Shadows in the Moonlight Read online

clambering about the walls. After awhile a score of themcame back across the plateau and vanished among the trees on the westernrim, dragging the body of Sergius after them, presumably to cast intothe sea. About the ruins the others were cutting down trees and securingmaterial for a fire. Olivia heard their shouts, unintelligible in thedistance, and she heard the voices of those who had gone into the woods,echoing among the trees. Presently they came back into sight, bearingcasks of liquor and leathern sacks of food. They headed for the ruins,cursing lustily under their burdens.

  Of all this Olivia was but mechanically cognizant. Her overwrought brainwas almost ready to collapse. Left alone and unprotected, she realizedhow much the protection of the Cimmerian had meant to her. Thereintruded vaguely a wonderment at the mad pranks of Fate, that could makethe daughter of a king the companion of a red-handed barbarian. With itcame a revulsion toward her own kind. Her father, and Shah Amurath, theywere civilized men. And from them she had had only suffering. She hadnever encountered any civilized man who treated her with kindness unlessthere was an ulterior motive behind his actions. Conan had shielded her,protected her, and--so far--demanded nothing in return. Laying her headin her rounded arms she wept, until distant shouts of ribald revelryroused her to her own danger.

  She glanced from the dark ruins about which the fantastic figures, smallin the distance, weaved and staggered, to the dusky depths of the greenforest. Even if her terrors in the ruins the night before had been onlydreams, the menace that lurked in those green leafy depths below was nofigment of nightmare. Were Conan slain or carried away captive, her onlychoice would lie between giving herself up to the human wolves of thesea, or remaining alone on that devil-haunted island.

  As the full horror of her situation swept over her, she fell forward ina swoon.