The Moon of Skulls

By Robert E. Howard

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Title: The Moon of Skulls

Author: Robert E. Howard

Illustrator: Hugh Rankin
        C. C. Senf

Release date: January 1, 2026 [eBook #77605]

Language: English

Original publication: Indianapolis, IN: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, 1930

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOON OF SKULLS ***




The Moon of Skulls

By ROBERT E HOWARD

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales June and July 1930.]




[Illustration: "The giant's roar of triumph had scarcely died on his
lips before the two were falling into darkness."]


    "The wise men know what wicked things
      Are written on the sky;
    They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings
      Hearing the heavy purple wings,
    Where the forgotten Seraph kings
      Still plot how God shall die."

    --Chesterton.




_1. A Man Comes Seeking_


A great black shadow lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of
the sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like
a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the
shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

Yet it was only the shadow of the great crag which reared up in front
of him, the first outpost of the grim foothills which were his goal.
He halted a moment at its foot, staring upward where it rose blackly
limned against the dying sun. He could have sworn that he caught the
hint of a movement at the top, as he stared, hand shielding his eyes,
but the fading glare dazzled him and he could not be sure. Was it a man
who darted to cover? A man, or----?

He shrugged his shoulders and fell to examining the rough trail which
led up and over the brow of the crag. At first glance it seemed that
only a mountain goat could scale it, but closer investigation showed
numbers of fingerholds drilled into the solid rock. It would be a task
to try his powers to the utmost but he had not come a thousand miles to
turn back now.

He dropped the large pouch he wore at his shoulder, and laid down the
clumsy musket, retaining only his long rapier, dagger, and one of his
pistols. These he strapped behind him, and without a backward glance
over the darkening trail he had come, he started the long ascent. He
was a tall man, long-armed and iron-muscled, yet again and again he was
forced to halt in his upward climb and rest for a moment, clinging like
an ant to the precipitous face of the cliff. Night fell swiftly and
the crag above him was a shadowy blur in which he was forced to feel
with his fingers, blindly, for the holes which served him as precarious
ladder. Below him, the night noises of the tropical jungle broke forth,
yet it appeared to him that even these sounds were subdued and hushed
as though the great black hills looming above threw a spell of silence
and fear even over the jungle creatures.

On up he struggled, and now to make his way harder, the cliff bulged
outward near its summit and the strain on nerve and muscle became
heart-breaking. Time and again a hold slipped and he escaped falling
by a hair's breadth. But every fiber in his lean hard body was
perfectly co-ordinated, and his fingers were like steel talons with
the grip of a vise. His progress grew slower and slower but on he went
until at last he saw the cliff's brow splitting the stars a scant
twenty feet above him.

And even as he looked, a vague bulk heaved into view, toppled on the
edge and hurtled down toward him with a great rush of air about it.
Flesh crawling, he flattened himself against the cliff's face and felt
a heavy blow against his shoulder, only a glancing blow, but even so it
nearly tore him from his hold, and as he fought desperately to right
himself, he heard a reverberating crash among the rocks far below.
Cold sweat beading his brow, he looked up. Who--or what--had shoved
that boulder over the cliff edge? He was brave, as the bones on many
a battlefield could testify, but the thought of dying like a sheep,
helpless and with no chance of resistance, turned his blood cold.

Then a wave of fury supplanted his fear and he renewed his climb with
reckless speed. The expected second boulder did not come, however, and
no living thing met his sight as he clambered up over the edge and
leaped erect, sword flashing from its scabbard.

He stood upon a sort of plateau which debouched into a very broken
hilly country some half mile to the west. The crag he had just mounted
jutted out from the rest of the heights like a sullen promontory,
looming above the sea of waving foliage below, now dark and mysterious
in the tropic night.

Silence ruled here in absolute sovereignty. No breeze stirred the
somber depths below, and no footfall rustled amid the stunted bushes
which cloaked the plateau, yet that boulder which had almost hurled the
climber to his death had not fallen by chance. What beings moved among
these grim hills? The tropical darkness fell about the lone wanderer
like a heavy veil through which the yellow stars blinked evilly. The
steams of the rotting jungle vegetation floated up to him as tangible
as a thick fog, and making a wry face he strode away from the cliff,
heading boldly across the plateau, sword in one hand and pistol in the
other.

There was an uncomfortable feeling of being watched in the very air.
The silence remained unbroken save for the soft swishing that marked
the stranger's cat-like tread through the tall upland grass, yet the
man sensed that living things glided before and behind him and on each
side. Whether man or beast trailed him he knew not, nor did he care
over-much, for he was prepared to fight human or devil who barred his
way. Occasionally he halted and glanced challengingly about him, but
nothing met his eye except the shrubs which crouched like short dark
ghosts about his trail, blended and blurred in the thick hot darkness
through which the very stars seemed to struggle, redly.

At last he came to the place where the plateau broke into the higher
slopes and there he saw a clump of trees blocked out solidly in the
lesser shadows. He approached warily, then halted as his gaze, growing
somewhat accustomed to the darkness, made out a vague form among the
somber trunks which was not a part of them. He hesitated. The figure
neither advanced nor fled. A dim form of silent menace, it lurked as if
in wait. A brooding horror hung over that still cluster of trees.

       *       *       *       *       *

The stranger advanced warily, blade extended. Closer. Straining his
eyes for some hint of threatening motion. He decided that the figure
was human but he was puzzled at its lack of movement. Then the reason
became apparent--it was the corpse of a black man that stood among
those trees, held erect by spears through his body, nailing him to the
boles. One arm was extended in front of him, held in place along a
great branch by a dagger through the wrist, the index finger straight
as if the corpse pointed stiffly--back along the way the stranger had
come.

The meaning was obvious; that mute grim signpost could have but one
significance--death lay beyond. The man who stood gazing upon that
grisly warning rarely laughed, but now he allowed himself the luxury
of a sardonic smile. A thousand miles of land and sea--ocean travel
and jungle travel--and now they expected to turn him back with such
mummery--whoever they were.

He resisted the temptation to salute the corpse, as an action wanting
in decorum, and pushed on boldly through the grove, half expecting an
attack from the rear or an ambush.

Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and emerging from the trees, he
found himself at the foot of a rugged incline, the first of a series of
slopes. He strode stolidly upward in the night, nor did he even pause
to reflect how unusual his actions must have appeared to a sensible
man. The average man would have camped at the foot of the crag and
waited for morning before even attempting to scale the cliffs. But this
was no ordinary man. Once his objective was in sight, he followed the
straightest line to it, without a thought of obstacles, whether day or
night. What was to be done, must be done. He had reached the outposts
of the kingdom of fear at dusk, and invading its inmost recesses by
night seemed to follow as a matter of course.

As he went up the boulder-strewn slopes the moon rose, lending its air
of illusion, and in its light the broken hills ahead loomed up like
the black spires of wizards' castles. He kept his eyes fixed on the
dim trail he was following, for he knew not when another boulder might
come hurtling down the inclines. He expected an attack of any sort and,
naturally, it was the unexpected which really happened.

Suddenly from behind a great rock stepped a black man; an ebony giant
in the pale moonlight, a long spear blade gleaming silver in hand, his
headpiece of ostrich plumes floating above him like a white cloud. He
lifted the spear in a ponderous salute, and spoke in the dialect of the
river-tribes:

"This is not the white man's land. Who is my white brother in his own
kraal and why does he come into the Land of Skulls?"

"My name is Solomon Kane," the white man answered in the same language.
"I seek the vampire queen of Negari."

"Few seek. Fewer find. None return," answered the other cryptically.

"Will you lead me to her?"

"You bear a long dagger in your right hand. There are no lions here."

"A serpent dislodged a boulder. I thought to find snakes in the bushes."

The giant acknowledged this interchange of subtleties with a grim smile
and a brief silence fell.

"Your life," said the black presently, "is in my hand."

Kane smiled thinly. "I carry the lives of many warriors in _my_ hand."

The negro's gaze traveled uncertainly up and down the shimmery length
of the Englishman's sword. Then he shrugged his mighty shoulders and
let his spear point sink to the earth.

"You bear no gifts," said he; "but follow me and I will lead you to the
Terrible One, the Mistress of Doom, the Red Woman, Nakari, who rules
the land of Negari."

He stepped aside and motioned Kane to precede him, but the Englishman,
his mind on a spear-thrust in the back, shook his head.

"Who am I that I should walk in front of my brother? We be two
chiefs--let us walk side by side."

In his heart Kane railed that he should be forced to use such unsavory
diplomacy with a black savage, but he showed no sign. The giant
bowed with a certain barbaric majesty and together they went up the
hill trail, unspeaking. Kane was aware that men were stepping from
hiding-places and falling in behind them, and a surreptitious glance
over his shoulder showed him some two score black warriors trailing out
behind them in two wedge-shaped lines. The moonlight glittered on sleek
black bodies, on waving head-gears and long cruel spear blades.

"My brothers are like leopards," said Kane courteously; "they lie in
the low bushes and no eyes see them; they steal through the high grass
and no man hears their coming."

The black chief acknowledged the compliment with a courtly inclination
of his lion-like head, that set the plumes whispering.

"The mountain leopard is our brother, oh chieftain. Our feet are like
drifting smoke but our arms are like iron. When they strike, blood
drips red and men die."

Kane sensed an undercurrent of menace in the tone. There was no actual
hint of threat on which he might base his suspicions, but the sinister
minor note was there. He said no more for a space and the strange
band moved silently upward in the moonlight like a cavalcade of black
specters led by a white ghost. The trail grew steeper and more rocky,
winding in and out among crags and gigantic boulders. Suddenly a great
chasm opened before them, spanned by a natural bridge of rock, at the
foot of which the leader halted.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kane stared at the abyss curiously. It was some forty feet wide,
and looking down, his gaze was swallowed by impenetrable blackness,
hundreds of feet deep, he knew. On the other side rose crags dark and
forbidding.

"Here," said the black chief, "begin the true borders of Nakari's
realm."

Kane was aware that the warriors were casually closing in on him. His
fingers instinctively tightened about the hilt of the rapier which he
had not sheathed. The air was suddenly supercharged with tension.

"Here, too," the black man said, "they who bring no gifts to
Nakari--_die!_"

The last word was a shriek, as if the thought had transformed the
speaker into a maniac, and as he screamed it, the great black arm went
back and then forward with a ripple of mighty muscles, and the long
spear leaped at Kane's breast.

Only a born fighter could have avoided that thrust. Kane's instinctive
action saved his life--the great blade grazed his ribs as he swayed
aside and returned the blow with a flashing thrust that killed a
warrior who jostled between him and the chief at that instant.

Spears flashed in the moonlight and Kane, parrying one and bending
under the thrust of another, sprang out upon the narrow bridge where
only one could come at him at a time.

None cared to be first. They stood upon the brink and thrust at him,
crowding forward when he retreated, giving back when he pressed them.
Their spears were longer than his rapier but he more than made up for
the difference and the great odds by his scintillant skill and the cold
ferocity of his attack.

They wavered back and forth and then suddenly a black giant leaped
from among his fellows and charged out upon the bridge like a wild
buffalo, shoulders hunched, spear held low, eyes gleaming with a look
not wholly sane. Kane leaped back before the onslaught, leaped back
again, striving to avoid that stabbing spear and to find an opening
for his point. He sprang to one side and found himself reeling on the
edge of the bridge with eternity gaping beneath him. The blacks yelled
in savage exultation as he swayed and fought for his balance, and the
giant on the bridge roared and plunged at the rocking white man.

Kane parried with all his strength--a feat few swordsman could have
accomplished, off balance as he was--saw the cruel spear blade flash by
his cheek--felt himself falling backward into the abyss. A desperate
effort, and he gripped the spear shaft, righted himself and ran the
spearman through the body. The black's great red cavern of a mouth
spouted blood and with a dying effort he hurled himself blindly against
his foe. Kane, with his heels over the bridge's edge, was unable to
avoid him and they toppled over together, to disappear silently into
the depths below.

So swiftly had it all happened that the warriors stood stunned. The
giant's roar of triumph had scarcely died on his lips before the two
were falling into the darkness. Now the rest of the negroes came out on
the bridge to peer down curiously, but no sound came up from the dark
void.




                 _2. The People of the Stalking Death_


    "Their gods were sadder than the sea,
      Gods of a wandering will,
    Who cried for blood like beasts at night
      Sadly, from hill to hill."

    --_Chesterton._


As Kane fell he followed his fighting instinct, twisting in midair so
that when he struck, were it ten or a thousand feet below, he would
land on top of the man who fell with him.

The end came suddenly--much more suddenly than the Englishman had
thought for. He lay half stunned for an instant, then looking up, saw
dimly the narrow bridge banding the sky above him, and the forms of
the warriors, limned in the moonlight and grotesquely foreshortened as
they leaned over the edge. He lay still, knowing that the beams of the
moon did not pierce the deeps in which he was hidden, and that to those
watchers he was invisible. Then when they vanished from view he began
to review his present plight. The black man was dead, and only for the
fact that his corpse had cushioned the fall, Kane would have been dead
likewise, for they had fallen a considerable distance. As it was, the
white man was stiff and bruised.

He drew his sword from the negro's body, thankful that it had not been
broken, and began to grope about in the darkness. His hand encountered
the edge of what seemed a cliff. He had thought that he was on the
bottom of the chasm and that its impression of great depth had been a
delusion, but now he decided that he had fallen on a ledge, part of the
way down. He dropped a small stone over the side, and after what seemed
a very long time he heard the faint sound of its striking far below.

Somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed, he drew flint and steel from
his belt and struck them to some tinder, warily shielding the light
with his hands. The faint illumination showed a large ledge jutting out
from the side of the cliff, that is, the side next the hills, to which
he had been attempting to cross. He had fallen close to the edge and it
was only by the narrowest margin that he had escaped sliding off it,
not knowing his position.

Crouching there, his eyes seeking to accustom themselves to the abysmal
gloom, he made out what seemed to be a darker shadow in the shadows
of the wall. On closer examination he found it to be an opening large
enough to admit his body standing erect. A cavern, he assumed, and
though its appearance was dark and forbidding in the extreme, he
entered, groping his way when the tinder burned out.

Where it led to, he naturally had no idea, but any action was
preferable to sitting still until the mountain vultures plucked his
bones. For a long way the cave floor tilted upward--solid rock beneath
his feet--and Kane made his way with some difficulty up the rather
steep slant, slipping and sliding now and then. The cavern seemed a
large one, for at no time after entering it could he touch the roof,
nor could he, with a hand on one wall, reach the other.

At last the floor became level and Kane sensed that the cave was much
larger there. The air seemed better, though the darkness was just as
impenetrable. Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. From somewhere
in front of him there came a strange indescribable rustling. Without
warning something smote him in the face and slashed wildly. All about
him sounded the eery murmurings of many small wings and suddenly Kane
smiled crookedly, amused, relieved and chagrined. Bats, of course.
The cave was swarming with them. Still it was a shaky experience, and
as he went on and the wings whispered through the vasty emptiness
of the great cavern, Kane's Puritan mind found space to dally with
a bizarre thought--had he wandered into Hell by some strange means,
and were these in truth bats, or were they lost souls winging through
everlasting night?

Then, thought Solomon Kane, I will soon confront Satan himself--and
even as he thought this, his nostrils were assailed by a horrid scent
fetid and repellent. The scent grew as he went slowly on, and Kane
swore softly, though he was not a profane man. He sensed that the
smell betokened some hidden threat, some unseen malevolence, inhuman
and deathly, and his somber mind sprang at supernatural conclusions.
However, he felt perfect confidence in his ability to cope with any
fiend or demon, armored as he was in unshakable faith of creed and the
knowledge of the rightness of his cause.

What followed happened suddenly. He was groping his way along when in
front of him two narrow yellow eyes leaped up in the darkness--eyes
that were cold and expressionless, too hideously close-set for human
eyes and too high for any four-legged beast. What horror had thus
reared itself up in front of him?

This is Satan, thought Kane as the eyes swayed above him, and the next
instant he was battling for his life with the darkness that seemed to
have taken tangible form and thrown itself about his body and limbs
in great slimy coils. Those coils lapped his sword arm and rendered
it useless; with the other hand he groped for dagger or pistol, flesh
crawling as his fingers slipped from slick scales, while the hissing of
the monster filled the cavern with a cold p├Žan of terror.

There in the black dark to the accompaniment of the bats' leathery
rustlings, Kane fought like a rat in the grip of a mouse-snake, and he
could feel his ribs giving and his breath going before his frantic left
hand closed on his dagger hilt.

Then with a volcanic twist and wrench of his steel-thewed body he tore
his left arm partly free and plunged the keen blade again and again to
the hilt in the sinuous writhing terror which enveloped him, feeling at
last the quivering coils loosen and slide from his limbs to lie about
his feet like huge cables.

The mighty serpent lashed wildly in its death struggles, and Kane,
avoiding its bone-shattering blows, reeled away in the darkness,
laboring for breath. If his antagonist had not been Satan himself, it
had been Satan's nearest earthly satellite, thought Solomon, hoping
devoutly that he would not be called upon to battle another in the
darkness there.

       *       *       *       *       *

It seemed to him that he had been walking through the blackness for
ages and he began to wonder if there were any end to the cave when a
glimmer of light pierced the darkness. He thought it to be an outer
entrance a great way off, and started forward swiftly, but to his
astonishment, he brought up short against a blank wall after taking a
few strides. Then he perceived that the light came through a narrow
crack in the wall, and feeling over this wall he found it to be of
different material from the rest of the cave, consisting, apparently,
of regular blocks of stone joined together with mortar of some sort--an
indubitably man-built wall.

The light streamed between two of these stones, where the mortar had
crumbled away. Kane ran his hands over the surface with an interest
beyond his present needs. The work seemed very old and very much
superior to what might be expected of a tribe of ignorant negroes.

He felt the thrill of the explorer and discoverer. Certainly no white
man had ever seen this place and lived to tell of it, for when he had
landed on the dank West Coast some months before, preparing to plunge
into the interior, he had had no hint of such a country as this. The
few white men who knew anything at all of Africa with whom he had
talked, had never even mentioned the Land of Skulls or the she-fiend
who ruled it.

Kane thrust against the wall cautiously. The structure seemed weakened
from age--a vigorous shove and it gave perceptibly. He hurled himself
against it with all his weight and a whole section of wall gave way
with a crash, precipitating him into a dimly lighted corridor amid a
heap of stone, dust and mortar.

He sprang up and looked about, expecting the noise to bring a horde
of wild spearmen. Utter silence reigned. The corridor in which he now
stood was much like a long narrow cave itself, save that it was the
work of man. It was several feet wide and the roof was many feet above
his head. Dust lay ankle-deep on the floor as if no foot had trod there
for countless centuries, and the dim light, Kane decided, filtered in
somehow through the roof or ceiling, for nowhere did he see any doors
or windows. At last he decided the source was the ceiling itself, which
was of a peculiar phosphorescent quality.

He set off down the corridor, feeling uncomfortably like a gray ghost
moving along the gray halls of death and decay. The evident antiquity
of his surroundings depressed him, making him sense vaguely the
fleeting and futile existence of mankind. That he was now on top of the
earth he believed, since light of a sort came in, but where, he could
not even offer a conjecture. This was a land of enchantment--a land of
horror and fearful mysteries, the jungle and river natives had said,
and he had gotten whispered hints of its terrors ever since he had set
his back to the Slave Coast and ventured into the hinterlands alone.

Now and then he caught a low indistinct murmur which seemed to come
through one of the walls, and he at last came to the conclusion that he
had stumbled onto a secret passage in some castle or house. The natives
who had dared speak to him of Negari, had whispered of a ju-ju city
built of stone, set high amid the grim black crags of the fetish hills.

Then, thought Kane, it may be that I have blundered upon the very thing
I sought and am in the midst of that city of terror. He halted, and
choosing a place at random, began to loosen the mortar with his dagger.
As he worked he again heard that low murmur, increasing in volume as
he bored through the wall, and presently the point pierced through,
and looking through the aperture it had made, he saw a strange and
fantastic scene.

He was looking into a great chamber, whose walls and floors were of
stone, and whose mighty roof was upheld by gigantic stone columns,
strangely carved. Ranks of feathered black warriors lined the walls
and a double column of them stood like statues before a throne set
between two stone dragons which were larger than elephants. These
men he recognized, by their bearing and general appearance, to be
tribesmen of the warriors he had fought at the chasm. But his gaze
was drawn irresistibly to the great, grotesquely ornamented throne.
There, dwarfed by the ponderous splendor about her, a woman reclined. A
black woman she was, young and of a tigerish comeliness. She was naked
except for a beplumed helmet, armbands, anklets and a girdle of colored
ostrich feathers and she sprawled upon the silken cushions with her
limbs thrown about in voluptuous abandon.

Even at that distance Kane could make out that her features were regal
yet barbaric, haughty and imperious, yet sensual, and with a touch of
ruthless cruelty about the curl of her full red lips. Kane felt his
pulse quicken. This could be no other than she whose crimes had become
almost mythical--Nakari of Negari, demon queen of a demon city, whose
monstrous lust for blood had set half a continent shivering. At least
she seemed human enough; the tales of the fearful river tribes had lent
her a supernatural aspect. Kane had half expected to see a loathsome
semi-human monster out of some past and demoniacal age.

The Englishman gazed, fascinated though repelled. Not even in the
courts of Europe had he seen such grandeur. The chamber and all
its accouterments, from the carven serpents twined about the
bases of the pillars to the dimly seen dragons on the shadowy
ceiling, were fashioned on a gigantic scale. The splendor was
awesome--elephantine--inhumanly oversized, and almost numbing to the
mind which sought to measure and conceive the magnitude thereof. To
Kane it seemed that these things must have been the work of gods rather
than men, for this chamber alone would dwarf most of the castles he had
known in Europe.

The black people who thronged that mighty room seemed grotesquely
incongruous. They no more suited their surroundings than a band
of monkeys would have seemed at home in the council chambers of
the English king. As Kane realized this the sinister importance of
Queen Nakari dwindled. Sprawled on that august throne in the midst
of the terrific glory of another age, she seemed to assume her
true proportions--a spoiled, petulant child engaged in a game of
make-believe and using for her sport a toy discarded by her elders. And
at the same time a thought entered Kane's mind--who were these elders?

Still the child could become deadly in her game, as the Englishman soon
saw.

A tall massive black came through the ranks fronting the throne,
and after prostrating himself four times before it, remained on his
knees, evidently waiting permission to speak. The queen's air of lazy
indifference fell from her and she straightened with a quick lithe
motion that reminded Kane of a leopardess springing erect. She spoke,
and the words came faintly to him as he strained his faculties to hear.
She spoke in a language very similar to that of the river tribes.

"Speak!"

"Great and Terrible One," said the kneeling warrior, and Kane
recognized him as the chief who had first accosted him on the
plateau--the chief of the guards on the cliffs, "let not the fire of
your fury consume your slave."

The young woman's eyes narrowed viciously.

"You know why you were summoned, son of a vulture?"

"Fire of Beauty, the stranger brought no gifts."

"No gifts?" she spat out the words. "What have I to do with gifts? I
bade you slay all black men who came empty-handed--did I tell you to
slay white men?"

"Gazelle of Negari, he came climbing the crags in the night like an
assassin, with a dagger as long as a man's arm in his hand. The boulder
we hurled down missed him, and we met him upon the plateau and took
him to the Bridge-Across-the-Sky, where, as is the custom, we thought
to slay him; for it was your word that you were weary of men who came
wooing you."

"Black men, fool," she snarled; "black men!"

"Your slave did not know, Queen of Beauty. The white man fought like a
mountain leopard. Two men he slew and fell with the last one into the
chasm, and so he perished, Star of Negari."

"Aye," the queen's tone was venomous, "the first white man who ever
came to Negari! One who might have--rise, fool!"

The man got to his feet.

"Mighty Lioness, might not this one have come seeking----"

The sentence was never completed. Even as he straightened, Nakari made
a swift gesture with her hand. Two warriors plunged from the silent
ranks and two spears crossed in the chief's body before he could turn.
A gurgling scream burst from his lips, blood spurted high in the air
and the corpse fell flatly at the foot of the great throne.

The ranks never wavered, but Kane caught the sidelong flash of
strangely red eyes and the involuntary wetting of thick lips. Nakari
had half risen as the spears flashed, and now she sank back, an
expression of cruel satisfaction on her beautiful face and a strange
brooding gleam in her scintillant eyes.

An indifferent wave of her hand and the corpse was dragged away by the
heels, the dead arms trailing limply in the wide smear of blood left
by the passage of the body. Kane could see other wide stains crossing
the stone floor, some almost indistinct, others less dim. How many wild
scenes of blood and cruel frenzy had the great stone throne-dragons
looked upon with their carven eyes?

He did not doubt, now, the tales told him by the river tribes. These
people were bred in rapine and horror. Their prowess had burst their
brains. They lived, like some terrible beast, only to destroy. There
were strange gleams behind their eyes which at times lit those eyes
with up-leaping flames and shadows of Hell. What had the river tribes
said of these mountain people who had ravaged them for countless
centuries? _That they were henchmen of death, who stalked among them,
and whom they worshipped._

Still the thought hovered in Kane's mind as he watched--who built this
place, and why were negroes evidently in possession? He knew this was
the work of a higher race. No black tribe had ever reached such a stage
of culture as evidenced by these carvings. Yet the river tribes had
spoken of no other men than those upon which he now looked.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Englishman tore himself away from the fascination of the barbaric
scene with an effort. He had no time to waste; as long as they thought
him dead, he had more chance of eluding possible guards and seeking
what he had come to find. He turned and set off down the dim corridor.
No plan of action offered itself to his mind and one direction was
as good as another. The passage did not run straight; it turned and
twisted, following the line of the walls, Kane supposed, and found time
to wonder at the evident enormous thickness of those walls. He expected
at any moment to meet some guard or slave, but as the corridors
continued to stretch empty before him, with the dusty floors unmarked
by any footprint, he decided that either the passages were unknown to
the people of Negari or else for some reason were never used.

He kept a close lookout for secret doors, and at last found one, made
fast on the inner side with a rusty bolt set in a groove of the wall.
This he manipulated cautiously, and presently with a creaking which
seemed terrifically loud in the stillness the door swung inward.
Looking out he saw no one, and stepping warily through the opening,
he drew the door to behind him, noting that it assumed the part of
a fantastic picture painted on the wall. He scraped a mark with his
dagger at the point where he believed the hidden spring to be on the
outer side, for he knew not when he might need to use the passage again.

He was in a great hall, through which ran a maze of giant pillars much
like those of the throne chamber. Among them he felt like a child in
some great forest, yet they gave him some slight sense of security
since he believed that, gliding among them like a ghost through a
jungle, he could elude the black people in spite of their craft.

He set off, choosing his direction at random and going carefully. Once
he heard a mutter of voices, and leaping upon the base of a column,
clung there while two black women passed directly beneath him, but
besides these he encountered no one. It was an uncanny sensation,
passing through this vast hall which seemed empty of human life, but in
some other part of which Kane knew there might be throngs of people,
hidden from sight by the pillars.

At last, after what seemed an eternity of following these monstrous
mazes, he came upon a huge wall which seemed to be either a side of the
hall, or a partition, and continuing along this, he saw in front of him
a doorway before which two spearmen stood like black statues.

Kane, peering about the corner of a column base made out two windows
high in the wall, one on each side of the door, and noting the ornate
carvings which covered the walls, determined on a desperate plan. He
felt it imperative that he should see what lay within that room. The
fact that it was guarded suggested that the room beyond the door was
either a treasure chamber or a dungeon, and he felt sure that his
ultimate goal would prove to be a dungeon.

He retreated to a point out of sight of the blacks and began to scale
the wall, using the deep carvings for hand and foot holds. It proved
even easier than he had hoped, and having climbed to a point level with
the windows, he crawled cautiously along a horizontal line, feeling
like an ant on a wall.

The guards far below him never looked up, and finally he reached
the nearer window and drew himself up over the sill. He looked down
into a large room, empty of life, but equipped in a manner sensuous
and barbaric. Silken couches and velvet cushions dotted the floor in
profusion and tapestries heavy with gold work hung upon the walls. The
ceiling too was worked in gold.

Strangely incongruous, crude trinkets of ivory and ironwood,
unmistakably negroid in workmanship, littered the place, symbolic
enough of this strange kingdom where signs of barbarism vied with a
strange culture. The outer door was shut and in the wall opposite was
another door, also closed.

Kane descended from the window, sliding down the edge of a tapestry
as a sailor slides down a sail-rope, and crossed the room, his feet
sinking noiselessly into the deep fabric of the rug which covered the
floor, and which, like all the other furnishings, seemed ancient to the
point of decay.

At the door he hesitated. To step into the next room might be a
desperately hazardous thing to do; should it prove to be filled with
black men, his escape was cut off by the spearmen outside the other
door. Still, he was used to taking all sorts of wild chances, and now,
sword in hand, he flung the door open with a suddenness intended to
numb with surprize for an instant any foe who might be on the other
side.

Kane took a swift step within, ready for anything--then halted
suddenly, struck speechless and motionless for a second. He had come
thousands of miles in search of something and there before him lay the
object of his search.




                              _3. Lilith_


    "Lady of mystery, what is thy history?"

    --Viereck.


A couch stood in the middle of the room and on its silken surface lay
a woman--a woman whose skin was white and whose reddish gold hair
fell about her bare shoulders. She now sprang erect, fright flooding
her fine gray eyes, lips parted to utter a cry which she as suddenly
checked.

"You!" she exclaimed. "How did you----?"

Solomon Kane closed the door behind him and came toward her, a rare
smile on his dark face.

"You remember me, do you not, Marylin?"

The fear had already faded from her eyes even before he spoke, to be
replaced by a look of incredible wonder and dazed bewilderment.

"Captain Kane! I can not understand--it seemed no one would ever
come----"

She drew a small hand wearily across her white brow, swaying suddenly.

Kane caught her in his arms--she was only a girl, little more than a
child--and laid her gently on the couch. There, chafing her wrists
gently, he talked in a low hurried monotone, keeping an eye on the door
all the time--which door, by the way, seemed to be the only entrance
or egress from the room. While he talked he mechanically took in the
chamber, noting that it was almost a duplicate of the outer room, as
regards hangings and general furnishings.

"First," said he, "before we go into any other matters, tell me, are
you closely guarded?"

"Very closely, sir," she murmured hopelessly; "I know not how you came
here, but we can never escape."

"Let me tell you swiftly how I came to be here, and mayhap you will be
more hopeful when I tell you of the difficulties already overcome. Lie
still now, Marylin, and I will tell you how I came to seek an English
heiress in the devil city of Negari.

"I killed Sir John Taferal in a duel. As to the reason, 'tis neither
here nor there, but slander and a black lie lay behind it. Ere he died
he confessed that he had committed a foul crime some years agone. You
remember, of course, the affection cherished for you by your cousin,
old Lord Hildred Taferal, Sir John's uncle. Sir John feared that the
old lord, dying without issue, might leave the great Taferal estates to
you.

"Years ago you disappeared and Sir John spread the rumor that you had
drowned. Yet when he lay dying with my rapier through his body, he
gasped out that he had kidnapped you and sold you to a Barbary rover,
whom he named--a bloody pirate whose name has not been unknown on
England's coasts aforetime. So I came seeking you, and a long weary
trail it has been, stretching into long leagues and bitter years.

"First I sailed the seas searching El Gar, the Barbary corsair named
by Sir John. I found him in the crash and roar of an ocean battle;
he died, but even as he lay dying he told me that he had sold you in
turn to a merchant out of Stamboul. So to the Levant I went and there
by chance came upon a Greek sailor whom the Moors had crucified on the
shore for piracy. I cut him down and asked him the question I asked
all men--if he had in his wanderings seen a captive English girl-child
with yellow curls. I learned that he had been one of the crew of the
Stamboul merchants, and that she had, on her homeward voyage, been set
upon by a Portuguese slaver and sunk--this renegade Greek and the child
being among the few who were taken aboard the slaver.

"This slaver then, cruising south for black ivory, had been ambushed
in a small bay on the African West Coast, and of your further fate
the Greek knew nothing, for he had escaped the general massacre, and
taking to sea in an open boat, had been taken up by a ship of Genoese
freebooters.

"To the West Coast, then, I came, on the slim chance that you still
lived, and there heard among the natives that some years ago a white
child had been taken from a ship whose crew had been slain, and sent
inland as a part of the tribute the shore tribes paid to the upper
river chiefs.

"Then all traces ceased. For months I wandered without a clue as to
your whereabouts, nay, without a hint that you even lived. Then I
chanced to hear among the river tribes of the demon city of Negari and
the black queen who kept a white woman for a slave. I came here."

Kane's matter-of-fact tone, his unfurbished narration, gave no hint
of the full meaning of that tale--of what lay behind those calm
and measured words--the sea-fights and the land fights--the years
of privation and heart-breaking toil, the ceaseless danger, the
everlasting wandering through hostile and unknown lands, the tedious
and deadening labor of ferreting out the information he wished from
ignorant, sullen and unfriendly savages, black and white.

"I came here" said Kane simply, but what a world of courage and effort
was symbolized by that phrase! A long red trail, black shadows and
crimson shadows weaving a devil's dance--marked by flashing swords and
the smoke of battle--by faltering words falling like drops of blood
from the lips of dying men.

Not a consciously dramatic man, certainly, was Solomon Kane. He
told his tale in the same manner in which he had overcome terrific
obstacles--coldly, briefly and without heroics.

"You see, Marylin," he concluded gently, "I have not come this far and
done this much, to now meet with defeat. Take heart, child. We will
find a way out of this fearful place."

"Sir John took me on his saddle-bow," the girl said dazedly, and
speaking slowly as if her native language came strangely to her from
years of unuse, as she framed in halting words an English evening of
long ago: "He carried me to the sea-shore where a galley's boat waited,
filled with fierce men, dark and mustached and having simitars, and
great rings to the fingers. The captain, a Moslem with a face like a
hawk, took me, I a-weeping with fear, and bore me to his galley. Yet he
was kind to me in his way, I being little more than a baby, and at last
sold me to a Turkish merchant, as he told you. This merchant he met off
the southern coast of France, after many days of sea travel.

"This man did not use me badly, yet I feared him, for he was a man of
cruel countenance and made me understand that I was to be sold to a
black sultan of the Moors. However, in the Gates of Hercules his ship
was set upon by a Cadiz slaver and things came about as you have said.

"The captain of the slaver believed me to be the child of some wealthy
English family and intended holding me for ransom, but in a grim
darksome bay on the African coast he perished with all his men except
the Greek you have mentioned, and I was taken captive by a black
chieftain.

"I was terribly afraid and thought he would slay me, but he did me no
harm and sent me up-country with an escort, who also bore much loot
taken from the ship. This loot, together with myself, was, as you know,
intended for a powerful king of the river peoples. But it never reached
him, for a roving band of Negari fell upon the beach warriors and slew
them all. Then I was taken to this city, and have since remained, slave
to Queen Nakari.

"How I have lived through all those terrible scenes of battle and
cruelty and murder, I know not."

"A providence has watched over you, child," said Kane, "the power which
doth care for weak women and helpless children; which led me to you in
spite of all hindrances, and which shall yet lead us forth from this
place, God willing."

"My people!" she exclaimed suddenly like one awaking from a dream;
"what of them?"

"All in good health and fortune, child, save that they have sorrowed
for you through the long years. Nay, old Sir Hildred hath the gout and
doth so swear thereat that I fear for his soul at times. Yet methinks
that the sight of you, little Marylin, would mend him."

"Still, Captain Kane," said the girl, "I can not understand why you
came alone."

"Your brothers would have come with me, child, but it was not sure that
you lived, and I was loth that any other Taferal should die in a land
far from good English soil. I rid the country of an evil Taferal--'twas
but just I should restore in his place a good Taferal, if so be she
still lived--I, and I alone."

This explanation Kane himself believed. He never sought to analyze his
motives and he never wavered, once his mind was made up. Though he
always acted on impulse, he firmly believed that all his actions were
governed by cold and logical reasonings. He was a man born out of his
time--a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the
ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan, though the
last assertion would have shocked him unspeakably. An atavist of the
days of blind chivalry he was, a knight errant in the somber clothes of
a fanatic. A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right
all wrongs, protect all weaker things, avenge all crimes against right
and justice. Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in
only one respect--he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such
was Solomon Kane.

"Marylin," he now said kindly, taking her small hands in his
sword-calloused fingers, "methinks you have changed greatly in the
years. You were a rosy and chubby little maid when I used to dandle
you on my knee in old England. Now you seem drawn and pale of face,
though you are beautiful as the nymphs of the heathen books. There are
haunting ghosts in your eyes, child--do they misuse you here?"

She lay back on the couch and the blood drained slowly from her already
pallid features until she was deathly white. Kane bent over her,
startled. Her voice came in a whisper.

"Ask me not. There are deeds better hidden in the darkness of night and
forgetfulness. There are sights which blast the eyes and leave their
burning mark forever on the brain. The walls of ancient cities, recked
not of by men, have looked upon scenes not to be spoken of, even in
whispers."

Her eyes closed wearily and Kane's troubled, somber eyes unconsciously
traced the thin blue lines of her veins, prominent against the
unnatural whiteness of her skin.

"Here is some demoniacal thing," he muttered, "A mystery----"

"Aye," murmured the girl, "a mystery that was old when Egypt was young!
And nameless evil more ancient than dark Babylon--that spawned in
terrible black cities when the world was young and strange."

Kane frowned, troubled. At the girl's strange words he felt an eery
crawling fear at the back of his brain, as if dim racial memories
stirred in the eon-deep gulfs, conjuring up grim chaotic visions,
illusive and nightmarish.

Suddenly Marylin sat erect, her eyes flaring wide with fright. Kane
heard a door open somewhere.

"Nakari!" whispered the girl urgently. "Swift! She must not find you
here! Hide quickly, and"--as Kane turned--"keep silent, whatever may
chance!"

       *       *       *       *       *

She lay back on the couch, feigning slumber as Kane crossed the room
and concealed himself behind some tapestries which, hanging upon the
wall, hid a niche that might have once held a statue of some sort.

He had scarcely done so when the single door of the room opened and a
strange barbaric figure stood framed in it. Nakari, queen of Negari,
had come to her slave.

The black woman was clad as she had been when he had seen her on the
throne, and the colored armlets and anklets clanked as she closed
the door behind her and came into the room. She moved with the easy
sinuousness of a she-leopard and in spite of himself the watcher was
struck with admiration for her lithe beauty. Yet at the same time a
shudder of repulsion shook him, for her eyes gleamed with vibrant and
magnetic evil, older than the world.

"Lilith!" thought Kane. "She is beautiful and terrible as Purgatory.
She is Lilith--that foul, lovely woman of ancient legend."

Nakari halted by the couch, stood looking down upon her captive for
a moment, then with an enigmatic smile, bent and shook her. Marylin
opened her eyes, sat up, then slipped from her couch and knelt before
her black mistress--an act which caused Kane to curse beneath his
breath. The queen laughed and seating herself upon the couch, motioned
the girl to rise, and then put an arm about her waist and drew her
upon her lap. Kane watched, puzzled, while Nakari caressed the white
girl in a lazy, amused manner. This might be affection, but to Kane it
seemed more like a sated leopard teasing its victim. There was an air
of mockery and studied cruelty about the whole affair.

"You are very soft and pretty, Mara," Nakari murmured lazily, "much
prettier than the black girls who serve me. The time approaches, little
one, for your nuptial. And a fairer bride has never been borne up the
Black Stairs."

Marylin began to tremble and Kane thought she was going to faint.
Nakari's eyes gleamed strangely beneath her long-lashed drooping lids,
and her full red lips curved in a faint tantalizing smile. Her every
action seemed fraught with some sinister meaning. Kane began to sweat
profusely.

"Mara," said the black queen, "you are honored above all other girls,
yet you are not content. Think how the girls of Negari will envy you,
Mara, when the priests sing the nuptial song and the Moon of Skulls
looks over the black crest of the Tower of Death. Think, little
bride-of-the-Master, how many girls have given their lives to be his
bride!"

And Nakari laughed in her hateful musical way, as at a rare jest. And
then suddenly she stopped short. Her eyes narrowed to slits as they
swept the room, and her whole body tensed. Her hand went to her girdle
and came away with a long thin dagger. Kane sighted along the barrel
of his pistol, finger against the trigger. Only a natural hesitancy
against shooting a woman kept him from sending death into the black
heart of Nakari, for he believed that she was about to murder the girl.

Then with a lithe cat-like motion she thrust the girl from her knees
and bounded back across the room, her eyes fixed with blazing intensity
on the tapestry behind which Kane stood. Had those keen eyes discovered
him? He quickly learned.

"Who is there?" she rapped out fiercely. "Who hides behind those
hangings? I do not see you nor hear you, but I know someone is there!"

Kane remained silent. Nakari's wild beast instinct had betrayed him and
he was uncertain as to what course to follow. His next actions depended
on the queen.

"Mara!" Nakari's voice slashed like a whip, "who is behind those
hangings? Answer me! Shall I give you a taste of the whip again?"

The girl seemed incapable of speech. She cowered where she had fallen,
her beautiful eyes full of terror. Nakari, her blazing gaze never
wavering, reached behind her with her free hand and gripped a cord
hanging from the wall. She jerked viciously. Kane felt the tapestries
whip back on either side of him and he stood revealed.

For a moment the strange tableau held--the gaunt white man in his
blood-stained, tattered garments, the long pistol gripped in his right
hand--across the room the black queen in her savage finery, one arm
still lifted to the cord, the other hand holding the dagger in front of
her--the white girl cowering on the floor.

Then Kane spoke: "Keep silent, Nakari, or you die!"

The queen seemed numbed and struck speechless by the sudden apparition.
Kane stepped from among the tapestries and slowly approached her.

"You!" she found her voice at last. "You must be he of whom the
guardsmen spake! There are not two other white men in Negari! They said
you fell to your death! How then----"

"Silence!" Kane's voice cut in harshly on her amazed babblings; he knew
that the pistol meant nothing to her, but she sensed the threat of the
long blade in his left hand. "Marylin," still unconsciously speaking
in the river-tribes' language, "take cords from the hangings and bind
her----"

He was about the middle of the chamber now. Nakari's face had lost much
of its helpless bewilderment and into her blazing eyes stole a crafty
gleam. She deliberately let her dagger fall as in token of surrender,
then suddenly her hands shot high above her head and gripped another
thick cord. Kane heard Marylin scream but before he could take another
step, before he could pull the trigger or even think, the floor fell
beneath his feet and he shot down into abysmal blackness. He did not
fall far and he landed on his feet; but the force of the fall sent
him to his knees and even as he went down, sensing a presence in the
darkness beside him, something crashed against his skull and he dropped
into a yet blacker abyss of unconsciousness.




                         _4. Dreams of Empire_

    "For Rome was given to rule the world
      And gat of it little joy--
    But we, we shall enjoy the world,
      The whole huge world a toy."

    --Chesterton.


Slowly Kane drifted back from the dim realms where the unseen
assailant's bludgeon had hurled him. Something hindered the motion of
his hands and there was a metallic clanking when he sought to raise
them to his aching, throbbing head.

He lay in utter darkness but he could not determine whether this was
absence of light, or whether he was still blinded by the blow. He
dazedly collected his scattered faculties and realized that he was
lying on a damp stone floor, shackled by wrist and ankle with heavy
iron chains which were rough and rusty to the touch.

How long he lay there, he never knew. The silence was broken only
by the drumming pulse in his own aching head and the scamper and
chattering of rats. At last a red glow sprang up in the darkness and
grew before his eyes. Framed in the grisly radiance rose the sinister
and sardonic face of Nakari. Kane shook his head, striving to rid
himself of the illusion. But the light grew and as his eyes accustomed
themselves to it, he saw that it emanated from a torch borne in the
hand of the queen.

In the illumination he now saw that he lay in a small dank cell whose
walls, ceiling and floor were of stone. The heavy chains which held him
captive were made fast to metal rings set deep in the wall. There was
but one door, which was apparently of bronze.

Nakari set the torch in a niche near the door, and coming forward,
stood over her captive, gazing down at him in a manner rather
speculating than mocking.

"You are he who fought the men on the cliff." The remark was an
assertion rather than a question. "They said you fell into the
abyss--did they lie? Did you bribe them to lie? Or how did you escape?
Are you a magician and did you fly to the bottom of the chasm and then
fly to my palace? Speak!"

Kane remained silent. Nakari cursed.

"Speak or I will have your eyes torn out! I will cut your fingers off
and burn your feet!"

She kicked him viciously, but Kane lay silent, his deep somber eyes
boring up into her face, until the feral gleam faded from her eyes to
be replaced by an avid interest and wonder.

She seated herself on a stone bench, resting her elbows on her knees
and her chin on her hands.

"I never saw a white man before," she said, "Are all white men like
you? Bah! That can not be! Most men are fools, black or white. I know
most black men are fools, and white men are not gods, as the river
tribes say--they are only men. I, who know all the ancient mysteries,
say they are only men.

"But white men have strange mysteries too, they tell me--the wanderers
of the river tribes, and Mara. They have war clubs that make a noise
like thunder and kill afar off--that thing which you held in your right
hand, was that one of those clubs?"

Kane permitted himself a grim smile.

"Nakari, if you know all mysteries, how can I tell you aught that you
know not already?"

"How deep and cold and strange your eyes are!" the queen said as if he
had not spoken. "How strange your whole appearance is--and you have the
bearing of a king! You do not fear me--I never met a man who neither
loved nor feared me. You would never fear me, but you could learn to
love me. Look at me, white man--am I not beautiful?"

"You are beautiful," answered Kane.

Nakari smiled and then frowned. "The way you say that, it is no
compliment. You hate me, do you not?"

"As a man hates a serpent," Kane replied bluntly.

Nakari's eyes blazed with almost insane fury. Her hands clenched until
the long nails sank into the palms; then as quickly as her anger had
arisen, it ebbed away.

"You have the heart of a king," she said calmly, "else you would fear
me. Are you a king in your land?"

"I am only a landless wanderer."

"You might be a king here," Nakari said slowly.

Kane laughed grimly. "Do you offer me my life?"

"I offer you more than that!" Kane's eyes narrowed as the queen leaned
toward him, vibrant with suppressed excitement. "White man, what is it
that you want more than anything else in the world?"

"To take the white girl you call Mara, and go."

Nakari sank back with an impatient exclamation.

"You can not have her; she is the promised bride of the Master. Even
I could not save her, even if I wished. Forget her. I will help you
forget her. Listen, white man, listen to the words of Nakari, queen of
Negari! You say you are a landless man--I will make you a king! I will
give you the world for a toy!

"No, no! Keep silent until I have finished," she rushed on, her words
tumbling over each other in her eagerness. Her eyes blazed, her whole
body quivered with dynamic intensity. "I have talked to travelers, to
captives and slaves, men from far countries. I know that this land of
mountains and rivers and jungle is not all the world. There are far-off
nations and cities, and kings and queens to be crushed and broken.

"Negari is fading, her might is crumbling, but a strong man beside her
queen might build it up again--might restore all her vanishing glory.
Listen, white man! Sit by me on the throne of Negari! Send afar to
your people for the thunder-clubs to arm my warriors! My nation is
still lord of central Africa; together we will band the conquered
tribes--call back the days when the realm of ancient Negari spanned the
land from sea to sea! We will subjugate all the tribes of the river,
the plain and the sea-shore, and instead of slaying them all, we will
make one mighty army of them! And then, when all Africa is under our
heel, we will sweep forth upon the world like a hungry lion to rend and
tear and destroy!"

Solomon's brain reeled. Perhaps it was the woman's fierce magnetic
personality, the dynamic power she instilled in her fiery words, but at
the moment her wild plan seemed not at all wild and impossible. Lurid
and chaotic visions flamed through the Puritan's brain--Europe torn by
civil and religious strife, divided against herself, betrayed by her
rulers, tottering--aye, Europe was in desperate straits now, and might
prove an easy victim for some strong savage race of conquerors. What
man can say truthfully that in his heart there lurks not a yearning
for power and conquest? For a moment the Devil sorely tempted Solomon
Kane; then before his mind's eye rose the wistful sad face of Marylin
Taferal, and Solomon cursed.

"Out on ye, daughter of Satan! Avaunt! Am I a beast of the forest to
lead your black devils against mine own race? Nay, no beast ever did
so. Begone! If you wish my friendship, set me free and let me go with
the girl."

Nakari leaped like a tiger-cat to her feet, her eyes flaming now with
passionate fury. A dagger gleamed in her hand and she raised it high
above Kane's breast with a feline scream of hate. A moment she hovered
like a shadow of death above him; then her arm sank and she laughed.

"Freedom? She will find her freedom when the Moon of Skulls leers down
on the black altar. As for you, you shall rot in this dungeon. You are
a fool; Africa's greatest queen has offered you her love and the empire
of the world--and you revile her! You love the white girl, perhaps?
Until the Moon of Skulls she is mine and I leave you to think about
this: that she shall be punished as I have punished her before--hung up
by her wrists, naked, and whipped until she swoons!"

Nakari laughed as Kane tore savagely at his shackles. She crossed to
the door, opened it, then hesitated and turned back for another word.

"This is a foul place, white man, and maybe you hate me the more for
chaining you here. Maybe in Nakari's beautiful throneroom, with wealth
and luxury spread before you, you will look upon her with more favor.
Very soon I shall send for you, but first I will leave you here awhile
to reflect. Remember--love Nakari and the kingdom of the world is
yours; hate her--this cell is your realm."

The bronze door clanged sullenly, but more hateful to the imprisoned
Englishman was the venomous, silvery laugh of Nakari.

       *       *       *       *       *

Time passed slowly in the darkness. After what seemed a long time the
door opened again, this time to admit a huge black who brought food and
a sort of thin wine. Kane ate and drank ravenously and afterward slept.
The strain of the last few days had worn him greatly, mentally and
physically, but when he awoke he felt fresh and strong.

Again the door opened and two great black warriors entered. In the
light of the torches they bore, Kane saw that they were giants, clad
in loin-cloths and ostrich plume headgear, and bearing long spears in
their hands.

"Nakari wishes you to come to her, white man," was all they said, as
they took off his shackles. He arose, exultant in even brief freedom,
his keen brain working fiercely for a way of escape.

Evidently the fame of his prowess had spread, for the two warriors
showed great respect for him. They motioned him to precede them, and
walked carefully behind him, the points of their spears boring into
his back. Though they were two to one, and he was unarmed, they were
taking no chances. The gazes they directed at him were full of awe and
suspicion, and Kane decided that Nakari had told the truth when she had
said that he was the first white man to come to Negari.

Down a long dark corridor they went, his captors guiding him with
light prods of their spears, up a narrow winding stair, down another
passageway, up another stair, and then they emerged into the vast maze
of gigantic pillars into which Kane had first come. As they started
down this huge hall, Kane's eyes suddenly fell on a strange and
fantastic picture painted on the wall ahead of him. His heart gave a
sudden leap as he recognized it. It was some distance in front of him
and he edged imperceptibly toward the wall until he and his guards
were walking along very close to it. Now he was almost abreast of the
picture and could even make out the mark his dagger had made upon it.

The warriors following Kane were amazed to hear him gasp suddenly like
a man struck by a spear. He wavered in his stride and began clutching
at the air for support. They eyed each other doubtfully and prodded
him, but he cried out like a dying man, and slowly crumpled to the
floor, where he lay in a strange unnatural position, one leg doubled
back under him and one arm half supporting his lolling body. The
blacks looked at him fearfully. To all appearances he was dying, but
there was no wound upon him. They threatened him with their spears but
he paid no heed. Then they lowered their weapons uncertainly and one of
them bent over him.

Then it happened. The instant the black stooped forward, Kane came
up like a steel spring released. His right fist following his motion
curved up from his hip in a whistling half-circle and crashed against
the black giant's jaw. Delivered with all the power of arm and
shoulder, propelled by the upthrust of the powerful legs as Kane
straightened, the blow was like that of a slung-shot. The negro slumped
to the floor, unconscious before his knees gave way.

The other warrior plunged forward with a bellow, but even as his victim
fell, Kane twisted aside and his frantic hand found the secret spring
in the painting and pressed. All happened in the breath of a second.
Quick as the warrior was, Kane was quicker, for he moved with the
dynamic speed of a famished wolf. For an instant the falling body of
the senseless black hindered the other warrior's thrust, and in that
instant Kane felt the hidden door give way. From the corner of his eye
he saw a long gleam of steel shooting for his heart. He twisted about
and hurled himself against the door, vanishing through it even as the
stabbing spear slit the skin on his shoulder.

To the dazed and bewildered warrior, who stood with weapon upraised
for another thrust, it seemed as if the white man had simply vanished
through a solid wall, for only a fantastic picture met his gaze and
this did not give to his efforts.

[Illustration: "The dynamic quickness of Solomon Kane was such as few
men could match."]




                    _5. "For a Thousand Years----"_

    "The blind gods roar and rave and dream
      Of all cities under the sea."

    --Chesterton.


Kane slammed the hidden door shut behind him, jammed down the spring
and for a moment leaned against it, every muscle tensed, expecting to
hold it against the efforts of a horde of spearmen. But nothing of the
sort materialized. He heard the black warrior fumbling outside for a
time; then that sound, too, ceased. It seemed impossible that these
people should have lived in this palace as long as they had without
discovering the secret doors and passages, but it was a conclusion
which forced itself upon Kane's mind.

At last he decided that he was safe from pursuit for the time being,
and turning, started down the long, narrow corridor with its eon-old
dust and its dim gray light. He felt baffled and furious, though he
was free from Nakari's shackles. He had no idea how long he had been
in the palace; it seemed ages. It must be day now, for it was light
in the outer halls, and he had seen no torches after they had left
the subterranean dungeons. He wondered if Nakari had carried out her
threat of vengeance on the helpless girl, and swore passionately. Free
for the time being, yes; but unarmed and hunted through this infernal
palace like a rat. How could he aid either himself or Marylin? But
his confidence never faltered. He was in the right and some way would
present itself.

Suddenly a narrow stairway branched off the main passageway, and up
this he went, the light growing stronger and stronger until he stood in
the full glare of the African sunlight. The stair terminated in a sort
of small landing directly in front of which was a tiny window, heavily
barred. Through this he saw the blue sky, tinted gold with the blazing
sunlight. The sight was like wine to him and he drew in deep breaths of
fresh, untainted air, breathing deep as if to rid his lungs of the aura
of dust and decayed grandeur through which he had been passing.

He was looking out over a weird and bizarre landscape. Far to the right
and the left loomed up great black crags and beneath them there reared
castles and towers of stone, of strange architecture--it was as if
giants from some other planet had thrown them up in a wild and chaotic
debauch of creation. These buildings were backed solidly against the
cliffs, and Kane knew that Nakari's palace also must be built into
the wall of the crag behind it. He seemed to be in the front of that
palace in a sort of minaret built on the outer wall. But there was only
one window in it and his view was limited. Far below him through the
winding and narrow streets of that strange city, swarms of black people
went to and fro, seeming like black ants to the watcher above. East,
north and south, the cliffs formed a natural bulwark; only to the west
was a built wall.

The sun was sinking west. Kane turned reluctantly from the barred
window and went down the stairs again. Again he paced down the narrow
gray corridor, aimlessly and planlessly, for what seemed miles and
miles. He descended lower and lower into passages that lay below
passages. The light grew dimmer, and a dank slime appeared on the
walls. Then Kane halted, a faint sound from beyond the wall arresting
him. What was that? A faint rattle--the rattle of chains.

Kane leaned close to the wall, and in the semi-darkness his hand
encountered a rusty spring. He worked at it cautiously and presently
felt the hidden door it betokened swing inward. He gazed out warily.

He was looking into a cell, the counterpart of the one in which he had
been confined. A smoldering torch was thrust into a niche on the wall,
and by its lurid and flickering light he made out a form on the floor,
shackled wrist and ankle as he had been shackled. A man; at first Kane
thought him to be a negro but a second glance made him doubt. The hair
was too straight, the features too regular. Negroid, yes, but some
alien blood in his veins had sharpened those features and given the
man that high magnificent forehead, and those hard vibrant eyes which
stared at Kane so intensely. The skin was dark, but not black.

The man spoke in an unfamiliar dialect, one which was strangely
distinct and clear-cut in contrast to the guttural jargon of the black
people with whom Kane was familiar. The Englishman spoke in English,
and then in the language of the river tribes.

"You who come through the ancient door," said the other, in the latter
dialect, "who are you? You are no black man--at first I thought you one
of the Old Race, but now I see you are not as they. Whence come you?"

"I am Solomon Kane," said the Puritan, "a prisoner in this devil-city.
I come from far across the blue salt sea."

The man's eyes lighted at the word.

"The sea! The ancient and everlasting! The sea which I never saw but
which cradled the glory of my ancestors! Tell me, stranger, have you,
like they, sailed across the breast of the great blue monster, and have
your eyes looked on the golden spires of Atlantis and the crimson walls
of Mu?"

"Truly," answered Solomon uncertainly, "I have sailed the seas, even to
Hindostan and Cathay, but of the countries you mention I know nothing."

"Nay," the other sighed, "I dream--I dream. Already the shadow of the
great night falls across my brain and my words wander. Stranger, there
have been times when these cold walls and floor have seemed to melt
into green surging deeps and my soul was filled with the deep booming
of the everlasting sea. I who have never seen the sea!"

Kane shuddered involuntarily. Surely this man was insane. Suddenly the
other shot out a withered claw-like hand and gripped his arm, despite
the hampering chain.

"You whose skin is so strangely white! Have you seen Nakari, the
she-fiend who rules this crumbling city?"

"I have seen her," said Kane grimly, "and now I flee like a hunted rat
from her murderers."

"You hate her!" the other cried. "Ha, I know! You seek Mara, the white
girl who is her slave?"

"Aye."

"Listen, white man," the shackled one spoke with strange solemnity; "I
am dying. Nakari's rack has done its work. I die and with me dies the
shadow of the glory that was my nation's. For I am the last of my race.
In all the world there is none like me. Hark now, to the voice of a
dying race."

And Kane leaning there in the flickering semi-darkness of the cell
heard the strangest tale to which man has ever listened, brought out
of the mist of the dim dawn ages by the lips of delirium. Clear and
distinct the words fell from the dying man and Kane alternately burned
and froze as vista after gigantic vista of time and space swept up
before him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Long eons ago--ages, ages ago--the empire of my race rose proudly
above the waves. So long ago was it that no man remembers an ancestor
who remembered it. In a great land to the west our cities rose. Our
golden spires split the stars; our purple-prowed galleys broke the
waves around the world, looting the sunset for its treasure and the
sunrise for its wealth. Our legions swept forth to the north and to the
south, to the west and the east, and none could stand before them. Our
cities banded the world; we sent our colonies to all lands to subdue
all savages, red, white or black, and enslave them. They toiled for us
in the mines and at the galley's oars. All over the world the brown
people of Atlantis reigned supreme. We were a sea-people and we delved
the deeps of all the oceans. The mysteries were known to us, and the
secret things of land and sea and sky. We read the stars and were wise.
Sons of the sea, we exalted him above all others.

"We worshipped Valka and Hotah, Honen and Golgor. Many virgins, many
strong youths, died on their altars and the smoke of the shrines
blotted out the sun. Then the sea rose and shook himself. He thundered
from his abyss and the thrones of the world fell before him! New
lands rose from the deep and Atlantis and Mu were swallowed up by the
gulf. The green sea roared through the fanes and the castles, and the
sea-weed encrusted the golden spires and the topaz towers. The empire
of Atlantis vanished and was forgotten, passing into the everlasting
gulf of time and oblivion. Likewise the colony cities in barbaric
lands, cut off from their mother kingdom, perished. The black savages
and the white savages rose and burned and destroyed until in all the
world only the colony city of Negari remained as a symbol of the lost
empire.

"Here my ancestors ruled as kings, and the ancestors of Nakari--the
she-cat!--bent the knee of slavery to them. Years passed, stretching
into centuries. The empire of Negari dwindled. Tribe after tribe rose
and flung off the chains, pressing the lines back from the sea, until
at last the sons of Atlantis gave way entirely and retreated into the
city itself--the last stronghold of the race. Conquerors no longer,
hemmed in by ferocious tribes, yet they held those tribes at bay for
a thousand years. Negari was invincible from without; her walls held
firm; but within evil influences were at work.

"The sons of Atlantis had brought their black slaves into the city with
them. The rulers were warriors, scholars, priests, artizans; they did
no menial work. For that they depended upon the slaves. There were more
of these slaves than there were masters. And they increased while the
brown people dwindled.

"They mixed with each other more and more as the race degenerated until
at last only the priestcraft was free of the taint of black blood.
Rulers sat on the throne of Negari who were nearly pure negro, and
these allowed more and more wild tribesmen to enter the city in the
guise of servants, mercenaries and friends.

"Then came a day when these fierce slaves revolted and slew all who
bore a trace of brown blood, except the priests and their families.
These they imprisoned as 'fetish people.' For a thousand years black
men have ruled in Negari, their kings guided by the captive brown
priests, who though prisoners, were yet the masters of kings."

Kane listened enthralled. To his imaginative mind, the tale burned and
lived with strange fire from cosmic time and space.

"After all the sons of Atlantis, save the priests, were dead, there
rose a great black king on the defiled throne of ancient Negari. He was
a tiger and his warriors were like leopards. They called themselves
Negari, ravishing even the name of their former masters, and none could
stand before them. They swept the land from sea to sea, and the smoke
of destruction put out the stars. The great river ran red and the black
lords of Negari strode above the corpses of their black foes. Then
the great king died and the black empire crumbled, even as the brown
kingdom of Negari had crumbled. They were skilled in war--the dead sons
of Atlantis, their masters, had trained them in the ways of battle, and
against the wild tribesmen they were invincible. But only the ways of
war had they learned, and the empire was torn with civil strife. Murder
and intrigue stalked red-handed through the palaces and the streets,
and the boundaries of the empire dwindled and dwindled. All the while
black kings with red, frenzied brains sat on the throne, and behind
the curtains, unseen but greatly feared, the brown priests guided the
nation, holding it together, keeping it from absolute destruction.

"Prisoners in the city were we, for there was nowhere else in the
world to go, but we moved like ghosts through the secret passages in
the walls and under the earth, spying on intrigue and doing secret
magic. We upheld the cause of the royal family--the descendants of that
tiger-like king of long ago--against all plotting chiefs, and grim are
the tales which these silent walls could tell. For these black people
are not as other negroes. A latent insanity lurks in the brains of
every one. They have tasted so deeply and so long of slaughter and
victory that they are as human leopards, for ever thirsting for blood.
On their myriad wretched slaves they have sated all lusts and desires
until they have become foul and terrible beasts, for ever seeking some
new sensation, for ever quenching their fearful thirsts in blood.

"Like a lion have they lurked in these crags for a thousand years,
to rush forth and ravage the jungle and river people, enslaving and
destroying. They are still invincible from without, though their
possessions have dwindled to the very walls of this city, and their
former great conquests and invasions have dwindled to raids for slaves.

"But as they faded, so too faded their masters, the brown priests. One
by one they died, until only I remained. In the last century they too
mixed with their rulers and slaves, and now--oh, black the shame upon
me!--I, the last son of Atlantis, bear in my veins the taint of negro
blood. They died; I remained, doing magic and guiding the black kings,
I the last brown man of Negari. Then the she-fiend, Nakari, arose."

Kane leaned forward with quickened interest. New life surged into the
tale as it touched upon his own time.

"Nakari!" the name was spat as a snake hisses; "slave and the daughter
of a slave! Yet she prevailed when her hour came and all the royal
family died.

"And me, the last son of Atlantis, me she prisoned and chained. She
feared not the silent brown priests, for she was the daughter of a
Satellite--one of the lesser priests, black men who did the menial work
of the brown masters--performing the lesser sacrifices, divining from
the livers of fowls and serpents and keeping the holy fires for ever
burning. Much she knew of us and our ways, and evil ambition burned in
her.

"As a child she danced in the March of the New Moon, and as a young
girl she was one of the Star-maidens. Much of the lesser mysteries was
known to her, and more she learned, spying upon the secret rites of
the priests who enacted hidden rituals that were old when the earth
was young. For the remnants of Atlantis secretly kept alive the old
worships of Valka and Hotah, Honen and Golgor, long forgotten and not
to be understood by these black people whose ancestors died screaming
on their altars. Alone of all the black Negari she feared us not and
she not only overthrew the king and set herself on the throne, but she
dominated the priests--the black Satellites and the few brown masters
who were left. All these last, save me, died beneath the daggers of
her assassins or on her racks. She alone of all the myriad black
thousands who have lived and died between these walls guessed at the
hidden passages and subterranean corridors, secrets which we of the
priestcraft had guarded jealously from the people for a thousand years.

"Ha! Ha! Blind, black fools! To pass an ageless age in this city,
yet never to learn of the secrets thereof! Black apes--fools! Not
even the lesser black priests know of the long gray corridors, lit by
phosphorescent ceilings, through which in bygone ages strange forms
have glided silently. For our ancestors built Negari as they built
Atlantis--on a mighty scale and with an unknown art. Not for men alone
did we build, but for the gods who moved unseen among us. And deep the
secrets these ancient walls hold!

"Torture could not wring these secrets from our lips, but shackled in
her dungeons, we trod our hidden corridors no more. For years the dust
has gathered there, untouched by human foot, while we, and finally I
alone, lay chained in these foul cells. And among the temples and the
dark, mysterious shrines of old, move vile black Satellites, elevated
by Nakari to glories that were once mine--for I am the last Atlantean
high priest. Black be their doom, and red their ruin! Valka and
Golgor, gods lost and forgotten, whose memory shall die with me, strike
down their walls and humble them unto the dust! Break the altars of
their blind pagan gods----"

Kane realized that the man was wandering in his mind. The keen brain
had begun to crumble at last.

"Tell me," said he; "you mentioned the white girl, Mara. What do you
know of her?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"She was brought to Negari years ago by raiders," the other answered,
"only a few years after the rise of the black queen, whose slave she
is. Little of her I know, for shortly after her arrival, Nakari turned
on me--and the years that lie between have been grim black years, shot
red with torture and agony. Here I have lain, hampered by my chains
from escape which lay in that door through which you entered--and for
the knowledge of which Nakari has torn me on racks and suspended me
over slow fires."

Kane shuddered. "You know not if they have so misused the white girl?
Her eyes are haunted and she has wasted away."

"She has danced with the Star-maidens at Nakari's command, and has
looked on the bloody and terrible rites of the Black Temple. She has
lived for years among a people with whom blood is cheaper than water,
who delight in slaughter and foul torture, and such sights as she has
looked upon would blast the eyes and wither the flesh of strong men.
She has seen the victims of Nakura die amid horrid torments, and the
sight is burned for ever in the brain of the beholder. The rites of
the Atlanteans the blacks took whereby to honor their crude gods, and
though the essence of those rites is lost in the wasting years, yet
even as Nakari's black apes perform them, they are not such as men can
look on, unshaken."

Kane was thinking: "A fair day for the world when this Atlantis sank,
for most certainly it bred a race of strange and unknown evil." Aloud
he said: "Who is this Master of whom Nakari spake, and what meant she
by calling Mara his bride?"

"Nakura--Nakura. The skull of evil, the symbol of Death that they
worship. What know these savages of the gods of sea-girt Atlantis? What
know they of the dread and unseen gods whom their masters worshipped
with majestic and mysterious rites? They understand not of the unseen
essence, the invisible deity that reigns in the air and the elements;
they must worship a material object, endowed with human shape. Nakura
was the last great wizard of Atlantean Negari. A brown renegade he
was, who conspired against his own people and aided the revolt of the
black beasts. In life they followed him and in death they deified him.
High in the Tower of Death his fleshless skull is set, and on that
skull hinge the brains of all the people of Negari. Nay, we of Atlantis
worshipped Death, but we likewise worshipped Life. These people worship
only Death and call themselves Sons of Death. And the skull of Nakura
has been to them for a thousand years the symbol of their power, the
evidence of their greatness."

"Do you mean," Kane broke in impatiently on these ramblings, "that they
will sacrifice the girl to their god?"

"In the Moon of Skulls she will die on the Black Altar."

"What in God's name is this Moon of Skulls?" Kane cried passionately.

"The full moon. At the full of each moon, which we name the Moon of
Skulls, a virgin dies on the Black Altar before the Tower of Death,
where centuries ago, virgins died in honor of Golgor, the god of
Atlantis. Now from the face of the tower that once housed the glory of
Golgor, leers down the skull of the renegade wizard, and the people
believe that his brain still lives therein to guide the star of the
city. For look ye, stranger, when the full moon gleams over the rim
of the tower and the chant of the priests falls silent, then from the
skull of Nakura thunders a great voice, raised in an ancient Atlantean
chant, and the black people fall on their faces before it.

"But hark, there is a secret way, a stair leading up to a hidden niche
behind the skull, and there a priest lurks and chants. In days gone by
one of the sons of Atlantis had this office, and by all rights of men
and gods it should be mine this day. For though we sons of Atlantis
worshipped our ancient gods in secret, the black people would have none
of them and to hold our power we were devotees to their foul gods and
we sang and sacrificed to him whose memory we cursed.

"But Nakari discovered the secret, known before only to the brown
priests, and now one of her black Satellites mounts the hidden
stair and yammers forth the strange and terrible chant which is but
meaningless gibberish to him, as to those who hear it. I, and only I,
know its grim and fearful meaning."

Kane's brain whirled in his efforts to formulate some plan of action.
For the first time during the whole search for the girl, he felt
himself against a blank wall. This palace was a labyrinth, a maze
in which he could decide no direction. The corridors seemed to run
without plan or purpose, and how could he find Marylin, prisoned as
she doubtless was in one of the myriad chambers or cells? Or had she
already passed over the borderline of life, or succumbed to the brutal
torture-lust of Nakari?

He scarcely heard the ravings and mutterings of the dying man.

"Stranger, do you indeed live or are you but one of the ghosts which
have haunted me of late, stealing through the darkness of my cell?
Nay, you are flesh and blood--but you are a white savage, as Nakari's
race are black savages--eons ago when your ancestors were defending
their caves against the tiger and the mammoth, with crude spears of
flint, the gold spires of my people split the stars! They are gone and
forgotten, and the world is a waste of barbarians, white and black. Let
me, too, pass as a dream that is forgotten in the mists of the ages----"

Kane rose and paced the cell. His fingers closed like steel talons as
on a sword hilt and a blind red wave of fury surged through his brain.
Oh God! to get his foes before the keen blade that had been taken from
him--to face the whole city, one man against them all----

Kane pressed his hands against his temples.

"The moon was nearly full when last I saw it. But I know not how long
ago that was. I know not how long I have been in this accursed palace,
or how long I lay in that dungeon where Nakari threw me. The time of
full moon may be past, and--oh merciful God!--Marylin may be dead
already."

"Tonight is the Moon of Skulls," muttered the other; "I heard one of my
jailers speak of it."

Kane gripped the dying man's shoulder with unconscious force.

"If you hate Nakari or love mankind, in God's name tell me how to save
the child."

"Love mankind?" the priest laughed insanely. "What has a son of
Atlantis and a priest of forgotten Golgor to do with love? What are
mortals but food for the jaws of the black gods? Softer girls than
your Mara have died screaming beneath these hands and my heart was as
iron to their cries. Yet hate"--the strange eyes flamed with fearful
light--"for hate I will tell you what you wish to know!

"Go to the Tower of Death when the moon is risen. Slay the black priest
who lurks behind the skull of Nakura, and then when the chanting of the
worshippers below ceases, and the masked slayer beside the Black Altar
raises the sacrificial dagger, speak in a loud voice that the people
can understand, bidding them set free the victim and offer up instead,
Nakari, queen of Negari!

"As for the rest, afterward you must rely on your own craft and prowess
if you come free."

Kane shook him.

"Swift! Tell me how I am to reach this tower!"

"Go back through the door whence you came." The man was sinking fast,
his words dropped to whispers. "Turn to the left and go a hundred
paces. Mount the stair you come to, as high as it goes. In the corridor
where it ceases go straight for another hundred paces, and when
you come to what seems a blank wall, feel over it until you find a
projecting spring. Press this and enter the door which will open. You
will then be out of the palace and in the cliffs against which it is
built, and in the only one of the secret corridors known to the people
of Negari. Turn to your right and go straight down the passage for five
hundred paces. There you will come to a stair which leads up to the
niche behind the skull. The Tower of Death is built into the cliff and
projects above it. There are two stairs----"

Suddenly the voice trailed out. Kane leaned forward and shook the man
but he suddenly rose up with a great effort. His eyes blazed with a
wild and unearthly light and he flung his shackled arms wide.

"The sea!" he cried in a great voice. "The golden spires of Atlantis
and the sun on the deep blue waters! I come!"

And as Kane reached to lay him down again, he slumped back, dead.




                   _6. The Shattering of the Skull_

    "By thought a crawling ruin,
      By life a leaping mire,
    By a broken heart in the breast of the world,
      And the end of the world's desire."

    --Chesterton.


Kane wiped the cold sweat from his pale brow as he hurried down the
shadowy passage. Outside this horrible palace it must be night. Even
now the full moon--the grim Moon of Skulls--might be rising above the
horizon. He paced off a hundred paces and came upon the stair the dying
priest had mentioned. This he mounted, and coming into the corridor
above, he measured off another hundred paces and brought up short
against what appeared to be a doorless wall. It seemed an age before
his frantic fingers found a piece of projecting metal. There was a
creak of rusty hinges as the hidden door swung open and Kane looked
into a passageway darker than the one in which he stood.

He entered, and when the door shut behind him he turned to his right
and groped his way along for five hundred paces. There the corridor was
lighter; light sifted in from without, and Kane discerned a stairway.
Up this he went for several steps, then halted, baffled. At a sort of
landing the stairway became two, one leading away to the left, the
other to the right. Kane cursed. He felt that he could not afford to
make a mistake--time was too precious--but how was he to know which
would lead him to the niche where the priest hid?

The Atlantean had been about to tell him of these stairs when struck by
the delirium which precedes death, and Kane wished fervently that he
had lived only a few moments longer.

At any rate, he had no time to waste; right or wrong, he must chance
it. He chose the right hand stair and ran swiftly up it. No time for
caution now. He felt instinctively that the time of the sacrifice
was close at hand. He came into another passage and discerned by the
change in masonry that he was out of the cliffs again and in some
building--presumably the Tower of Death. He expected any moment to come
upon another stair, and suddenly his expectations were realized--but
instead of up, it led down. From somewhere in front of him Kane
heard a vague, rhythmic murmur and a cold hand gripped his heart. The
chanting of the worshippers before the Black Altar!

He raced forward recklessly, rounded a turn in the corridor, brought
up short against a door and looked through a tiny aperture. His heart
sank. He had chosen the wrong stair and had wandered into some other
building adjoining the Tower of Death.

He looked upon a grim and terrible scene. In a wide open space before
a great black tower whose spire rose above the crags behind it, two
long lines of black dancers swayed and writhed. Their voices rose in
a strange meaningless chant, and they did not move from their tracks.
From their knees upward their bodies swayed in fantastic rhythmical
motions, and in their hands torches tossed and whirled, shedding a
lurid shifting red light over the scene. Behind them were ranged a vast
concourse of people who stood silent. The dancing torchlight gleamed on
a sea of glittering eyes and black faces. In front of the dancers rose
the Tower of Death, gigantically tall, black and horrific. No door or
window opened in its face, but high on the wall in a sort of ornamented
frame there leered a grim symbol of death and decay. The skull of
Nakura! A faint eery glow surrounded it, lit somehow from within the
tower, Kane knew, and wondered by what strange art the priests had kept
the skull from decay and dissolution so long.

But it was neither the skull nor the tower which gripped the Puritan's
horrified gaze and held it. Between the converging lines of yelling,
swaying worshippers there rose a great black altar. On this altar lay a
slim white shape.

"Marylin!" the word burst from Kane's lips in a great sob.

For a moment he stood frozen, helpless, struck blind. No time now to
retrace his steps and find the niche where the skull priest lurked.
Even now a faint glow was apparent behind the spire of the tower,
etching that spire blackly against the sky. The moon had risen. The
chant of the dancers soared up to a frenzy of sound and from the
silent watchers behind them began a sinister low rumble of drums. To
Kane's dazed mind it seemed that he looked on some red debauch of a
lower Hell. What ghastly worship of past eons did these perverted and
degenerate rites symbolize? Kane knew that these black people aped the
rituals of their former masters in their crude way, and even in his
despair he found time to shudder at the thought of what those original
rites must have been.

Now a fearful shape rose up beside the altar where lay the silent girl.
A tall black man, entirely naked save for a hideous painted mask on his
face and a great head-dress of waving plumes. The drone of the chant
sank low for an instant, then rose up again to wilder heights. Was it
the vibrations of their song that made the floor quiver beneath Kane's
feet?

Kane with shaking fingers began to unbar the door. Naught to do now
but to rush out barehanded and die beside the girl he could not save.
Then his gaze was blocked by a giant form which shouldered in front of
the door. A huge black man, a chief by his bearing and apparel, leaned
idly against the wall as he watched the proceedings. Kane's heart gave
a great leap. This was too good to be true! Thrust in the black man's
girdle was the pistol he himself had carried! He knew that his weapons
must have been divided among his captors. This pistol meant nothing
to the chief, but he must have been taken by its strange shape and
was carrying it as savages will wear useless trinkets, or perhaps he
thought it a sort of war-club. At any rate, there it was. And again
floor and building seemed to tremble.

Kane pulled the door silently inward and crouched in the shadows behind
his victim like a great brooding tiger. His brain worked swiftly and
formulated his plan of action. There was a dagger in the girdle beside
the pistol; the black man's back was turned squarely to him and he must
strike from the left to reach the heart and silence him quickly. All
this passed through Solomon's brain in a flash as he crouched.

The black man was not aware of his foe's presence until Kane's lean
right hand shot across his shoulder and clamped on his mouth, jerking
him backward. At the same instant the Puritan's left hand tore the
dagger from the girdle and with one desperate plunge sank the keen
blade home. The black crumpled without a sound and in an instant Kane's
pistol was in its owner's hand. A second's investigation showed that it
was still loaded and the flint still in place.

No one had seen the swift murder. Those few who stood near the doorway
were all facing the Black Altar, enwrapped in the drama which was there
unfolding. As Kane stepped across the corpse, the chanting of the
dancers ceased abruptly. In the instant of silence which followed, Kane
heard, above the pounding of his own pulse, the nightwind rustle the
death-like plumes of the masked horror beside the altar. A rim of the
moon glowed above the spire.

Then from high up on the face of the Tower of Death a deep voice boomed
out in a strange chant. Mayhap the black priest who spoke behind the
skull knew not what his words meant, but Kane believed that he at least
mimicked the very intonation of those long-dead brown acolytes. Deep,
mystic, resonant the voice sounded out, like the endless flowing of
long tides on the broad white beaches.

The masked one beside the altar drew himself up to his great height and
raised a long glimmering blade. Kane recognized his own sword, even as
he leveled his pistol and fired--not at the masked priest but full at
the skull which gleamed in the face of the tower! For in one blinding
flash of intuition he remembered the dying Atlantean's words: "Their
brains hinge on the skull of Nakura!"

Simultaneously with the crack of the pistol came a shattering crash;
the dry skull flew into a thousand pieces and vanished, and behind
it the chant broke off short in a death shriek. The rapier fell from
the hand of the masked priest and many of the dancers crumpled to
the earth, the others halting short, spellbound. Through the deathly
silence which reigned for an instant, Kane rushed toward the altar;
then all Hell broke loose.

A babel of bestial screams rose to the shuddering stars. For
centuries only their faith in the dead Nakura had held together the
blood-drenched brains of the black Negari. Now their symbol had
vanished, had been blasted into nothing before their eyes. It was to
them as if the skies had split, the moon fallen and the world ended.
All the red visions which lurked at the backs of their corroded brains
leaped into fearful life, all the latent insanity which was their
heritage rose to claim its own, and Kane looked upon a whole nation
turned to bellowing maniacs.

Screaming and roaring they turned on each other, men and women, tearing
with frenzied fingernails, stabbing with spears and daggers, beating
each other with the flaming torches, while over all rose the roar of
frantic human beasts. With clubbed pistol Kane battered his way through
the surging, writhing ocean of flesh, to the foot of the altar stairs.
Nails raked him, knives slashed at him, torches scorched his garments
but he paid no heed.

Then as he reached the altar, a terrible figure broke from the
struggling mass and charged him. Nakari, queen of Negari, crazed as any
of her subjects, rushed upon the white man with dagger bared and eyes
horribly aflame.

"You shall not escape this time, white man!" she was screaming, but
before she reached him a great black giant, dripping blood and blind
from a gash across his eyes, reeled across her path and lurched into
her. She screamed like a wounded cat and struck her dagger into him,
and then the groping hands closed on her. The blind giant whirled her
on high with one dying effort, and her last scream knifed the din of
battle as Nakari, last queen of Negari, crashed against the stones of
the altar and fell shattered and dead at Kane's feet.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kane sprang up the black steps, worn deep by the feet of myriad priests
and victims, and as he came, the masked figure, who had stood like one
turned to stone, came suddenly to life. He bent swiftly, caught up the
sword he had dropped and thrust savagely at the charging white man. But
the dynamic quickness of Solomon Kane was such as few men could match.
A twist and sway of his steely body and he was inside the thrust, and
as the blade slid harmlessly between arm and chest, he brought down the
heavy pistol barrel among the waving plumes, crashing head-dress, mask
and skull with one blow.

Then ere he turned to the fainting girl who lay bound on the altar, he
flung aside the shattered pistol and snatched his stolen sword from
the nerveless hand which still grasped it, feeling a fierce thrill of
renewed confidence at the familiar feel of the hilt.

Marylin lay white and silent, her death-like face turned blindly to the
light of the moon which shone calmly down on the frenzied scene. At
first Kane thought her to be dead, but his searching fingers detected a
faint flutter of pulse. He cut her bonds and lifted her tenderly--only
to drop her again and whirl as a hideous blood-stained figure of
insanity came leaping and gibbering up the steps. Full upon Kane's
out-thrust blade the creature ran, and toppled back into the red swirl
below, clawing beast-like at its mortal wound.

Then beneath Kane's feet the altar rocked; a sudden tremor hurled him
to his knees and his horrified eyes beheld the Tower of Death sway to
and fro. Some horror of Nature was taking place and this fact pierced
the crumbling brains of the fiends who fought and screamed below. A
new element entered into their shrieking, and then the Tower of Death
swayed far out with a terrible and awesome majesty--broke from the
rocking crags and gave way with a thunder of crashing worlds. Great
stones and shards of masonry came raining down, bringing death and
destruction to hundreds of screaming humans below. One of these stones
crashed to pieces on the altar beside Kane, showering him with dust.

"Earthquake!" he gasped, and smitten by this new terror he caught up
the senseless girl and plunged recklessly down the cracking steps,
hacking and stabbing a way through the crimson whirlpools of bestial
humanity that still tore and ravened.

The rest was a red nightmare, in which Kane's dazed brain refused to
record all its horrors. It seemed that for screaming crimson centuries
he reeled through narrow winding streets where bellowing, screeching
black demons battled and died, among titanic walls and black columns
that rocked against the sky and crashed to ruin about him, while the
earth heaved and trembled beneath his staggering feet and the thunder
of crashing towers filled the world.

Gibbering fiends in human shape clutched and clawed at him, to fade
before his flailing sword, and falling stones bruised and battered him.
He crouched as he reeled along, covering the girl with his body as best
he could, sheltering her alike from blind stone and blinder human. And
at last, when it seemed mortal endurance had reached its limit, he saw
the great black outer wall of the city loom before him, rent from earth
to parapet and tottering for its fall. He dashed through a crevice, and
gathering his efforts, made one last sprint. And scarce was he out of
reach than the wall crashed, falling inward like a great black wave.

The night wind was in his face and behind him rose the clamor of the
doomed city as Kane staggered down the hill path that trembled beneath
his feet.




                       _7. The Faith of Solomon_

    "The last lost giant, even God,
      Is risen against the world."

    --Chesterton.


Dawn lay like a cool white hand on the brow of Solomon Kane. The
nightmares faded from his soul as he breathed deep of the morning wind
which blew up from the jungle far below his feet--a wind laden with
the musk of decaying vegetation; yet it was like the breath of life to
him, for the scents were those of the clean natural disintegration of
outdoor things, not the loathsome aura of decadent antiquity that lurks
in the walls of eon-old cities--Kane shuddered involuntarily.

He bent over the sleeping girl who lay at his feet, arranged as
comfortably as possible with the few soft tree branches he had
been able to find for her bed. Now she opened her eyes and stared
about wildly for an instant; then as her gaze met the face of
Solomon, lighted by one of his rare smiles, she gave a little sob of
thankfulness and clung to him.

"Oh, Captain Kane! Have we in truth escaped from yon fearful city? Now
it seems all like a dream--after you fell through the secret door in my
chamber Nakari later went to your dungeon--as she told me--and returned
in vile humor. She said you were a fool, for she had offered you the
kingdom of the world and you had but insulted her. She screamed and
raved and cursed like one insane and swore that she would yet, alone,
build a great empire of Negari. Then she turned on me and reviled me,
saying that you held me--a slave--in more esteem than a queen and all
her glory. And in spite of my pleas she took me across her knees and
whipped me until I swooned.

"Afterward I lay half senseless for a long time, and was only dimly
aware that men came to Nakari and said that you had escaped; they said
you were a sorcerer, for you faded through a solid wall like a ghost.
But Nakari killed the men who had brought you from the cell, and for
hours she was like a wild beast.

"How long I lay thus I know not. In those terrible rooms and corridors
where no natural sunlight ever entered, one lost all track of time.
But from the time you were captured by Nakari and the time that I was
placed on the altar, at least a day and a night and another day must
have passed. It was only a few hours before the sacrifice that word
came you had escaped.

"Nakari and her Star-maidens came to prepare me for the rite." At the
bare memory of that fearful ordeal she whimpered and hid her face in
her hands. "I must have been drugged--I only know that they clothed me
in the white robe of the sacrifice and carried me into a great black
chamber filled with horrid statues. There I lay for a space like one in
a trance while the women performed various strange and shameful rites
according to their grim religion. Then I fell into a swoon, and when I
emerged I was lying bound on the Black Altar--the torches were tossing
and the devotees chanting--behind the Tower of Death the rising moon
was beginning to glow--all this I knew faintly, as in a deep dream. And
as in a dream I saw the glowing skull high on the tower--and the gaunt
black naked priest holding a sword above my heart; then I knew no more.
What happened?"

"At about that moment," Kane answered, "I emerged from a building
wherein I had wandered by mistake, and blasted their hellish skull to
atoms with a pistol ball. Whereupon, all these people, being cursed
from birth by demons, and being likewise possessed of devils, fall
to slaying one another, and in the midst of the tumult an earthquake
cometh to pass which shakes the walls down. Then I snatch you up, and
running at random, come upon a rent in the outer wall and thereby
escape, carrying you, who seem in a swoon.

"Once only you awoke, after I had crossed the Bridge-Across-the-Sky,
as the black people called it, which was crumbling beneath our feet by
reason of the earthquake. After I had come to these cliffs, but dared
not descend them in the darkness, the moon being nigh to setting by
that time, you awoke and screamed and clung to me, whereupon I soothed
you as best I might, and after a time you fell into a natural sleep."

"And now what?" asked the girl.

"England!" Kane's deep eyes lighted at the word. "I find it hard to
remain in the land of my birth for more than a month at a time; yet
though I am cursed with the wanderlust, 'tis a name which ever rouses a
glow in my bosom. And how of you, child?"

"Oh heaven!" she cried, clasping her small hands. "Home! Something of
which to be dreamed--never attained, I fear. Oh Captain Kane, how shall
we gain through all the vast leagues of jungle which lie between this
place and the coast?"

"Marylin," said Kane gently, stroking her curly hair, "methinks you
lack somewhat in faith, both in Providence and in me. Nay, alone I am
a weak creature, having no strength or might in me; yet in times past
hath God made me a great vessel of wrath and a sword of deliverance.
And, I trust, shall do so again.

"Look you, little Marylin: in the last few hours as it were, we have
seen the passing of an evil race and the fall of a foul black empire.
Men died by thousands about us, and the earth rose beneath our feet,
hurling down towers that broke the heavens; yea, death fell about us
in a red rain, yet we escaped unscathed.

"Therein is more than the hand of man! Nay, a Power--the mightiest
Power! That which guided me across the world, straight to that demon
city--which led me to your chamber--which aided me to escape again and
led me to the one man in all the city who would give the information I
must have, the strange, evil priest of an elder race who lay dying in
a subterranean cell--and which guided me to the outer wall, as I ran
blindly and at random--for should I have come under the cliffs which
formed the rest of the wall, we had surely perished. That same Power
brought us safely out of the dying city, and safe across the rocking
bridge--which shattered and thundered down into the chasm just as my
feet touched solid earth!

"Think you that having led me this far, and accomplished such wonders,
the Power will strike us down now? Nay! Evil flourishes and rules in
the cities of men and the waste places of the world, but anon the great
giant that is God rises and smites for the righteous, and they lay
faith on him.

"I say this: this cliff shall we descend in safety, and yon dank jungle
traverse in safety, and it is as sure that in old Devon your people
shall clasp you again to their bosom, as that you stand here."

And now for the first time Marylin smiled, with the quick eagerness
of a normal young girl, and Kane sighed in relief. Already the ghosts
were fading from her haunted eyes, and Kane looked to the day when her
horrible experiences should be as a dimming dream. One glance he flung
behind him, where beyond the scowling hills the lost city of Negari lay
shattered and silent, amid the ruins of her own walls and the fallen
crags which had kept her invincible so long, but which had at last
betrayed her to her doom. A momentary pang smote him as he thought
of the myriad of crushed, still forms lying amid those ruins; then
the blasting memory of their evil crimes surged over him and his eyes
hardened.

"And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the
fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of
the pit shall be taken in the snare; for the windows from on high are
open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.

"For Thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defended city a ruin; a
palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built.

"Moreover, the multitude of Thy strangers shall be like small dust
and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth
suddenly away; yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly.

"Stay yourselves and wonder; cry ye out and cry; they are drunken but
not with wine; they stagger but not with strong drink.

"Verily, Marylin," said Kane with a sigh, "with mine own eyes have I
seen the prophecies of Isaiah come to pass. They were drunken but not
with wine! Nay, blood was their drink and in that red flood they dipped
deep and terribly."

Then taking the girl by the hand he started toward the edge of the
cliff. At this very point had he ascended, in the night--how long ago
it seemed.

Kane's clothing hung in tatters about him. He was torn, scratched and
bruised. But in his eyes shone the clear calm light of serenity as the
sun came up, flooding cliffs and jungle with a golden light that was
like a promise of joy and happiness.


                                THE END



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