Shadows in the Moonlight
the moonlight, and its great misshapen paws hung nearly to the earth.
Its bulk was tremendous; as it stood on its short bowed legs, its
bullet-head rose above that of the man who faced it; the sweep of the
hairy breast and giant shoulders was breathtaking; the huge arms were
like knotted trees.
The moonlight scene swam, to Olivia's sight. This, then, was the end of
the trail--for what human being could withstand the fury of that hairy
mountain of thews and ferocity? Yet as she stared in wide-eyed horror at
the bronzed figure facing the monster, she sensed a kinship in the
antagonists that was almost appalling. This was less a struggle between
man and beast than a conflict between two creatures of the wild, equally
merciless and ferocious. With a flash of white tusks, the monster
charged.
The mighty arms spread wide as the beast plunged, stupefyingly quick for
all his vast bulk and stunted legs.
Conan's action was a blur of speed Olivia's eye could not follow. She
only saw that he evaded that deadly grasp, and his sword, flashing like
a jet of white lightning, sheared through one of those massive arms
between shoulder and elbow. A great spout of blood deluged the sward as
the severed member fell, twitching horribly, but even as the sword bit
through, the other malformed hand locked in Conan's black mane.
Only the iron neck-muscles of the Cimmerian saved him from a broken neck
that instant. His left hand darted out to clamp on the beast's squat
throat, his left knee was jammed hard against the brute's hairy belly.
Then began a terrific struggle, which lasted only seconds, but which
seemed like ages to the paralyzed girl.
The ape maintained his grasp in Conan's hair, dragging him toward the
tusks that glistened in the moonlight. The Cimmerian resisted this
effort, with his left arm rigid as iron, while the sword in his right
hand, wielded like a butcher-knife, sank again and again into the groin,
breast and belly of his captor. The beast took its punishment in awful
silence, apparently unweakened by the blood that gushed from its ghastly
wounds. Swiftly the terrible strength of the anthropoid overcame the
leverage of braced arm and knee. Inexorably Conan's arm bent under the
strain; nearer and nearer he was drawn to the slavering jaws that gaped
for his life. Now the blazing eyes of the barbarian glared into the
bloodshot eyes of the ape. But as Conan tugged vainly at his sword,
wedged deep in the hairy body, the frothing jaws snapped spasmodically
shut, an inch from the Cimmerian's face, and he was hurled to the sward
by the dying convulsions of the monster.
Olivia, half fainting, saw the ape heaving, thrashing and writhing,
gripping, man-like, the hilt that jutted from its body. A sickening
instant of this, then the great bulk quivered and lay still.
Conan rose and limped over to the corpse. The Cimmerian breathed
heavily, and walked like a man whose joints and muscles have been
wrenched and twisted almost to their limit of endurance. He felt his
bloody scalp and swore at the sight of the long black red-stained
strands still grasped in the monster's shaggy hand.
'Crom!' he panted. 'I feel as if I'd been racked! I'd rather fight a
dozen men. Another instant and he'd have bitten off my head. Blast him,
he's torn a handful of my hair out by the roots.'
Gripping his hilt with both hands he tugged and worked it free. Olivia
stole close to clasp his arm and stare down wide-eyed at the sprawling
monster.
'What--what is it?' she whispered.
'A gray man-ape,' he grunted. 'Dumb, and man-eating. They dwell in the
hills that border the eastern shore of this sea. How this one got to
this island, I can't say. Maybe he floated here on driftwood, blown out
from the mainland in a storm.'
'And it was he that threw the stone?'
'Yes; I suspected what it was when we stood in the thicket and I saw the
boughs bending over our heads. These creatures always lurk in the
deepest woods they can find, and seldom emerge. What brought him into
the open, I can't say, but it was lucky for us; I'd have had no chance
with him among the trees.'
'It followed me,' she shivered. 'I saw it climbing the cliffs.'
'And following his instinct, he lurked in the shadow of the cliff,
instead of following you out across the plateau. His kind are creatures
of darkness and the silent places, haters of sun and moon.'
'Do you suppose there are others?'
'No, else the pirates had been attacked when they went through the
woods. The gray ape is wary, for all his strength, as shown by his
hesitancy in falling upon us in the thicket. His lust for you must have
been great, to have driven him to attack us finally in the open. What--'
He started and wheeled back toward the way they had come. The night had
been split by an awful scream. It came from the ruins.
Instantly there followed a mad medley of yells, shrieks and cries of
blasphemous agony. Though accompanied by a ringing of steel, the sounds
were of massacre rather than battle.
Conan stood frozen, the girl clinging to him in a frenzy of terror. The
clamor rose to a crescendo of madness, and then the Cimmerian turned and
went swiftly toward the rim of the plateau, with its fringe of
moon-limned trees. Olivia's legs were trembling so that she could not
walk; so he carried her, and her heart calmed its frantic pounding as
she nestled into his cradling arms.
They passed under the shadowy forest, but the clusters of blackness held
no terrors, the rifts of silver discovered no grisly shape. Night-birds
murmured slumberously. The yells of slaughter dwindled behind them,
masked in the distance to a confused jumble of sound. Somewhere a parrot
called, like an eery echo: '_Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!_' So they came
to the tree-fringed water's edge and saw the galley lying at anchor,
her sail shining white in the moonlight. Already the stars were paling
for dawn.
4
In the ghastly whiteness of dawn a handful of tattered, blood-stained
figures staggered through the trees and out on to the narrow beach.
There were forty-four of them, and they were a cowed and demoralized
band. With panting haste they plunged into the water and began to wade
toward the galley, when a stern challenge brought them up standing.
Etched against the whitening sky they saw Conan the Cimmerian standing
in the bows, sword in hand, his black mane tossing in the dawn wind.
'Stand!' he ordered. 'Come no nearer. What would you have, dogs?'
'Let us come aboard!' croaked a hairy rogue fingering a bloody stump of
ear. 'We'd be gone from this devil's island.'
'The first man who tries to climb over the side, I'll split his skull,'
promised Conan.
They were forty-four to one, but he held the whip-hand. The fight had
been hammered out of them.
'Let us come aboard, good Conan,' whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing
fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods. 'We have been so
mauled, bitten, scratched and rended, and are so weary from fighting and
running, that not one of us can lift a sword.'
'Where is that dog Aratus?' demanded Conan.
'Dead, with the others! It was devils fell upon us! They were rending us
to pieces before we could awake--a dozen good rovers died in their
sleep. The ruins were full of flame-eyed shadows, with tearing fangs and
sharp talons.'
'Aye!' put in another corsair. 'They were the demons of the isle, which
took the forms of molten images, to befool us. Ishtar! We lay down to
sleep among them. We are no cowards. We fought them as long as mortal
man may strive against the powers of darkness. Then we broke away and
left them tearing at the corpses like jackals. But surely they'll pursue
us.'
'Aye, let us come aboard!' clamored a lean Shemite. 'Let us come in
peace, or we must come sword in hand, and though we be so weary you will
doubtless slay many of us, yet you can not prevail against us many.'
'Then I'll knock a hole in the planks and sink her,' answered Conan
grimly. A frantic chorus of expostulation rose, which Conan silenced
with a lion-like roar.
'Dogs! Must I aid my enemies? Shall I let you come aboard and cut out my
heart?'
'Nay, nay!' they cried eagerly. 'Friends--friends, Conan. We are thy
comrades! We be all lusty rogues together. We hate the king of Turan,
not each other.'
Their gaze hung on his brown, frowning face.
'Then if I am one of the Brotherhood,' he grunted, 'the laws of the
Trade apply to me; and since I killed your chief in fair fight, then I
am your captain!'
There was no dissent. The pirates were too cowed and battered to have
any thought except a desire to get away from that island of fear.
Conan's gaze sought out the blood-stained figure of the Corinthian.
'How, Ivanos!' he challenged. 'You took my part, once. Will you uphold
my claims again?'
'Aye, by Mitra!' The pirate, sensing the trend of feeling, was eager to
ingratiate himself with the Cimmerian. 'He is right, lads; he is our
lawful captain!'
A medley of acquiescence rose, lacking enthusiasm perhaps, but with
sincerity accentuated by the feel of the silent woods behind them which
might mask creeping ebony devils with red eyes and dripping talons.
'Swear by the hilt,' Conan demanded.
Forty-four sword-hilts were lifted toward him, and forty-four voices
blended in the corsair's oath of allegiance.
Conan grinned and sheathed his sword. 'Come aboard, my bold
swashbucklers, and take the oars.'
He turned and lifted Olivia to her feet, from where she had crouched
shielded by the gunwales.
'And what of me, sir?' she asked.
'What would you?' he countered, watching her narrowly.
'To go with you, wherever your path may lie!' she cried, throwing her
white arms about his bronzed neck.
The pirates, clambering over the rail, gasped in amazement.
'To sail a road of blood and slaughter?' he questioned. 'This keel will
stain the blue waves crimson wherever it plows.'
'Aye, to sail with you on blue seas or red,' she answered passionately.
'You are a barbarian, and I am an outcast, denied by my people. We are
both pariahs, wanderers of earth. Oh, take me with you!'
With a gusty laugh he lifted her to his fierce lips.
'I'll make you Queen of the Blue Sea! Cast off there, dogs! We'll scorch
King Yildiz's pantaloons yet, by Crom!'