him.
Then something swept down across the stars and struck the sward nearhim. Twisting about, he saw it--_the winged one!_
With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conanhad only a confused impression of a gigantic man-like shape hurtlingalong on bowed and stunted legs; of huge hairy arms outstretchingmisshapen black-nailed paws; of a malformed head, in whose broad facethe only features recognizable as such were a pair of blood-red eyes. Itwas a thing neither man, beast, nor devil, imbued with characteristicssubhuman as well as characteristics superhuman.
But Conan had no time for conscious consecutive thought. He threwhimself toward his fallen sword, and his clawing fingers missed it byinches. Desperately he grasped the shard which pinned his legs, and theveins swelled in his temples as he strove to thrust it off him. It gaveslowly, but he knew that before he could free himself the monster wouldbe upon him, and he knew that those black-taloned hands were death.
The headlong rush of the winged one had not wavered. It towered over theprostrate Cimmerian like a black shadow, arms thrown wide--a glimmer ofwhite flashed between it and its victim.
In one mad instant she was there--a tense white shape, vibrant with lovefierce as a she-panther's. The dazed Cimmerian saw between him and theonrushing death, her lithe figure, shimmering like ivory beneath themoon; he saw the blaze of her dark eyes, the thick cluster of herburnished hair; her bosom heaved, her red lips were parted, she criedout sharp and ringing at the ring of steel as she thrust at the wingedmonster's breast.
'_Belit!_' screamed Conan. She flashed a quick glance at him, and in herdark eyes he saw her love flaming, a naked elemental thing of raw fireand molten lava. Then she was gone, and the Cimmerian saw only thewinged fiend which had staggered back in unwonted fear, arms lifted asif to fend off attack. And he knew that Belit in truth lay on her pyreon the _Tigress's_ deck. In his ears rang her passionate cry: 'Were Istill in death and you fighting for life I would come back from theabyss----'
With a terrible cry he heaved upward hurling the stone aside. The wingedone came on again, and Conan sprang to meet it, his veins on fire withmadness. The thews started out like cords on his forearms as he swunghis great sword, pivoting on his heel with the force of the sweepingarc. Just above the hips it caught the hurtling shape, and the knottedlegs fell one way, the torso another as the blade sheared clear throughits hairy body.
Conan stood in the moonlit silence, the dripping sword sagging in hishand, staring down at the remnants of his enemy. The red eyes glared upat him with awful life, then glazed and set; the great hands knottedspasmodically and stiffened. And the oldest race in the world wasextinct.
Conan lifted his head, mechanically searching for the beast-things thathad been its slaves and executioners. None met his gaze. The bodies hesaw littering the moon-splashed grass were of men, not beasts:hawk-faced, dark-skinned men, naked, transfixed by arrows or mangled bysword-strokes. And they were crumbling into dust before his eyes.
Why had not the winged master come to the aid of its slaves when hestruggled with them? Had it feared to come within reach of fangs thatmight turn and rend it? Craft and caution had lurked in that misshapenskull, but had not availed in the end.
Turning on his heel, the Cimmerian strode down the rotting wharfs andstepped aboard the galley. A few strokes of his sword cut her adrift,and he went to the sweep-head. The _Tigress_ rocked slowly in the sullenwater, sliding out sluggishly toward the middle of the river, until thebroad current caught her. Conan leaned on the sweep, his somber gazefixed on the cloak-wrapped shape that lay in state on the pyre therichness of which was equal to the ransom of an empress.
5 The Funeral Pyre
_Now we are done with roaming, evermore; No more the oars, the windy harp's refrain; Nor crimson pennon frights the dusky shore; Blue girdle of the world, receive again Her whom thou gavest me._
THE SONG OF BELIT
Again dawn tinged the ocean. A redder glow lit the river-mouth. Conan ofCimmeria leaned on his great sword upon the white beach, watching the_Tigress_ swinging out on her last voyage. There was no light in hiseyes that contemplated the glassy swells. Out of the rolling blue wastesall glory and wonder had gone. A fierce revulsion shook him as he gazedat the green surges that deepened into purple hazes of mystery.
Belit had been of the sea; she had lent it splendor and allure. Withouther it rolled a barren, dreary and desolate waste from pole to pole. Shebelonged to the sea; to its everlasting mystery he returned her. Hecould do no more. For himself, its glittering blue splendor was morerepellent than the leafy fronds which rustled and whispered behind himof vast mysterious wilds beyond them, and into which he must plunge.
No hand was at the sweep of the _Tigress_, no oars drove her through thegreen water. But a clean tanging wind bellied her silken sail, and as awild swan cleaves the sky to her nest, she sped seaward, flames mountinghigher and higher from her deck to lick at the mast and envelop thefigure that lay lapped in scarlet on the shining pyre.
So passed the Queen of the Black Coast, and leaning on his red-stainedsword, Conan stood silently until the red glow had faded far out in theblue hazes and dawn splashed its rose and gold over the ocean.
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