Queen of the Black Coast Read online

her lover,and his race meant naught, save as it invested him with the glamor offar lands.

  'And I am Belit,' she cried, as one might say, 'I am queen.'

  'Look at me, Conan!' She threw wide her arms. 'I am Belit, queen of theblack coast. Oh, tiger of the North, you are cold as the snowy mountainswhich bred you. Take me and crush me with your fierce love! Go with meto the ends of the earth and the ends of the sea! I am a queen by fireand steel and slaughter--be thou my king!'

  His eyes swept the blood-stained ranks, seeking expressions of wrath orjealousy. He saw none. The fury was gone from the ebon faces. Herealized that to these men Belit was more than a woman: a goddess whosewill was unquestioned. He glanced at the _Argus_, wallowing in thecrimson sea-wash, heeling far over, her decks awash, held up by thegrappling-irons. He glanced at the blue-fringed shore, at the far greenhazes of the ocean, at the vibrant figure which stood before him; andhis barbaric soul stirred within him. To quest these shining blue realmswith that white-skinned young tiger-cat--to love, laugh, wander andpillage--

  'I'll sail with you,' he grunted, shaking the red drops from his blade.

  'Ho, N'Yaga!' her voice twanged like a bowstring. 'Fetch herbs and dressyour master's wounds! The rest of you bring aboard the plunder and castoff.'

  As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shamanattended to the cuts on his hands and limbs, the cargo of the ill-fated_Argus_ was quickly shifted aboard the _Tigress_ and stored in smallcabins below deck. Bodies of the crew and of fallen pirates were castoverboard to the swarming sharks, while wounded blacks were laid in thewaist to be bandaged. Then the grappling-irons were cast off, and as the_Argus_ sank silently into the blood-flecked waters, the _Tigress_ movedoff southward to the rhythmic clack of the oars.

  As they moved out over the glassy blue deep, Belit came to the poop. Hereyes were burning like those of a she-panther in the dark as she toreoff her ornaments, her sandals and her silken girdle and cast them athis feet. Rising on tiptoe, arms stretched upward, a quivering line ofnaked white, she cried to the desperate horde: 'Wolves of the blue sea,behold ye now the dance--the mating-dance of Belit, whose fathers werekings of Askalon!'

  And she danced, like the spin of a desert whirlwind, like the leaping ofa quenchless flame, like the urge of creation and the urge of death. Herwhite feet spurned the blood-stained deck and dying men forgot death asthey gazed frozen at her. Then, as the white stars glimmered through theblue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with awild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of theCimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting formagainst the black plates of his corseleted breast.