Tuthmes smiled and his smile was not pleasant to see.
"G.o.ds and demons work for a bold man," he said. "I do not think Tananda was fool enough to have Amboola murdered, however much she desired it. The blacks have been sullen, ever since she cast him into prison. She could not have kept him imprisoned much longer.
"But this matter puts a weapon into our hands. If the Gallahs think she did it, so much the better. Each resentment against the dynasty is a weapon for us. Go, now, and strike before the king can learn of it. First take a detachment of black spearmen to the Red Tower and execute the guards for sleeping at their duty. Be sure you take care to do it by my orders. That will show the Gallahs that I have avenged their commander, and remove a weapon from Tananda"s hands. Kill them before she can have it done.
"Then go into Punt and find old Ageera, the witch-finder. Do not tell him flatly that Tananda had this deed done, but hint at it."
377.
Afari shuddered visibly.
"How can a common man lie to that black devil? His eyes are like coals of red fire that look into depths unnamable. I have seen him make corpses rise and walk, and skulls champ and grind their naked jaws."
"Don"t lie," answered Tuthmes. "Simply hint to him your own suspicions. After all, even if a demon did slay Amboola, some human summoned it out of the night. Perhaps Tananda is behind this, after all!"
When Afari had left, mulling intensely over what his patron had told him, Tuthmes drew a silken cloak about his other-wise naked limbs and mounting a short, wide staircase of polished mahogany, he came out upon the flat roof of his palace.
Looking over the parapet, he saw below him the silent streets of the inner city of Shumballa, the palaces and gardens, and the great square, into which, at an instant"s notice, a thousand black hors.e.m.e.n could ride, from the courts of adjoining barracks.
Looking further, he saw the great bronze gates, and beyond them, the outer city that men called Punt, to distinguish it from El Shebbeh, the inner city. Shumballa stood in the midst of a great plain, of rolling gra.s.s lands that stretched to the horizons, broken only by occasional low hills.
A narrow, deep river, meandering across the gra.s.s lands, touched the straggling edges of the city. El Shebbeh was separated from Punt by a tall and ma.s.sive wall, which enclosed the palaces of the ruling caste, descendants of those Stygians who centuries ago had come southward to hack out a black empire, and to mix their proud blood with the blood of their dusky subjects. El Shebbeh was well laid out, with regular streets and squares, stone buildings and gardens; Punt was a sprawling wilderness of mud huts; the streets straggled into squares that were squares in name only. The black people of Kush, the Gallahs, the original inhabitants of the country, lived in Punt; none but the ruling caste, the Chagas, dwelt in El Shebbeh, except for their servants, and the black hors.e.m.e.n who served as their guardsmen.
Tuthmes glanced out over that vast expanse of huts. Fires glowed in the ragged squares, torches swayed to and fro in the wandering streets, and from time to time he caught a s.n.a.t.c.h of song, a barbaric chanting that thrummed with an undertone of wrath or bloodl.u.s.t. Tuthmes drew his cloak closer about him and shivered.
Advancing across the roof, he halted by a figure which slept in the shadow of a palm growing in the artificial garden. When stirred by Tuthmes" toe, this man awoke and sprang up.
"There is no need for speech," cautioned Tuthmes. "The deed is done. Amboola is dead, and before dawn, all Punt will know he was murdered by Tananda."
378.
"And the the devil?" whispered the man, shivering.
"Shhh! Gone back into the darkness whence it was invoked. Harken, Shubba, it is time you were gone. Search among the Shemites until you find a woman suitable a white woman.
Bring her here speedily. If you return within the moon, I will give you her weight in silver. If you fail, I will hang your head from that palm tree."
Shubba prostrated himself and touched his head to the dust. Then rising, he hurried from the roof. Tuthmes glanced again into Punt. The fires seemed to glow more fiercely, somehow, and a drum had begun an ominous monotone. A sudden clamor of b.e.s.t.i.a.l yells welled up to the stars.
"They have heard that Amboola is dead," he muttered, and again he was shaken by a strong shudder.
.3.
Life flowed on its accustomed course in the filth-littered streets of Punt. Giant black men squatted in the doorways of their thatched huts, or lolled on the ground in their shade. Black women went up and down the streets, with water-gourds or baskets of food on their heads.
Children played or fought in the dust, laughing or squalling shrilly. In the squares the black folk chaffered and bargained over plantains, beer, and hammered bra.s.s ornaments. Smiths crouched over tiny charcoal fires, laboriously beating out spear blades. The hot sun beat down on all, the sweat, mirth, anger, nakedness and squalor of the black people.
Suddenly there came a change in the pattern, a new note in the timbre. With a clatter of hoofs a group of hors.e.m.e.n rode by, half a dozen men, and a woman. It was the woman who dominated the group. Her skin was dusky, her hair, a thick black ma.s.s, caught back and confined by a gold fillet. Her only garment, besides the sandals on her feet, was a short silk skirt girdled at the waist. Gold plates, crusted with jewels, partially covered her dusky b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her features were straight, her bold, scintillant eyes full of challenge and sureness. She rode and handled her steed with ease and cert.i.tude, the slim Kus.h.i.te horse, with the jeweled bridle, the reins of scarlet leather, as broad as a man"s palm and worked with gilt, and her sandalled feet in the wide silver stirrups.
As she rode by work and chatter ceased suddenly. The black faces grew sullen, and the murky eyes burned redly. The blacks turned their heads to whisper in each other"s ears, and the whispers grew to a sullen, audible murmur.
The youth who rode at the woman"s stirrup grew nervous. He glanced ahead, along the winding street, measured the distance to the bronze gates, not yet in view among the flat-topped houses,
379.and whispered: "The people grow ugly, Tananda; it was foolish to ride in Punt."
"All the black dogs in Kush shall not keep me from my hunting," answered the woman. "If any seem threatening, ride them down."
"Easier said than done," muttered the youth, scanning the silent throng. "They are coming from their houses and ma.s.sing thick along the street look there!"
They were entering a broad, ragged square, where the black folk swarmed. On one side of this square stood a house of mud and rough-hewn beams, larger than its neighbors, with a cl.u.s.ter of skulls above the wide doorway. This was the temple of Jullah, which the black folk worshipped in opposition to Set, the Serpent-G.o.d worshipped by the Chagas in imitation of their Stygian ancestors. The black folk were thronged in this square, sullenly staring at the hors.e.m.e.n. There was a distinct menace in their att.i.tude, and Tananda, for the first time feeling a slight nervousness, did not notice another rider approaching the square along another street. This rider would have attracted attention in ordinary times, for he was neither Chaga nor Gallah, but a white man, a powerful figure in chain mail and helmet, with a scarlet cloak whipping its folds about him.
"These dogs mean mischief," muttered the youth at Tananda"s side, half drawing his curved sword. The others, guardsmen, black men like the folk about them, drew closer about her, but did not draw their blades. A low sullen muttering rose louder, though no movement was made.
"Push through them," ordered Tananda, reining her horse forward. The blacks gave back sullenly before her advance, and suddenly, from the devil-devil house came a lean black figure.
It was old Ageera, clad only in a loin cloth. Pointing his finger at Tananda, he yelled: "There she rides, she whose hands are dipped in blood! She who murdered Amboola!"
His yell was the spark that set off the explosion. A vast roar rose from the mob, and they surged forward, yelling: "Death to Tananda!" In an instant a hundred blacks hand were clawing at the legs of the riders. The youth reined between Tananda and the mob, but a stone, cast from a black hand, shattered his skull. The guardsmen, slashing and hacking, were torn from their steeds and beaten, stamped and stabbed to death. Tananda, beset at last with terror, screamed as her horse reared. A score of wild black figures, men and women, were clawing at her.
A giant grasped her thigh and plucked her from her saddle, full into the eager and furious hands which awaited her. Her skirt was ripped from her body and waved in the air above her, while a bellow of primitive laughter went up from the surging mob. A woman spat in her face and tore off her breastplates, scratching her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her blackened finger-nails. A stone hurled at her grazed her head. She screamed in frantic fear; a score of brutal hands were tearing at her, threatening to dismember her. She saw a stone clutched in a black hand, while the owner sought to reach her in the press and brain her. Daggers glinted. Only the hindering numbers of
380.the jammed ma.s.s kept them from doing her to death instantly. "To the devil-devil house!" went up a roar, followed by a responsive clamor, and Tananda felt herself half carried, half dragged along with the surging mob, grasped by her hair, arms, legs, where ever a black hand could grip. Blows aimed at her in the press were blocked or diverted by the ma.s.s; and then there came a shock under which the whole throng staggered as a hors.e.m.e.n on a powerful steed crashed full into the press.
Men went down screaming to be crushed under the flailing hoofs; Tananda got a dizzy glimpse of a figure towering above the press, of a dark scarred face under a steel helmet, of a scarlet cloak unfurled from mighty mailed shoulders, and a great sword lashing up and down, spattering crimson splashes. But from somewhere in the press a spear licked upward, disembowelling the steed. It screamed, plunged and went down, but the rider landed on his feet, smiting right and left. Wildly driven spears and knives glanced from his helmet or the shield on his left arm, while his broadsword cleft flesh and bone, split skulls, scattered brains and spilled entrails into the b.l.o.o.d.y dust.
Flesh and blood could not stand before it. Clearing a s.p.a.ce he stooped, caught up the terrified girl and covering her with his shield, fell back, cutting a ruthless way. He backed into the angle of a wall and dropping her behind him, stood before her, beating back the frothing, screaming onslaught.
Then there was a clatter of hoofs and a regiment of the guardsmen swept into the square, driving the rioters before them. The captain approached, a giant negro resplendant in crimson silk and gold worked harness.
"You were long in coming," said Tananda, who had risen and regained much of her poise. The captain turned ashy, but before he could turn, Tananda had made a sign that was caught by his men behin him. One of them grasped his spear with both hands and drove it between his captain"s shoulders with such force that the point started out from his breast. The captain sank to his knees, and thrusts from half a dozen more spears finished the task.
Tananda shook back her long black disheveled hair and faced Conan. She was bleeding from a score of scratches on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and thighs, her locks fell in confusion down her back, and she was as naked as the day she was born; but she stared at him without perturbation or uncertainty, and he gave back her stare, frank admiration in his expression of her cool bearing, and the ripeness of her brown limbs.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"Conan, a Cimmerian," he answered.
381.
"What are you doing in Shumballa?"
"I came here to seek my fortune. I was formerly a corsair."
"Oh!" New interest shone in her dark eyes; she gathered her hair back in her hands. "We have heard tales of you, whom men call Amra the Lion. But if you are no longer a corsair, what are you now?"
"A penniless wanderer."
She shook her head. "No, by Set! You are captain of the royal guard."
He glanced casually at the sprawling figure in silk and steel, and the sight did not alter the zest of his sudden grin.
.4.
Shubba returned to Shumballa, and coming to Thuthmes in his chamber where leopard skins carpeted the marble floor, he said: "I have found the woman you desired. A Nemedian girl, captured from a trading vessel of Argos. I paid the Shemitish slave-trader many broad gold pieces."