Part 6 (1/2)

'Hasten!' gasped Strom, his face a drawn mask of exhausted effort 'They are almost at our heels My shi+p-- 'She is too far out for us to reach,' panted Zarono 'Make for the stockade See, the men camped on the beach have seen us!' He waved his arms in breathless pantonized the significance of that wild howling, rising to a triumphant crescendo The sailors abandoned their fires and cooking-pots and fled for the stockade gate They were pouring through it as the fugitives froate, a heaving, frantic ate was slaan to clie, to join the men-at-arms already there

Belesa confronted Zarono

'Where is Conan?'

The buccaneer jerked a thu woods; his chest heaved; sweat poured down his face 'Their scouts were at our heels before we gained the beach He paused to slay a few and give us tiered away to take his place on the firing-ledge, whither Strom had already ure, strangely silent and aloof He was like a man bewitched

'Look!' yelped a pirate, above the deafening howling of the yet unseen horde

A ed from the forest and raced fleetly across the open belt

'Conan!'

Zarono grinned wolfishly

'We're safe in the stockade; we knohere the treasure is No reason e shouldn't feather hiht his arm 'We'll need his sword! Look!'

Behind the fleet-footed Ci as they ran - naked Picts, hundreds and hundreds of them Their arrows rained about the Cimmerian A few strides more and Conan reached the eastern wall of the stockade, bounded high, seized the points of the logs and heaved himself up and over, his cutlass in his teeth Arrows thudded venos where his body had just been His resplendent coat was gone, his white silk shi+rt torn and bloodstained

'Stop theet on the wall, we're done for!'

Pirates, buccaneers and men-at-arms responded instantly, and a stor horde

Conan saw Belesa, with Tina clinging to her hand, and his language was picturesque

'Get into the manor,' he commanded in conclusion 'Their shafts will arch over the wall - what did I tell you?' As a black shaft cut into the earth at Belesa's feet and quivered like a serpent-head, Conan caught up a longbow and leaped to the firing-ledge 'Some of you fellows prepare torches!' he roared, above the rising claht them in the dark!'

The sun had sunk in a welter of blood; out in the bay the men aboard the carack had cut the anchor chain and the Red Hand was rapidly receding on the criht had fallen, but torches strea the mad scene into lurid revealment Naked ainst the palisade, bared teeth and blazing eyes glealare of the torches thrust over the wall Toucan feathers waved in black manes, and the feathers of the cormorant and the sea-falcon A fearriors, the wildest and most barbaric of theled locks The sea-land tribes had gathered from up and down the coast in all directions to rid their country of the white-skinned invaders

They surged against the palisade, driving a stor into the teeth of the shafts and bolts that tore into their masses from the stockade So at the gate with their war-axes and thrusting their spears through the loop-holes But each ti over the palisade, leaving its drift of dead At this kind of fighting the freebooters of the sea were at their stoutest; their arrows and bolts tore holes in the charging horde, their cutlasses hewed the wild ain and again the ht with all the stubborn ferocity that had been roused in their fierce hearts

'They are likedoard at the dark hands that grasped at the palisade points, the dark faces that snarled up at him

'If we can hold the fort until dawn they'll lose heart,' grunted Conan, splitting a feathered skull with professional precision 'They won'tback'

The charge rolled back and the men on the wall shook the sweat out of their eyes, counted their dead and took a fresh grasp on the blood-slippery hilts of their swords Like blood-hungry wolves, grudgingly driven fro of torches Only the bodies of the slain lay before the palisade

'Have they gone?' Strom shook back his wet, tawny locks The cutlass in his fist was notched and red, his brawny bare arm was splashed with blood

'They're still out there,' Conan nodded toward the outer darkness which ringed the circle of torches, lilitter of eyes and the dull sheen of steel

'They've drawn off for a bit, though,' he said 'Put sentries on the wall, and let the rest drink and eat It's pastfor hours without es, calling their men from the walls A sentry was posted in the middle of each wall, east, west, north and south, and a cluate The Picts, to reach the wall, would have to charge across a wide, torchlit space, and the defenders could resu before the attackers could reach the palisade

'Where's Valenso?' dee beef-bone as he stood beside the fire the men had built in the center of the coled with each other, wolfing thetheir wounds to be bandaged

'He disappeared an hour ago,' grunted Stro on the wall beside lared out into the darkness as if he saw a ghost ”Look!” he croaked ”The black devil! I see hiurethe shadows that was too tall for a Pict But it was just a gli-ledge and staggered into the manor like a man with a mortal wound I haven't seen him since'

'He probably saw a forest-devil,' said Conan tranquilly 'The Picts say this coast is lousy with them What I'm more afraid of is fire-arrows The Picts are likely to start shooting them at any time What's that? It sounded like a cry for help?'

When the lull ca, Belesa and Tina had crept to their , fro arrows Silently they watched the h men on the stockade,' said Tina

In spite of her nausea at the sight of the corpses sprawled about the palisade, Belesa was forced to laugh

'Do you think you know ently

'There should be'Suppose the black ht

'I am afraid,' murmured Tina 'I hope Strom and Zarono are killed'

'And not Conan?' asked Belesa curiously

'Conan would not harm us,' said the child, confidently 'He lives up to his barbaric code of honor, but they are men who have lost all honor'

'You are wise beyond your years, Tina,' said Belesa, with the vague uneasiness the precocity of the girl frequently roused in her

'Look!' Tina stiffened 'The sentry is gone froo; now he has vanished'

From theirthe palisade points of the south ere just visible over the slanting roofs of a row of huts which paralleled that wall alth A sort of open-topped corridor, three or four yards wide, was framed by the stockade and the back of the huts, which were built in a solid row These huts were occupied by the serfs

'Where could the sentry have gone?' whispered Tina uneasily

Belesa atching one end of the hut-rohich was not far from a side door of the lide from behind the huts and disappear at the door Was that the vanished sentry? Why had he left the wall, and why should he steal so subtly into the manor? She did not believe it was the sentry she had seen, and a naealed her blood

'Where is the Count, Tina?' she asked

'In the great hall, my Lady He sits alone at the table, wrapped in his cloak and drinking wine, with a face gray as death'