guests in the Holy Shrine of the kingdom, to seal the covenant between Kishan and Zimbabwe. This statement brought a savage grin to Conan's hard lips.

The Samarian made no attempt to match wits and intrigue with Tertmerkui and his Shemitish partner Zagiba. He knew that if Tertmercri won his point, he would insist on the instant banishment of his rival. There was but one thing for Conan to do. Find the jewels before the King of Kishan made up his mind and flee with them. But by this time he was certain that they were not hidden in Kishia, the royal city, which was a swarm of thatched huts, crowding about a mud wall that enclosed the palace of stone and mud and bamboo.

While he fumed with nervous impatience, the high priest, Garulga, announced that before any decision could be reached, the will of the gods must be ascertained concerning the proposed alliance with Zimbabwe and the Pledge of Objects long held holy and inviolate. The oracle of Alkminon must be consulted. This was an awesome thing, and it caused tongues to wag excitedly in palace and beehive hut. Not for a century had the priests visited the silent city. The oracle men said, Was the Princess Yelaya, the last ruler of Alkminon,

who had died in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, and whose body had miraculously remained unblemished throughout the ages? Of old priests had made their way into the haunted city, and she had taught them wisdom. The last priest to seek the oracle had been a wicked man who had sought to steal for himself, the curiously cut jewels that men called the Teeth of Gwalor. But some doom had come upon him in the deserted place, from which his acolytes, fleeing, had told tales of horror that had for a hundred years frightened the priests from the city

and the oracle. But Gourulga, the present high priest, as one, confident in his knowledge of his own integrity, announced that he would go with a handful of followers to revive the ancient custom. And in the excitement tongues buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for which he had sought for weeks, the overheard whisper of a lesser priest that sent the Samarians stealing out of Kishia

the night before the dawn when the priests were to start. Riding as hard as he dared, for a night and a day and a night, he came in the early dawn to the cliffs of Alkminon, which stood in the southwestern corner of the kingdom, amid uninhabited jungle which was taboo to common men. None but the priests dared approach the haunted vale within a distance of many miles, and not even a priest had entered Alkminon for a hundred years. No man had ever climbed. These cliffs, legend said, and none but the priests knew the secret entrance into the valley. Conan did not waste time looking for it. Steeps that balked these people, horsemen and

dwellers of plain and level forest, were not impossible for a man born in the rugged hills of Cimaria. Now on the summit of the cliffs, he looked down into the circular valley and wondered what plague, war, or superstition had driven the members of that ancient, ancient race forth from their stronghold, to mingle with and be absorbed by the tribes that hemmed them in. This valley had been their citadel. There the palace stood, and there only the royal family and their court dwelt. The real city stood outside the cliffs.

Those waving masses of green jungle vegetation hid its ruins. But the domes that glistened in the leaves below him were the unbroken pinnacles of the royal palace of Alkminon, which had defied the corroding ages. Swinging a leg over the rim he went down swiftly. The inner side of the cliffs was more broken, not quite so sheer. In less than half the time it had taken him to ascend the outer side, he dropped to the swarded valley floor. With one hand on his sword, he looked alertly about him.

There was no reason to suppose men lied when they said that Alkminon was empty and deserted, haunted only by the ghosts of the dead past. But it was Conan's nature to be suspicious and wary. The silence was primordial, not even a leaf quivered on a branch. When he bent to peer under the trees he saw nothing but the marching rows of trunks, receding and receding into the blue gloom of the deep woods. Nevertheless, he went warily, soared in hand, his restless eyes combing the shadows from side to side, his springy tread, making no sound

on the sward. All about him he saw signs of an ancient civilization, marble fountains, voiceless and crumbling, stood in circles of slender trees, whose patterns were too symmetrical to have been a chance of nature. Forest growth and underbrush had invaded the evenly planned groves, but their outlines were still visible. Broad pavements ran away under the trees, broken and with grass growing through the wide cracks. He glimpsed walls with ornamented copings, lattices of carbon stone that might once have served as the walls of pleasure pavilions. Ahead of him through the trees,

the domes gleamed, and the bulk of the structure supporting them became more apparent as he advanced. presently, pushing through a screen of vine-tangled branches, he came into a comparatively open space, where the trees straggled, unencumbered by undergrowth, and saw before him the wide, pillared portico of the palace. As he mounted the broad marble steps, he noted that the building was in far better state of preservation than the lesser structures he had glimpsed. The thick walls and massive pillars seemed too powerful to crumble before the assault of time and the elements.

The same enchanted quiet brooded over all. The cat-like pad of his sandal feet seemed startlingly loud in the stillness. Somewhere in this palace lay the effigy or image, which had in times past, served as oracle for the priests of Kishan. somewhere in the palace, unless that indiscreet priest had babbled a lie, was hidden the treasure of the forgotten kings of Alkmenon. Conan passed into a broad lofty hall, lined with tall columns, between which arches gaped, their door long rotted away.

He traversed this in a twilight dimness, and at the other end passed through great double-valved bronze doors, which stood partly open. as they might have stood for centuries. He emerged into a vast, domed chamber, which must have served as audience hall for the kings of Alkminon. It was octagonal in shape and the great dome, up to which the lofty ceiling curved obviously, was cunningly pierced,

for the chamber was much better lighted than the hall which led to it. At the further side of the great room there rose a dais, with broad Lopis lazuli steps leading up to it, and on that dais there stood a massive chair with ornate arms and a high back, which, once doubtless, supported a cloth of gold canopy. Conan grunted explosively, and his eyes lit. The golden throne of Alkminon, named an immemorial legendary. He waited with a practiced eye. it represented a fortune in itself if he were but able to bear it away its richness fired his imagination concerning the treasure itself and made him burn with eagerness

his fingers itched to plunge among the gems he had heard described by story-tellers in the market squares of kashia who repeated the tales handed down from mouth to mouth through the sentries jewels not to be duplicated in the world rubies emeralds diamonds bloodstones opals sapphires the lute of the ancient world he had expected to find the oracle effigy seated on the throne but since it was not it was probably placed in some other part of the palace if indeed such a thing really existed but since he had turned his face toward kishan so many myths had proved to be realities, that he did not doubt that he would find some kind of image or God. Behind the throne there was a narrow arched doorway, which doubtless had been masked by hangings in the days of Agminon's life. He glanced through it, and saw that it led into an alcove empty, and with a narrow corridor

leading off from it at right angles. Turning away from it, he spied another arch to the left of the dais. and it, unlike the others, was furnished with the door. Nor was it any common door. The portal was of the same rich metal as the throne, and carved with many curious arabesques. At his touch it swung open so readily that its hinges might recently have been oiled.

Inside, he halted, staring. He was in a square chamber of no great dimensions, whose marble walls rose to an ornate ceiling inlaid with gold. Gold freezes ran about the base in the top of the walls, and there was no door other than the one through which he had entered. But he noted these details mechanically. His whole attention was centered on the shape which lay on an ivory dais before him.

He had expected an image probably carved with the skill of a forgotten art. But no art could mimic the perfection of the figure that lay before him. It was no effigy of stone or metal or ivory. It was the actual body of a woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form unblemished for so many ages, Conan could not even guess. The very garments she wore were intact, and Conan scowled at that,

a vague uneasiness stirring at the back of his mind. The arts that preserve the body should not have affected the garments. Yet there they were. Gold breastplate set with concentric circles of small gems, gilded sandals, and a short silken skirt upheld by a jeweled girdle. Neither cloth nor metal showed any sign of decay. Yelaya was coldly beautiful. even in death. Her body was like alabaster, slender yet voluptuous. A great crimson jewel gleamed

against the darkly piled foam of her hair. Conan stood frowning down at her, and then tapped the dais with his sword. Possibilities of a hollow containing the treasure occurred to him, but the dais rang solid. He turned and paced the chamber in some indecision. Where should he search first in the limited time at his disposal. The priest he had overheard babbling to a courtesan, had said the treasure was hidden in the palace, but that included a space of considerable vastness. He wondered if he should hide himself until the priests had come and gone, and then renew the search. But there was a strong chance that they might take the jewels with him when they return to Keshia, for he was convinced that Thutmercary had been.

had corrupted Gorulga. Conan could predict Thutmercri's plans from his knowledge of the man. He knew that it had been Thutmercrie who had proposed the conquest of Punt to the kings of Zimbabwe, which conquest was but one move toward their real goal, the capture of the teeth of Aguilar. Those wary kings would demand proof that the treasure really existed before they made any move. The jewels that Merriquy asked as a pledge would furnish that proof. With positive evidence of the treasure's reality, the kings of Zimbabwe would move.

Punt would be invaded simultaneously from the east and the west, but the Zimbabwans would see to it that the Kishani did most of the fighting, and then, when both Punt and Kishan were exhausted from the struggle, the Zimbabwans would crush both races, lute Kishan, and then, Kishan and take the treasure by force if they had to destroy every building and torture every living human in the kingdom. But there was always another possibility. If Thut Mercri could get his hands on the hoard, it would be characteristic of the man to cheat his employers, steal the jewels for himself and DeKamp, leaving the Zimbabwean emissaries holding the sack. Conan believed that this consulting of the oracle was but a ruse to persuade the king of Kishan to accede to

Thutmercri's wishes, for he never for a moment, doubted that Garulga was as subtle and devious as all the rest mixed up in this grand swindle. Conan had not approached the high priest himself, because in the game of bribery he would have no chance against Thutmercary, and to attempt it would be to play directly into the Stichian's hands. Gurulga could denounce the Samarian to the people, establish a reputation for integrity, and rid Thetmercri of his rival at one stroke. He wondered how Thetmercary had corrupted the High Priest, and just what could be offered as a bribe to a man who had the greatest treasure in the world under his fingers.

At any rate, he was sure that the oracle would be made to say that the gods willed it that Kishan should follow that Mercre's wishes, and he was sure, too, that it would drop a few pointed remarks concerning himself. After that, Kishya would be too hot for the Samarian, nor had Conan had any intention of returning when he rode away in the night. The oracle chamber held no clue for him. He went forth into the great throne-room, and laid his hands on the throne. It was heavy, but he could tilt it up.

The floor beneath a thick marble dais was solid. Again he sought the alcove. His mind clung to a secret crypt near the oracle. Painstakingly he began to tap along the walls, and presently his taps rang hollow at a spot opposite the mouth of the narrow corridor. Looking more closely, he saw that the crack between the marble panel at that point and the next was wider than usual. He inserted a dagger-point and pride.

Silently the panel swung open, revealing a niche in the wall but nothing else. He swore, feelingly. The aperture was empty, and it did not look as if it had ever served as a crypt for the treasure. Leaning into the niche, he saw a system of tiny holes in the wall about on a level with a man's mouth. He peered through and grunted understandingly. That was the wall that formed the partition between the alcove and the oracle chamber. Those holes had not been visible in the chamber. Conan grinned.

This explained the mystery of the oracle, but it was a bit cruder than he had expected. Goruga would plant either himself or some trusted minion in that niche to talk through the holes. and the credulous acolytes would accept it as the veritable voice of Yelaya. Remembering something, the Samarian drew forth the roll of parchment he had taken from the mummy, and unrolled it carefully, as it seemed ready to fall to pieces with age. He scowled over the dim characters with which it was covered. In his roaming about the world, the giant adventurer had picked up a wide-smattering of knowledge, particularly including the speaking and reading of many alien tongues.

Many a sheltered scholar would have been astonished at the Samarians' linguistic abilities, for he had experienced many adventures where knowledge of a strange language had meant the difference between life and death. These characters were puzzling, at once familiar and unintelligible, and presently he discovered the reason. They were their characters of archaic pelishtim, which possessed many points of difference from the modern script with which he was familiar, and which three centuries ago had been modified by conquest by a nomad tribe.

This older, pure script baffled him. He made out a recurrent phrase, however, which he recognized as a proper name, Biet Yakin. He gathered that it was the name of the writer. Scowling his lips unconsciously moving as he struggled with the task, he blundered through the manuscript, finding much of it untranslatable and most of the rest of it obscure. He gathered that the writer, the mysterious Bitt Yakin, had come from afar with his servants and entered the valley of Alkminon.

Much that followed was meaningless, interspersed as it was with unfamiliar phrases and characters, such as he could translate, seemed to indicate the passing of a very long period of time. The name of Yelaya was repeated frequently, and toward the last part of the manuscript it became apparent that Bitt Yakin knew that death was upon him. With a slight start, Conan realized that the mummy in the cavern must be the remains of the writer of the manuscript, the mysterious Pelishtim Bitt Yakin. The man had done, as he had prophesied, and his servants, obviously, had placed him in that open crypt, high up on the cliffs, according to his instructions before his death.

It was strange that Bitt Yakin was not mentioned in any of the legends of Alkminon. Obviously he had come to the valley after it had been deserted by the original inhabitants, the manuscript indicated as much, but it seemed peculiar that the priests who came in the old days to consult the oracle, had not seen the man or his servants. Conan felt sure that the mummy and this parchment were more than a hundred years old. Beat Yakin had dwelt in the valley when the priests came of old to bow before dead Yelaya. Yet concerning him, the legends were silent, telling only of a deserted city haunted only by the dead. Why had the man dwelt in this desolate spot? And to what unknown

own destination, had his servants departed after disposing of their master's corpse. Conan shrugged his shoulders and thrust the parchment back into his girdle. He started violently, the skin on the backs of his hands tingling. Startlingly, shockingly in the slumberous stillness, the head boomed the deep, strident clangor of a great gong. He wheeled, crouching like a great cat's sword in hand, glaring down the narrow, corridor from which the sound had seemed to come. Had the priest of Kashia arrived? This was improbable he knew. They would not have had time to reach the valley. But that gong was

indisputable evidence of human presence. Conan was basically a direct actionist. Such subtlety as he possessed had been acquired through contact with the more devious races. When taken off guard by some unexpected occurrence, he reverted instinctively to type. So now, instead of hiding or slipping away in the opposite direction, as the average man might have done, he ran straight down the corridor in the direction of the sound. His sandals made no more noise than the pads of a panther would have made. His eyes were slits, his lips unconsciously a snarl. Panic had momented.

He temporarily touched his soul at the shock of that unexpected reverberation, and the red rage of the primitive that is awakened by the threat of peril always lurked close to the surface of the Cimmerian. He emerged presently from the winding corridor into a small open court. Something glinting in the sun caught his eye. It was the gong, a great gold disc, hanging from a gold arm extending from the crumbling wall. A brass mellet lay near, but there was no sound or sight of humanity. The surrounding arches gaped emptily.

Conan crouched inside the doorway for what seemed a long time. There was no sound or movement throughout the Great Palace. His patience exhausted at last. He glided around the curve of the court, peered into the arches, ready to leap either way like a flash of light, or to strike right or left, a cobra strikes. He reached the gong, stared into the arch nearest it. He saw only a dim chamber littered with the debris of decay.

Beneath the gong the polished marble flags showed no footprints, but there was a scent in the air, a faintly fetid odor he could not classify. His nostrils dilated like those of a wild beast as he sought in vain to identify it. turned toward the arch. With appalling suddenness the seemingly solid flags splintered and gave way under his feet. Even as he fell, he spread wide his arms and caught the edges of the aperture that gaped beneath him. The edges crumbled off under his clutching fingers.

Down into utter darkness he shot into black, icy water that gripped him and whirled him away with breathless speed. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Jules of Gualor by Robert Howard. This Lieber-Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. A Goddess Awakens. The Samarian at first made no attempt to fight the current that was sweeping him through lightless night.

He kept himself afloat, gripping between his teeth the sword which he had not relinquished even in his fall, and did not even seek to guess to what doom he was being born. But suddenly a beam of light lanced the darkness ahead of him. He saw the surging, seething, black surface of the water, in turmoil as if disturbed by some monster of the deep, and he saw the sheer stone walls of the channel curved up to a vault overhead. On each side ran a narrow ledge just below the arching roof, but they were far out of his reach. At one point this roof had been broken, probably fallen in,

and the light was streaming through the aperture. Beyond that shaft of light was utter blackness, and panic assail the Samarian, as he saw he would be swept on past that spot of light, and into the unknown blackness again. Then he saw something else. bronze ladders extending from the ledges to the water's surface at regular intervals, and there was one just ahead of him.

Instantly he struck out for it, fighting the current that would have held him in the middle of the stream. It dragged at him with tangible, animate, slimy hands, but he buffeted the rushing surge with the strength of desperation, and now drew closer and closer in shore, fighting furious, for every inch. Now he was even with the ladder, and with a fierce, gasping plunge, he gripped the bottom rung, and hung on breathless. A few seconds later, he struggled up out of the seething water, trusting his weight dubiously to the corroded rungs. They sagged and bent, but they held, and he clambered up onto the narrow ledge, which ran along the walls,

scarcely a man's length below the curving roof. The tall Samarian was forced to bend his head as he stood up. A heavy bronze door showed in the stone, at a point even with the head of the ladder, but it did not give to Conan's efforts. He transferred his sword from his teeth to its scabbard, spitting blood, for the edge had cut his lips in that fierce fight with the river, and turned his attention to the broken roof. He could reach his arms up through the crevice and grip the edge, and careful testing, told him it would bear his weight. An instant later he had drawn himself up through the hole

and found himself in a wide chamber in a state of extreme disrepair. Most of the roof had fallen in as well as a great section of the floor, which was laid over the vault of a subterranean river. Broken arches opened into other chambers and corridors, and Conan believed he was still in the great palace. He wondered uneasily how many chambers in that palace had underground water directly under them, and when the ancient flags or tiles might give way again and precipitate him back into the current from which he had just crawled.

And he wondered just how much of an accident. that fall had been. Had those rotten flags simply chanced to give way beneath his weight? Or was there a more sinister explanation? One thing at least was obvious. He was not the only living thing in that palace. That gong had not sounded of its own accord, whether the noise had been meant to lure him to his death or not. The silence of the palace became suddenly sinister. fraught with crawling menace. Could it be someone on the same mission as himself? A sudden thought occurred to him at the memory of the mysterious Bitt Yakin.

Was it possible that this man had found the teeth of Gualor in his long residence in Alkminon, that his servants had taken them with them when they departed? The possibility that he might be following a will-of-the-wisp infuriated the Samaria. in. Choosing a corridor which he believed led back toward the part of the palace he had first entered, he hurried along it, stepping gingerly as he thought of that black river that seethed and foamed somewhere below his feet. His speculations recurrently revolved about the oracle chamber and its cryptic occupant. Somewhere in that vicinity must be the clue to the mystery of the treasure, if indeed it still remains.

in its immemorial hiding-place. The great palace lay silent as ever, disturbed only by the swift passing of his sandaled feet. The chambers and halls he traversed were crumbling into ruin, but as he advanced the ravages of decay became less apparent. He wondered briefly for what purpose the ladders had been suspended from the ledges over the subterranean river, but dismissed the matter with a shrug.

He was little interested in speculating over unremunerative problems of antiquity. He was not sure just where the oracle chamber lay from where he was, but presently he emerged into a corridor which led back into the great throne room under one of the arches. He had reached a decision. It was useless for him to wonder aimlessly about the palace seeking the horde. He would conceal himself somewhere here, wait until the Kashani priests came, and then, after they had gone through the farce of consulting the oracle, he would follow them to the hiding-place of the gyms, to which he was

certain they would go. Perhaps they would only take a few of the jewels with him. He would content himself with the rest. Drawn by a morbid fascination, he re-entered the oracle chamber and stared down again at the motionless figure of the princess, who was worshipped as a goddess entranced by her frigid beauty. What cryptic secret was locked in that marvelously molded form? He started violently. The breast sucked through his teeth. The short hairs prickled at the back of his scalp. The body still lay as he had first seen it, silent, motionless, in breastplates of jeweled gold, gilded sandals and silk and skirt. But now there was a subtle difference. The lissom limbs were not rigid. A peach bloom touched the cheeks. The lips were red.

With a panicky curse, Conan ripped out his sword. Crom! She's alive! At his words, the long, dark lashes lifted. The eyes opened and gaped up at him, inscrutably, dark, lustrous, mystical. He glared in frozen, speechlessness. She sat up with a supple ease, still holding his ensorcelled stare. He licked his dry lips and found voice, You are, are you, Yelaya? he stammered.

I am, Yelaya. The voice was rich and musical, and he stared with new wonder. Do not fear. I will not harm you if you do my bidding. How can a dead woman come to life after all these centuries, he demanded, as if skeptical of what his senses told him. A curious gleam was beginning to smolder in his eyes.

She lifted her arms in a mystical gesture. I am a goddess. A thousand years ago there descended upon, me the curse of the greater gods, the gods of darkness beyond the borders of light. The mortal in me died. The goddess in me could never die. Here I have lain for so many centuries. To awaken each night at sunset, and hold my court as of your, with specters drawn from the shadows of the past. man, if you would not view that which will blast your soul forever, get hence quickly, I command you, go. The voice became imperious, and her slender arm lifted and pointed.

Conan, his eyes burning slits, slowly sheathed his sword, but he did not obey her ardor. He stepped closer, as if impelled by a powerful fascination, Without the slightest warning, he grabbed her up in a bear-like grasp. She screamed a very un-goddess-like scream, and there was a sound of ripping silk, as with one ruthless wretch he tore off her skirt. Goddess! Ha! His bark was full of angry contempt.

He ignored the frantic writhings of his captive. I thought it was strange that a princess of Alcquist. Minon would speak with a Corinthian accent. As soon as I'd gathered my wits, I knew I'd seen you somewhere. You're Muriela, Zarahibah's Corinthian dancing girl. This crescent-shaped birthmark on your hip proves it. I saw it once when Zargheba was whipping you. Goddess! Ba! He smacked the betraying hip contemptuously and resoundingly with his open hand, and the girl yelped piteously. All her imperiousness had gone out of her. She was no longer a mystical figure of antiquity, but a terrified and humiliated dancing girl, such as can be bought at almost any shemitish

marketplace. She lifted up her voice and wept unashamedly. Her captor glared down at her with angry triumph. Goddess! Ha! So you were one of the veiled women, Zargheba brought to Kashia with him. Did you think you could fool me, you little idiot? A year ago I saw you in Akbita,

with that swine, Zargheba, and I don't forget faces, or women's figures. I think I'll squirming about in his grasp, she threw her slender arms about his massive neck in an abandon of terror. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and her sobs quivered with a note of hysteria. Oh, please don't hurt me. Don't. I had to do it.

Sargheba brought me here to act as the oracle. Why, you sacrilegious little hussy, rumbled Conan. Do you not fear the gods? Crom, is there no honesty anywhere? Oh, please, she begged, quivering with abject fright. I couldn't disobey Zorgheba. Oh, what shall I do? I shall be cursed by these heathen gods.

What do you think the priests will do to you if they find out you're an imposter? He demanded. At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas for mercy and protection, with piteous protestations of her innocence of any malign intention. It was a vivid change from her pose as the ancient princess, but not surprising. The fear that had nerved her then was now her undoing.

Where is Zargheba? He demanded, stop yammering, dammit and answer me. Outside the palace, she whimpered, watching for the priests. How many men with him? None. We came alone. Ha! It was much more like the satisfied grunt of a hunting line. You must have left Kishia a few hours after I did.

Did you climb the cliffs? She shook her head, two choked with tears, to speak coherently. With an impatient imprecation, he seized her slim shoulders, and shook her until she gasped of her breath. Will you quit that blubbering and answer me? How did you get into the valley? Sargheba knew the secret way, she gasped. The priest Guarunga told him, and that Merkwee,

On the south side of the valley there is a broad pool lying at the foot of the cliffs. There is a cave mouth under the surface of the water that is not visible to the casual glance. We ducked under the water and entered it. The cave slopes up out of the water swiftly and leads through the cliffs. The opening on the side of the valley, masked by heavy thickets. I climbed the cliffs on the east side, he muttered. Well, what then?

We came to the palace, and Zargheba hid me among the trees, while he went to look for the chamber of the oracle. I do not think he fully trusted Guarunga. While he was gone, I thought I heard a gong sound, but I was not sure. Presently Zargiba came and took me into the palace and brought me to this chamber, where the goddess Eliya lay upon the dais.

He stripped the body and clothed me in the garments and ornaments. Then he went forth to hide the body and watch for the priests. I have been afraid. When you entered I wanted to leap up and beg you to take me away from this place, but I feared Zargihiba. When you discovered I was alive, I thought I could frighten you away. What were you to say to the oracle? He asked.

I was to bid the priests to take the teeth of Gwalor and give some of them to Thutmercri as a pledge, as he desired, and place the rest in the palace at Kishia. I was to tell them that an awful doom threatened Kishan if they did not agree to Thutemakry's proposals. And, oh, yes, I was to tell them that you were to be skinned alive immediately. Thetmercri wanted the treasure where he, or the zembawans could lay hand on it easily muttered conan disregarding the remark concerning himself i'll carve his liver yet garulgai is a party to the swindle of course

no he believes in his gods and is incorruptible he knows nothing about this he will obey the oracle it was all that berkrie's plan knowing the kishani would consult the oracle he had zorghiba bring me with the embassy from zimbabwe closely veiled and secluded well i'm damned muttered conan a priest who honestly believes in his oracle and cannot be bribed crom i wonder if it was zargiba who banged that gung did he know i was here could he have known about that rotted flagging where is he now girl hiding in the thicket of lotus trees near the ancient avenue that leads from the south wall of the cliffs to the palace she answered then she renewed her importunities oh conan have pity on me i'm afraid of this evil ancient place I know I have heard stealthy footfalls patting about me. Oh, Conan, take me away with you. Zagihippa will kill me when I have served his purpose here. I know it.

The priests, too, will kill me if they discover my deceit. He is a devil. He bought me from a slave-trader, who stole me out of a caravan bound through southern Coth, and has made me the tool of his intrigues ever since. Take me away from him. You cannot be as cruel as he. Don't leave me to be slain here. Please, please. She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically. Her beautiful, tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair

flowing in disorder over her white shoulders. Conan picked her up and set her on his knee. Listen to me. I'll protect you from Zagheba. The priest shall not. know of your perfidy, but you've got to do as I tell you." She faltered promises of explicit obedience, clasping his corded neck as of seeking security from the contact. Good. When the priests come, you'll act the part of Yelaya, as Zargaba planned. It'll be dark, and in the torchlight they'll never know the difference. But you'll say this to them. It is the will of the God.

gods, that the Stygian and his Shemiteous dogs be driven from Kishan. They are thieves and traitors who plot to rob the gods. Let the teeth of Gualor be placed in the care of the General Conan. Let him lead the armies of Kishan. He is beloved of the gods. She shivered with an expression of desperation, but acquiesced. But Zargiba, she cried, he'll kill me. "'Don't worry about Zagheba,' he grunted. "'I'll take care of that dog. "'Do you as I say.

Here, put your hair up again. It's fallen all over your shoulders. And the jim's fallen out of it.' He replaced the great glowing gem himself, nodding approval. It's worth a room full of slaves itself alone. Here, put your skirt back on. It's torn down the side, but the priests will never notice it. Wipe your face.

A goddess doesn't cry like a whip schoolgirl. By chrome, you do look like Yelaya, face, hair, figure, and all. If you act the goddess with the priests as well as you did with me, you'll fool them easily. I'll try, she shivered. Good. I'm going to find Zargheba. At that she became panicky again. No, don't leave me alone.

This place is haunted. There's nothing here to. to harm you, he assured her impatiently. Nothing but Zagheba, and I'm going to look after him. I'll be back shortly. I'll be watching from close by in case anything goes wrong during the ceremony. If you play your part properly, nothing will go wrong. And turning, he hastened out of the oracle chamber. Behind him, Muriela squeaked wretchedly at his going. Twilight had fallen. The Great rooms and halls were shadowy and indistinct. Copper freezes glinted dully through the dusk.

Conan strode like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past. No wonder the girl was nervous amid such surroundings. He glided down the marble steps like a slinking panther, sword in hand. Rained over the valley, and above the rim of the cliff's stars were blinking out. If the priests of Kashia had entered the valley, there was not a sound, not a movement in the greenery to betray them. He made out the ancient, broken, paved avenue, wandering away to the south, lost amid

the cluttering masses of fronds and thick-leaved bushes. He followed it warily, hugging the edge of the paving where the shrubs massed their shadows thickly, until he saw ahead of him dimly in the dusk, the clump of lotus trees, the strange growth peculiar to the black lands of Cush. There, according to the girl, Sarkhiba should be lurking. Conan became stealth personified, a velvet-footed shadow. He melted into the thickets. He approached the lotus grove by a circuitous movement, and scarcely the rustle of a leaf.

proclaimed his passing. At the edge of the trees he halted suddenly, crouched like a suspicious panther among the deep shrubs. Ahead of him, among the dense leaves, showed a pallid oval, dim in the uncertain light. It might have been one of the great white blossoms that shone thickly among the branches. But Conan knew that it was a man's face, and it was turned toward him. He shrank quickly deeper into the shadows. Had Zorghiba seen him? The man was looking directly toward him.

Seconds passed. That dim face had not moved. Conan could make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard. And suddenly Conan was aware of something unnatural. Zargiba he knew was not a tall man. Standing erect, his head would scarcely top the Samarian's shoulder, yet that face was on a level with Conan's own. Was the man standing on something?

Conan bent and peered toward the ground below the spot where the face showed, but his vision was blocked by undergrowth and the thick bowls of the trees. But he saw something else, and he stiffened. Through a slot in the underbrush, he glimpsed the slothed the sun. stem of the tree under which apparently Sargheba was standing. The face was directly in line with that tree. He should have seen below that face, not the tree trunk, but Sargheba's body, but there was no body there. Suddenly tensured that a tiger who stalks his prey, Conan glided deeper into the thicket, and a moment later drew aside a leafy branch and glared

at the face that had not moved, nor would it ever move again of its own volition. He looked at Zargiba's severed head, suspended from the branch of the tree by its own long black hair. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Jules of Gualor by Robert Howard. This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3 The Return of the Oracle

Conan wheeled suppily, sweeping the shadows with a fiercely questing stare. There was no sign of the murdered man's body, only yonder the tall lush grass was trampled and broken down, and the sward was dabbled darkly and wetly. Conan stood scarcely breathing as he strained his ears into the silence. The trees and bushes with their great palest, solid blossoms stood dark, still, and sinister, etched against the deepening dusk. Primitive fears whispered at the back of Conan's mind, Was this the work of the priests of Kishan?

If so, where were they? Was it Zargiba, after all, who had struck the gong? Again there rose the memory of Bitt Yakin and his mysterious servants. Bitt Yaqin was dead, shriveled to a hulk of rind. wrinkled leather and bound in his hollowed crypt to greet the rising sun forever. But the servants of Beat Yaqeen were unaccounted for. There was no proof they had ever left the valley. Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great shadowy palace.

He wheeled and ran back down the shadowed avenue, and he ran as a suspicious panther runs, poised, even in full stride, to whirl right or left, and strike death blows. The palace loomed through the trees, and he saw something else, the glow of fire reflecting readily from the polished marble. He melted into the bushes that lined the broken street, glided through the dense growth and reached the edge of the open space before the portico. Voices reached him, torches bobbed, and their flare shone. on glossy ebbin shoulders. The priests of Kishan had come.

They had not advanced up the wide overgrown avenue, as Zaghibe had expected them to do. Obviously there was more than one secret way into the valley of Alkmenon. They were filing up the broad marble steps, holding their torches high. He saw Garulga at the head of the parade, a profile chiseled out of copper,

etched in the torches. torch glare. The rest were acolytes, giant black men from whose skins the torches struck highlights. At the end of the procession there stalked a huge negro with an unusually wicked cast of countenance in the sight of whom Conan scowled. That was Warunga, whom Muriela had named as the man who had revealed the secret of the pool entrance to Zargheba. Conan wondered how deeply the man was in the intrigues of the Stygian. He hurried toward the portico, circling the open space to keep in the fringing shadows.

They left no one to guard the entrance. The torches streamed steadily down the long, dark hall. Before they reached the double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the other steps and was in the hall behind them, slinking swiftly along the column-lined wall, He reached the great door as they crossed the huge throne room, their torches driving back the shadows. They did not look back.

In single file, their ostrich plumes nodding, their leopard-skin tunics contrasting curiously with the marble and the arabesque metal of the ancient palace, they moved across the wide room and halted momentarily at the golden door to the left of the throne dais. Goruga's voice boomed eerily and hollowly in the great empty space, framed in sonorous phrases unintelligible to the lurking listener. Then the high priest thrust open the golden door and entered,

bowing repeatedly from his waist, and behind him the torches sank and rose, showering flakes of flame, as the worshippers imitated their master. The gold door closed. behind them, shutting out sound and sight. And Conan darted across the throne chamber and into the alcove behind the throne. He made less sound than a wind blowing across the chamber. Tiny beams of light streamed through the apertures in the wall as he pried open the secret panel. Gliding into the niche, he peered through. Muriela set upright on the dais, her arm

arms folded, her head leaning back against the wall, within a few inches of his eyes. The delicate perfume of her foamy hair was in his nostrils. He could not see her face, of course, but her attitude was, as if she gazed tranquilly into some far gulf of space over and beyond the shaven heads of the black giants who knelt before her. Conan grinned with appreciation. The little sluts and actress. he told himself.

He knew she was shriveling with terror, but she showed no sign. In the uncertain flare of the torches, she looked exactly like the goddess he had seen lying on that same dais, if one could imagine that goddess imbued with vibrant life. Gorulga was booming forth some kind of a chant in an accent unfamiliar to Conan,

and which was probably some invocation in the ancient tongue of Alkminon, handed down from generation to generation of high priests. It seemed interminable. Conan grew restless. The longer the thing lasted, the more terrific would be the strain on Moriola. If she snapped, he hitched his sword and dagger forward, he could not see the little trollop tortured and slain by these men.

But the chant, deep, low-pitched, and indescribably ominous, came to a conclusion at last, and a shouted acclaim from the acolytes marked its period. Lifting his head and raising his arms toward the silent farm on the dais, Garulga cried in the deep, rich resonance that was the natural attribute of the Kashani priest. o great goddess dweller with the great one of darkness let thy heart be melted thy lips opened for the ears of thy slave whose head is in the dust beneath thy feet speak great goddess of the holy valley thou knowest the paths before us the darkness that vexes us is as the light of the midday sun to thee shed the radiance of thy wisdom on the paths of thy servants tell us o mouthpiece of the gods what is their will concerning thutmercree the stygian The high-piled, burnished mass of hair that caught the torchlight in dull bronze gleams quivered slightly.

A gusty sigh rose from the blacks, half in awe, half in fear. Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached, impersonal, though the Samarian winced at the Corinthian accent. It is the will of the gods that the Stygian and his Shemitish dogs be driven from Qishan. She was repeating his exact words. They are thieves and traitors who plot to rob the gods. Let the teeth of Gwalor be placed in the care of the General Conan. Let him lead the armies of Qishan.

He is beloved of the gods. gods. There was a quiver in her voice as she ended, and Conan began to sweat, believing she was on the point of an hysterical collapse. But the blacks did not notice any more than they identified the Corinthian accent of which they knew nothing. They smote their palms softly together, and murmur of wonder and awe rose from them. Garulga's eyes glittered fanatically in the torchlight. Eliya has spoken, he cried in an exalted voice. It is the will of the gods.

Long ago in the days of our ancestors, they were made taboo and hidden at the command of the gods, who wrenched them from the awful jaws of Guilur, the king of darkness, in the birth of the world. At the command of the gods, the teeth of Guwalor were hidden. At their command they shall be brought forth again. O star-born goddess, give us your leave to go to the secret hiding place of the teeth, to secure them for him whom the gods love.

You have my leave to go, answered the false goddess, with an imperious gesture of dismissal that set Conan grinning again, and the priests backed out. stretch plumes and torches rising and falling with the rhythm of their genuflections. The gold door closed, and with a moan the goddess fell back limply on the dais. Conan! she whimpered faintly. Conan! Sh! he hissed through the apertures, and turning, glided from the niche and closed the panel.

A glimpse past the jam of the carven door, showed him the torches receding across the great throne, room, but he was at the same time aware of a radiance that did not emanate from the torches. He was startled, but the solution presented itself instantly. An early moon had risen, and its light slanted through the pierced dome, which by some curious workmanship intensified the light. The shining dome of Alkminon was no fable then. Perhaps its interior was of the curious white-le flaming crystal.

found only in the hills of the black countries. The light flooded the throne room and seeped into the chambers immediately adjoining. But as Conan made toward the door that led into the throne room, he was brought around suddenly by a noise that seemed to emanate from the passage that led off into the alcove. He crouched at the mouth, staring into it, remembering the clangor of the gong that had echoed from it to lure him into a snare. The light from the dome filtered only a little way into that narrow corridor

and showed him only empty space. Yet he could have sworn that he had heard the furtive pad of a foot somewhere down it. While he hesitated, he was electrified by a woman's strangled cry from behind him. Bounding through the door behind the throne, he saw an unexpected spectacle in the crystal light. The torches of the priest had vanished from the great hall outside, but one priest was still in the palace. Guarunga. His wicked features were convulsed with fury, and he grasped the terrified Muriela by the throat,

choking her efforts to scream and plead, shaking her brutally. Traitoris! Between his thick red lips, his voice hissed. like a cobra. What games are you playing? Did not Zagahibah tell you what to say? I—that Merkrie told me, are you betraying your master? Or is he betraying his friends through you?

Slot! I'll twist off your false head, but first I'll— A widening of his captive's lovely eyes, as she stared over his shoulder, warned the huge black. He released her and wheeled, just as Conan's sword lashed down. The impact of the stroke knocked him hat-long backward to the marble floor, where he lay twitching, blood oozing from a ragged gash in his scalp. Conan started toward him to finish the job,

for he knew that the priest's sudden movement had caused the blade to strike flat. But Muriela threw her arms convulsively about him. I've done as you ordered, she gasped. hysterically. Take me away. Oh, please, take me away. We can't go yet, he grunted. I want to follow the priests and see where they get the jewels.

There may be more loot hidden there, but you can go with me. Where's the gem you wore in your hair? It must have fallen out on the dais, she stammered, feeling for it. I was so frightened. When the priest left me, I ran out to find you, and this big brute had stayed behind. And he grabbed me— Well, go get it while I dispose of this carcass, he commanded. Go on.

That gem is worth a fortune itself. She hesitated, as if loath to return to that cryptic chamber. Then as he grasped Guarunga's girdle and dragged him into the alcove, she turned and entered the oracle room. Conan dumped the senseless black on the floor and lifted his sword. The Samarian had lived too long, the wild places of the world to have any illusions about mercy. The only safe enemy was a headless enemy. But before he could strike, a startling scream checked the lifted blade. It came from

the oracle chamber. Conan! Conan! She's come back! The shriek ended in a gurgle and a scraping scuffle. With an oath, Conan dashed out of the alcove across the throne, dais, and into the oracle chamber almost before the sound had ceased. There he halted, glaring bewilderedly. To all appearances, Muriela lay placidly on the dais, eyes closed as in slumber. "'What in thunder are you doing?' he demanded acidly. "'Is this any time to be playing jokes?' His voice trailed away.

His gaze ran along the ivory thigh, molded in the close-fitting silk skirt. That skirt should gape from girdle to him. He knew, because it had been his own hand that tore it as he ruthlessly stripped the garment from the dancer's writhing body. But the skirt showed no rent. A single stride brought him to the dais, and he laid his hand on the ivory body, snatched it away as if it had encountered hot iron instead of the cold immobility of death. Grom, he muttered.

His eyes suddenly slits of bale fire. It's not Moriela. It's Yelaya. He understood now that frantic scream that had burst from Moriela's lips when she entered the chamber. The goddess had returned. The body had been stripped by Zorghiba to furnish the accoutumance for the pretender, yet now it was clad in silken jewels as,

Conan had first seen it. A peculiar prickling made itself manifest among the short hairs at the base of Conan's scalp. "'Moryalla!' he shouted suddenly. "'Moriela! Where the devil are you?' The walls threw back his voice, mockingly. There was no entrance that he could see except the golden door, and none could have entered or departed through that without his knowledge.

This much was indisputable. Yelaya had been replaced on the dais within the few minutes that had elapsed since Muriela had first left the chamber to be seized by Garunga. His ears were still tingling with the echoes of Moriella's scream, yet the Corinthian girl had vanished as if into thin air. There was but one explanation that offered itself. to the Samarian, if he rejected the darker speculation that suggested the supernatural. Somewhere in the chamber there was a secret door, and even as a thought crossed his mind,

he saw it. In what had seemed a curtain of solid marble, a thin perpendicular crack showed, and in the crack hung a wisp of silk. In an instant he was bending over it. That shred was from Moriella's torn skirt. The implication was unmistakable. It had been caught in the closing door and torn off, as she was borne through the opening by whatever grim beings were her captors.

The bit of clothing had prevented the door from fitting perfectly into its frame. Thrusting his dagger point into the crack, Conan exerted leverage from a corded forearm. The blade bent, but it was of unbreakable Akbatalan steel. The marble door opened. Conan's sword was lifted as he peered into the aperture beyond, but he saw no shape of menace. Light filtering into the oracle chamber revealed a short flight of steps cut out of marble, pulling the door back to its fullest extent, he drove his dagger into a crack in the floor, propping

it open. Then he went down the steps without hesitation. He saw nothing, heard nothing. A dozen steps down the stair ended in a narrow corridor which ran straight away into the gloom. He halted suddenly, poised like a statue at the foot of the stair, staring at the paintings which frescoed the walls, half hidden in the dim light which filtered down from above, the art was unmistakably palishtim. He had seen frescoes of identical characteristics on the walls of Oskullun,

but the scenes depicted had no connection with anything, Palishtim, except for one human figure, frequently recurrent, a lean, white-bearded old man whose racial characteristics were unmistakable. They seemed to represent various sections of the palace above. Several scenes showed a chamber he recognized as the oracle chamber, with the figure of Yaelia stretched upon the ivory dais, and huge black men kneeling before it. And there were other figures, too, figures that moved through the deserted palace, did

the bidding of the palishtim, and dragged unnameable things out of the subterranean river. In a few seconds, Conan stood frozen. Hitherto unintelligible phrases in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling clarity. The loose bits of the pattern clicked into place. The mystery of Bietjakin was a mystery no longer, nor the riddle of Bietjakin's servants. Conan turned and peered into the darkness, an icy finger crawling along his spine. he went along the corridor, cat-footed, and without hesitation, moving deeper and deeper into the darkness as he drew farther away from the stair. The air hung heavy with the odor he

had scented in the court of the gong. Now, in utter blackness, he heard a sound ahead of him, the shuffle of bare feet, or the swish of loose garments against stone he could not tell which. But an instant later, his outstretched hand encountered a barrier which he identified as a massive door of carbon metal. He pushed against it fruitlessly, and his sword-point sought vainly for a crack. It fitted into the sill and jams as if molded there. He exerted all his strength, his feet straining against the door, the veins nodding in his temples. It was useless.

charge of elephants would scarcely have shaken that Titanic portal. As he leaned there, he caught a sound on the other side that his ears instantly identified. It was the creek of rusty iron, like a lever scraping in its slot. Instinctively, action followed recognition so spontaneously that sound impulse and action were practically simultaneous. And as his prodigious bound carried him backward, there was the rush of a great bulk from above, and a thunderous crash filled the tunnel with deafening vibrations. Bits of flying splinters struck him.

A huge block of stone, he knew from the sound, dropped on the spot he had just quitted. An instant slower thought or action, and it would have crushed him like an ant, Conan fell back. Somewhere on the other side of that metal door, Muriela was a captive, if she still lived, but he could not pass that door. And if he remained in the tunnel another block might fall and he might not be so lucky. It would do the girl no good for him to be crushed into a purple pulp. He could not continue his search in that direction.

He must get above ground and look for some other avenue of approach. He turned and hurried toward the stair, sighing as he emerged into comparative radiance. And as he set foot on the first step, the light was blotted out, and above him the marble door rushed shut with a resounding reverberation. Something like Panic sees the Samarian Th then trapped in that black tunnel, and he wheeled on the stair, lifting his sword and glaring murderously into the darkness behind him, expecting a rush of ghoulish assailants. But there was no sound or movement down the tunnel. Did the men be on the door, if they were men, believe that he had been disposed of by

the fall of the stone from the roof, which had undoubtedly been released by some sort of machinery? Then why had the door been shut above him? abandoning speculation, Conan groped his way up the steps. His skin crawling in anticipation of a knife in his back at every stride, yearning to drown his semi-panic in a barbarous burst of bloodletting. He thrust against the door at the top and cursed soulfully to find that it did not give to his efforts. Then, as he lifted his sword with his right hand to hew at the marble, his groping left

encountered a metal bolt that evidently slipped into place at the closing of the door. In an instant he had drawn this bolt, and then the door gave to his shove. He bounded into the chamber like a slid-eyed, snarling incarnation of fury, furiously desirous to come to grips with whatever enemy was hounding him. The dagger was gone from the floor. The chamber was empty, and so was the dais. Yelaya had again vanished. By crumb, muttered the Samarian, is she alive after all?

He strode out into the throne room, baffled, and then, struck by a sudden thought, stepped behind the throne and peered into the alcove. There was blood on the smooth marble, where he had cast down the senseless body of Guarunga, that was all. The black man had vanished as completely as Yelaya. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Jules of Gualer by Robert Howard. This Libra-Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4. The Teeth of Gwler. Baffled wrath confused the brain of Conan, the Samarian. He knew no more how to go about searching for Muriela than he had known how to go about searching for the teeth of Gwler.

Only one thought occurred to him, to follow the priests. Perhaps at the hiding-place of the treasure some clue would be revealed to him. It was a slim chance, but better than wandering about aimlessly. As he hurried through the great shadowy hall that led to the portico, he half-expected the lurking shades to come to life behind him with rending fangs and talons. But only the beat of his own rapid heart accompanied him into the moonlight that dappled the shimmering marble. At the foot of the wide steps he cast about in the bright moonlight for some sign to show him the direction he must go, and he found it.

Petals scattered on the sward, told where an arm or garment, had brushed against a blossom-laden branch. Grass had been pressed down under heavy feet. Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found no insurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Kishani priests. It led away from the palace through masses of exotic scented shrubbery, where great pale blossoms spread their shimmering petals through verdant tangled bushes that showered blooms at the touch, until he came at last to a great mass of rock that jutted like a titan's castle

out from the cliffs at a point closest to the palace, which, however, was almost hidden from view by vine interlaced trees. Evidently that babbling priest in Kishia had been mistaken when he said that the teeth were hidden in the palace. This trail had led him away from the place where Muriela had disappeared, but a belief was growing in Conan that each part of the valley was connected with that palace by subterranean passages. Crouching in the deep velvet black shadows of the bushes, he scrutinized the great jut of

rock which stood out in bold relief in the moonlight. It was covered with strange, grotesque carvings, depicting men and animals and half-beastial creatures that might have been gods or devils. The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of the valley that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era and race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whatever immeasurably distant date the people of Elk Minon had found and entered the haunted valley. A great door stood open in the sheer curtain of the cliff, and a gigantic dragonhead was carved about

it, so that the open door was like the dragon's gaping mouth. The door itself was of carbon bronze and looked to weigh several tons. There was no lock that he could see, but a series of bolts showing along the edge of the massive portal as it stood open told him that there was some system of locking and unlocking, a system doubtless known only to the priests of Kashan. The trail showed that Gorulga and his henchmen had gone through that door, but Conan hesitated. To wait until they emerged would probably mean to see the door locked in his face, and he might not be able to solve the mystery of its unlocking.

On the other hand, if he followed them in, they might emerge and lock him in the cavern. Throwing caution to the winds, he glided silently through the great portal. Somewhere in the cavern were the priests, the teeth of gullar, and perhaps a clue to the fate of Muriela. Personal risks had never yet deterred the Samarian from any purpose. Moonlight illumined for a few yards the wide tunnel in which he found himself. Somewhere ahead of him he saw a faint glow and heard the echo. of a weird chanting. The priests were not so far ahead of him as he had thought.

The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent incrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world. It made a ghostly half-light, in which he was able to see a bestial image squatting on a shrine and the black mouths of six or seven tunnels leading off from the chamber.

Down the widest of these, the one directly behind the squat image, which looked toward the outer opening, he caught the gleam of torches wavering, whereas the phosphorescent glow was fixed, and heard the chanting increase in volume. Down it he went recklessly, and presently peered into a larger cavern than the one he had just left. There was no phosphorus here, but the light of the torches fell on a larger altar, and a more obscene and repulsive god, squatting toad-like upon it. Before this repugnant deity, Gorulga and his ten acolytes knelt and beat their heads upon the ground, while chanting monotonously. Conan realized why their progress had been so slow, evidently approaching the secret

crypt of the teeth was a complicated and elaborate ritual. He was fidgeting and nervous impatience before the chanting and bowing were over, but presently they rose and passed into the tunnel which opened behind the idol. Their torches bobbed away into the knight vault, and he followed swiftly. Not much danger of being discovered. He glided along the shadows like a creature of the night, and the black priests were completely engrossed in their ceremonial mummery. Apparently they had not even noticed the absence of Guarunga, emerging into a cavern of huge proportions, about whose upward curving walls, gallery-like ledges marched in tears. They began their worship anew before an altar which was

larger, and a god which was more disgusting than any encountered thus far. Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the walls reflecting the lurid glow of the torches. He saw a carbon stone stair winding up from tier to tier of the galleries. The roof was lost in darkness. He started violently and the chanting broke off as the kneeling blacks flung up their heads. An inhuman voice boomed out high above them. They froze on their knees. Their faces turned upward with a ghastly blue hue in the sudden glare of a weird light that burst blindingly up near the lofty roof, and then burned with a throbbing glow.

That glare lighted a gallery, and a cry went up from the high priest, echoed shudderingly by his acolytes. In the flash there had been briefly disclosed to them a slim white figure standing upright in a sheen of silk and a glint of jewel-crusted gold. Then the blaze smoldered to a throbbing, pulsing luminosity, in which nothing was distinct, and that slim shape was but a shimmering blue of ivory. "'Yelaya!' screamed Garulga, his brown features ashen. "'Why have you followed us? What is your pleasure?'

That weird, unhuman voice rolled down from the roof, re-echoed, Going under that arching vault that magnified and altered it beyond recognition. Woe to the unbelievers! Woe to the false children of Keshia! Doom to them which deny their deity. A cry of horror went up from the priests. Garulga looked like a shocked vulture in the glare of the torches. I do not understand.

He stammered. We are faithful. In the chamber of the oracle, you told us, Do not heed what you heard in the chamber of the oracle. Roll that terrible voice, multiplied until it was as though a myriad voices thundered and muttered the same warning. Beware of false prophets and false gods. A demon in my gods.

spoke to you in the palace giving false prophecy. Now, hearken and obey, for only I am the true goddess. And I give you one chance to save yourselves from doom. Take the teeth of Guadr from the crypt, where they were placed so long ago. Alkmenon is no longer holy, because it has been desecrated by Blasphemers.

Give the teeth of Guilur into the hands of Tudmercri, the Stygian, to place in the sanctuary of Dragan and Derkito. Only this can, and save Kishan from the doom the demons of the night have plotted. Take the teeth of Guadur and go. Return instantly to Kishia. There, give the jewels to Mercury and cease the foreign devil Conan, and flay him alive in the great square.

There was no hesitation in obeying. With fear, the priests scrambled up and ran for the door that opened behind the Beastial God. Gorulga led the flight. They jammed briefly in the doorway, yelping as wildly waving torches touched squirming black bodies. They plunged through, and the patter of their speeding feet dwindled down the tunnel. Conan did not follow. He was consumed with a furious desire to learn the truth of this fantastic. affair.

Was that indeed, Yelaya? As the cold sweat on the backs of his hands told him? Or was it that little hussy Muriela turned traitorous after all? If it was— Before the last torch had vanished down the black tunnel, he was bounding vengefully up the stone stair. The blue glow was dying down, but he could still make out that the ivory figure stood motionless on the gallery.

His blood ran cold as he approached it, but he did not hesitate. He came on with his sword lifted and towered like a threat of death over the inscrutable shape. "'Yelaya!' he snarled, dead as she's been for a thousand years. From the dark mouth of a tunnel behind him, a dark form lunged, but the sudden, deadly rush of unshot feet had reached the Samarian's quick ears. He whirled like a cat and dodged the blow aimed murderously at its back. As the gleaming steel in the dark hand hissed past him, he struck back with the fury of a roused python, and the long straight blade impaled his assailant and stood out a foot and a half between his shoulders.

So, Conan tore his sword free as the victim sagged to the floor, gasping and gurgling. The man writhed briefly in stiffened. In the dying light Conan saw a black body and ebbin countenance, hideous in the blue glare. He had killed Warunga. Conan turned from the corpse to the goddess. Thongs about her knees and breast held her upright against a stone pillar, and her thick hair fastened to the column held her head up.

At a few yards distance these bonds were not visible in the unsurbed. certain light. He must have come to after I descended into the tunnel, muttered Conan. He must have suspected I was down there. So he pulled out the dagger. Conan stooped and wrenched the identical weapon from the stiffened fingers, glanced at it and replaced it in his own girdle, and shut the door. Then he took Yelaya to befool his brother, idiots.

That was he, shouting a while ago. You couldn't recognize his voice under this echoing roof. And that bursting blue flame I thought it looked familiar. It's a trick of the Stygian priests. That Mercry must have given some of it to Guarunga. He could easily have reached this cavern ahead of his companions. Evidently familiar with the plan of the caverns by hearsay or by maps handed down in the priestcraft, he had entered the cave after the others carrying the gothic.

followed a circuitous route through the tunnels and chambers, and ensconced himself and his burden on the balcony while Gorulga and the other Acolytes were engaged in their endless rituals. The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow, emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on the ledge. Somewhere down that corridor there was another field of phosphorus, and for he recognized the faint, steady radiance. The corridor led in the direction the priest had taken, and he decided to follow it,

rather than descend into the darkness of the great cavern below. Doubtless it connected with another gallery in some other chamber, which might be the destination of the priests. He hurried down it, the illumination growing stronger as he advanced, until he could make out the floor and the walls of the tunnel. Ahead of him and below, he could hear the priests chanting again. Abruptly a doorway in the left-hand wall was limed in the phosphorus glow,

and to his ears came the sound of soft, hysterical sobbing. He wheeled and glared through the door. He was looking again into a chamber hewn out of solid rock, not a natural cavern like the others. The domed roof shone with the phosphorus light, and the walls were almost covered with the arabesques of beaten gold. Near the farther wall on a granite throne, staring forever toward the arched doorway,

sat the monstrous and obscene, Patear, the god of the palistam, wrought in brass, with his exaggerated attributes reflecting the grossness of his cult, and in his lap sprawled a limp white figure. Well, I'll be damned, muttered Conan. He glanced suspiciously about the chamber, seeing no other entrance or evidence of occupation, and then advanced noiselessly and looked down at the girl whose slim shoulders shook with sobs of abject misery.

Her face sunk in her arms. From thick bands of gold on the idol's arms, slim gold chains ran to the smaller bands on her wrists. He laid a hand on her naked shoulder, and she started convulsively, shrieked, and twisted her tear-stained face toward him. Conan! She made a spasmodic effort to go into the usual clinch, but the chains hindered her. He cut through the soft gold as close to her wrists as he could, grunting, you'll have to wear these bracelets until I can find a chisel or a file. Let go of me, damn it!

You actresses are too damned emotional. What happened to you anyway? When I went back into the Oracle Chamber, she whimpered. I saw the goddess lying on the dais as I'd first seen her. I called out to you and started to run to the door, then something grabbed me from behind. It clapped a hand over my mouth and carried me through a panel in the wall, and down some steps along a dark hall.

I didn't see what it was that had hold of me until we passed through a big metal door and came into a tunnel whose roof was a light, like this chamber. Oh, I nearly fainted when I saw. They are not humans. They are gray, hairy devils that walk like men, and speak a gibberish no human could understand. They stood there and seemed to be waiting, and once I thought I heard somebody trying the door,

Then one of the things pulled a metal lever in the wall, and something crashed on the other side of the door. Then they carried me on and on through winding tunnels and up stone stairways into this chamber, where they chained me on the knees of this abominable idol, and then they went away. Oh, Conan! What are they? Servants of Beat Yaquin, he grunted. I found a manuscript that told me a number of things, and then stumbled upon some frescoes that told me the rest.

Beat Yaqin was a palishtim who wandered into the valley with his servants after the people of Okminan had deserted it. He found the body of Princess Yelaya, and discovered that the priest returned from time to time to make offerings to her, for even then she was worshipped as a goddess. He made an oracle of her, and he was the voice of the oracle, speaking from a niche he cut in the wall behind the ivory dais. The priests never suspected, never saw him or his servants, for they always hid themselves when the men came.

Beat Yaquin lived and died here without ever being discovered by the priests. Crom knows how long he dwelt here, but it must have been for the priest's. have been for centuries. The wise men of the Pelishtim know how to increase the span of their lives for hundreds of years. I've seen some of them myself. Why he lived here alone, and why he played the part of an oracle, no ordinary human can guess.

But I believe the oracle part was to keep the city inviolate and sacred, so he could remain undisturbed. He ate the food the priests brought as an offering. to Yilaya, and his servants ate other things. I've always known there was a subterranean river flowing away from the lake where the people of the Puntish Highlands throw their dead. That river runs under this palace. They have ladders hung over the water where they can hang and fish for the corpses that come floating through. Beat Iakin recorded everything on parchment and painted walls. But he died at last.

and his servants mummified him according to instructions he gave them before his death, and stuck him in a cave in the cliffs. The rest is easy to guess. His servants, who were even more nearly immortal than he, kept on dwelling here, but the next time a high priest came to consult the oracle, not having a master to restrain them, they tore him to pieces. So, since then, until Garulga, nobody came to talk. to the oracle.

It's obvious they've been renewing the garments and ornaments of the goddess, as they'd seen beat Yaquen do. Doubtless there's a sealed chamber somewhere where the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the goddess and brought her back to the oracle room after Zarg Heba had stolen her, and, by the way, they took off Zarg Heba's head and hung it in a thicket. She shivered, yet at the same time breathed a sigh of relief. He'll never whip me again." "'Not this side of hell,' agreed Conan.

"'But come on. Guarunga ruined my chances with this stolen goddess. I'm going to follow the priests and take my chance of stealing the loot from them after they get it. But you stay close to me. I can't spend all my time looking for you.' "'But the servants subit Yakin,' she whispered fearfully. "'We'll have to take our chance,' he grunted.

"'I don't know what's a bit. in their minds, but so far they haven't shown any disposition to come out and fight in the open. Come on. Taking her wrist, he led her out of the chamber and down the corridor. As they advanced, they heard the chanting of the priests, mingling with the sound of the low, sullen rushing of waters. The light grew stronger above them as they emerged on a high-pitched gallery of a great cavern and looked down on a scene weird and fantastic.

Above them gleamed the phosphorescent roof, a hundred feet below them stretched the smooth floor of the cavern. On the far side this floor was cut by a deep, narrow stream brimming its rocky channel. Rushing out of impenetrable gloom, it swirled across the cavern and was lost again in darkness. The visible surface reflected the radiance above. The dark seething waters glinted as if flared. with living jewels, frosty blue, lured red, shimmering green, and ever-changing iridescence.

Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of a lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breathtaking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side across the river. Ten feet below it, another broader arch span the cave. At either end a carven stare joined the extremities of these flying arches. Conan's gaze, following the curve of the arch that swept away from the ledge on which they stood, caught a glint of light that was not the lowered phosphorus of the cavern. On that small ledge opposite them, there was an opening in the cave wall through which stars

were glinting. But his full attention was drawn to the scene beneath them. The priests had reached their destination. There, in a sweeping angle of the cavern wall, stood a stone altar, but there was no idol upon it. Whether there was one behind it, Conan could not ascertain, because some trick of the light or the sweep of the wall left the space behind the altar in total darkness. The priests had stuck their time. torches into holes in the stone floor, forming a semicircle of fire in front of the altar at a distance of several yards. Then the priests themselves formed a semicircle inside the crescent of torches, and,

Garulga, after lifting his arms aloft and invocation, bent to the altar and laid hands on it. It lifted and tilted backward on its hinder edge, like the lid of a chest, revealing a a small crypt. Extending a long arm into the recess, Karul got brought up a small brass chest. Lowering the altar back into place, he set the chest on it and threw back the lid. To the eager watchers on the high gallery, it seemed as if the action had released a blaze of living fire which throbbed and quivered about the opened chest.

heart leaped, and his hand caught at his hilt. The teeth of Guala at last! The treasure that would make its possessor the richest man in the world. His breath came fast between his clenched teeth. Then he was suddenly aware that a new element had entered into the light of the torches and of the phosphorescent roof, rendering both void. Darkness stole around the altar, except for that glowing spot of evil radiance cast by the teeth of gullar, and that grew and grew. The blacks froze into basaltic statues, their shadows streaming grotesquely and gigantically out behind them.

The altar was laved in the glow now, and the astounded features of Gorulga stood out in sharp relief. Then the mysterious space behind the altar. swam into the widening illumination, and slowly, with the crawling light, figures became visible, like shapes growing out of the night and silence. At first they seemed like gray stone statues, those motionless shapes, hairy, manlike, yet hideously human, but their eyes were alive, cold sparks of gray icy fire. And as the weird glow lit their bestial countenances,

Garulga screamed and fell backwards, throwing up his long arms at a gesture of frenzied horror. But a longer arm shot across the altar, and a misshapen hand locked on his throat. Screaming and fighting the high priest was dragged back across the altar, A hammer-like fist smashed down, and Garulga's cries was stilled. Limp and broken, he sagged across the altar, his brains oozing from his crushed skull, and then the servants of Beat Yaakene surged like a bursting flood from hell on the black priests,

who stood like horror-blasted images. Then there was slaughter, grim and appalling. Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and swords of the priests were ineffective. He saw men lifted bodily and their heads cracked open against the stone altar. He saw a flaming torch, grasped in a monstrous hand, thrust in in in its own. exorably down the gullet of an agonized wretch who writhed in vain against the arms that pinioned him. He saw a man torn in two pieces, as one might tear a chicken, and the bloody

fragments hurled clear across the cavern. The massacre was as short and devastating as the rush of a hurricane. In a burst of red, abysmal ferocity it was over, except for one wretch who fled, screaming back the way the priests had come, pursued by a swarm of blood-dabbed shapes of horror, which reached out their red-smeared hands for him. Fugitive and pursuers vanished down the black tunnel, and the screams of the human came back dwindling and confused by the distance. Muriela was on her knees clutching Conan's legs. Her face pressed against his knee and her eyes tightly.

shut. She was a quaking, quivering mold of abject terror. But Conan was galvanized, a quick glance across at the aperture where the stars shone, a glance down at the chest that still blazed open on the blood-smeared altar, and he saw and seized the desperate gamble. I'm going after that chest, he grated. Stay here. Oh, Mithra, no! In an agony of affright. She fell to the floor and caught at his sandals. Don't, don't, don't leave me. Lie still and keep your mouth shut, he snapped, disengaging himself from her frantic clasp. He disregarded the torturous stare. He dropped from ledge to ledge with reckless haste. There was no sign of the monsters as his feet hit the floor. A few of the torches still flared in their sockets,

the phosphorescent glow throbbed and quivered, and the river flowed with an almost articulate muttering, scintillating with undreamed radiances. The glow that had heralded the appearance of the servants had vanished with them. Only the light of the jewels in the brass chest shimmered and quivered. He snatched the chest, noting its contents in one lustful glance, Strange, curiously shaped stones that burned with an icy non-terrestrial fire. He slammed the lid, thrust the chest under his arm, and ran back up the steps. He had no desire to encounter the hellish servants of Beat Yaqeen. His glimpse of them in action had dispelled any illusion concerning their fighting ability.

Why had they waited so long before striking at the invaders he was unable to say? what human could guess the motives or thoughts of these monstrosities that they were possessed of craft and intelligence equal to humanity had been demonstrated and there on the cavern floor lay crimson proof of their bestial ferocity the corinthian girl still cowered on the gallery where he had left her he caught her wrist and yanked her to her feast grunting i guess it's time to go Too bemused with terror to be fully aware of what was going on, the girl suffered herself to be led across the dizzy span. It was not until they were poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voice they startled yelp, and would have fallen but for Conan's massive arm about her. Growling an objurgation in her ear, he snatched her up under his free arm,

and swept her in a flutter of limply waving arms and legs across the arch and into the aperture that opened at the other end. Without bothering to set her on her feet, he hurried through the short tunnel into which this aperture opened, and instant later they emerged upon a narrow ledge on the outer side of the cliffs that circled the valley. Less than a hundred feet below them, the jungle waved in the starlight. Looking down, Conan vented a gusty sigh of relief. He believed that he could negotiate the descent, even though burdened with the jewels and the girl, although he doubted if even he unburdened could have ascended at that spot.

He set the chest still smeared with Gorulga's blood and clotted with his brains on the ledge and was about to remove his girdle in order to tie the box to his back, when he was galvanized by a sound behind, behind him, a sound sinister and unmistakable. Stay there, he snapped at the bewildered Corinthian girl. Don't move. And, drawing his sword, he glided into the tunnel, glaring back into the cavern.

Halfway across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of the servants of Bitt Yakin was on his trail. There was no doubt that the brute had seen them and the brute. them and was following them. Conan did not hesitate. It might be easier to defend the mouth of the tunnel, but this fight must be finished quickly before the other servants could return. He ran out on the span straight toward the oncoming monster.

It was no ape. Neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in the mysterious, nameless jungles of the south. where strange life teemed in the reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered in temples that had never known the tread of a human foot. How the ancient palishtim had gained lordship over them, and with it eternal exile from humanity, was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate, even if he had had opportunity. Man and monster, they met at the highest arch of the span, where a hundred feet below

rushed the furious black water. As the monstrous shape with its leperous gray body and the features of a craven unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of view and fury behind the blow. That stroke would have sheared a human body asunder, but the bones of the servant of Bitt Yakin were like tempered steel. Yet even tempered steel could not wholly have withstood that furious stroke. Ribs and shoulder bone parted and blood spouted from the great gash. There was no time for a second stroke. Before the Samarian could lift his blade again or spring clear, the sweep of a giant arm knocked him from the span as a fly is flicked from a wall.

As he plunged downward, the rush of the river was like a knell in his ears, but his twisted body fell halfway across the lower arch. He wavered there precariously for one chilling instant. Then his clutching fingers hooked over the farther edge, and he scrambled to safety, his sword still in his other hand. As he sprang up he saw the monster spurting blood hideously. rushed toward the cliff edge of the bridge, obviously intending to descend the stair that connected the arches and renew the feud. At the very ledge the brute paused in mid-flight,

and Conan saw it too. Muriela, with the jewel chest under her arm, stood staring wildly in the mouth of the tunnel. With a triumphant bellow the monster scooped her up under one arm, snatched the jewel chest with the other hand as she dropped it, and turning, lumbered back across the bridge. Conan cursed with passion, and ran for the other side also. He doubted if he could climb the stair to the higher arch in time to catch the brute before it could plunge into the labyrinth of tunnels on the other side. But the monster was slowing, like clockwork running down. Blood gushed from that terrible gash in his breast, and he lurched drunkenly from side to side.

Suddenly he stumbled, reeled, and toppled sidewise, pitched headlong from the arch, and hurtled downward. Girl and Jill chest fell from his nerveless hands, and Muriela's scream rang terribly above the snarl of the water below. Conan was almost under the spot. from which the creature had fallen. The monster struck the lower arch glancingly and shot off, but the writhing figure of the girl struck and clung,

and the chest hit the edge of the span near her. One falling object struck on one side of Conan and one on the other. Either was within arm's length, for the fraction of a split second. The chest teetered on the edge of the bridge, and Muriela clung by one arm, her face turned desperately toward Conan. Her eyes dilated with the fear of death, and her lips parted in a haunting cry of despair.

Conan did not hesitate, nor did he even glance toward the chest that held the wealth of an epoch. With a quickness that would have shamed the spring of a hungry jaguar, he swooped, grasped the girl's arm just as her fingers slipped from the smooth stone and snatched her up on the span with one explosive heave. The chest toppled on over and struck the water ninety feet below,

where the body of the servant of Beat Yaqin had already vanished. A splash, a jetting flash of foam marked where the teeth of Guwalaur disappeared forever from the sight of the man. Conan scarcely wasted a downward glance. He darted across the span and ran. up the cliff's stare like a cat, carrying the limp girl as if she had been an infant. A hideous eulation caused him to glance over his shoulder as he reached the higher arch, to see the other servants streaming back into the cavern below, blood dripping from their barred fangs.

They raced up the stair that wound from tear to tear, roaring vengefully, but he slung the girl unceremoniously over his shoulder. down the cliff's like an ape himself, dropping and springing from hold to hold with break-neck recklessness. When the fierce countenances looked over the ledge of the aperture, it was to see the Samarian and the girl disappearing into the forest that surrounded the cliffs. Well, said Conan, setting the girl on her feet within the sheltering screen of branches, we can take our time now. I don't think those brutes will follow us outside the valley. Anyway, I've got a horse tied at a waterhole close by, if the lions haven't eaten him. Croms devils!

What are you crying about now? She covered her tear-stained face with her hands, and her slim shoulders shook with sobs. "'I lost the jewels for you,' she wailed miserably. "'It was my fault. if I don't bade you and stayed out on the ledge, that brute would never have seen me. You should have caught the gems and let me drown. Yes, I suppose I should, he agreed. But forget it.

Never worry about what's passed. And stop crying, will you? That's better. Come on. You mean you're going to keep me? Take me with you? She asked hopefully. What else do you suppose,

I'd do with you?" He ran an approving glance over her figure and grinned at the torn skirt, which revealed a generous expanse of tempting ivory-tinted curves. I can use an actress like you. There's no use going back to Kachia. There's nothing in Kishan now that I want. We'll go to Punt. The people of Punt worship an ivory woman, and they wash gold out of the rivers and wicker

baskets. I'll tell them that Kishan is intriguing with Tmercary to enslave them, which is true, and that the gods have sent me to protect them, for about a house full of gold. If I can manage to smuggle you into their temple to exchange places with their ivory goddess, we'll skin them out of their jaw-teeth before we get through with them. End of Chapter 4. End of Jules of Gualor. By Robert E. Howard.