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In the split seconds this swift action consumed, the boatswain regained his feet and fell on the Cimmerian, raining blows with a cutlass that would have overwhelmed a lesser man. Cutlass met cutlass with a ring of steel that was deafening in the narrow cavern.

Meanwhile the two captains, terrified of they knew not what in the cavern, scuttled back out of the doorway so quickly that the demon had not fully materialized before they were over the magical boundary and out of its reach. By the time they rose to their feet, reaching for their swords, the monster had diffused again into blue mist.

Hotly engaged with the boatswain, Conan redoubled his efforts to dispose of his antagonist before help could come to him. The boatswain dripped blood at each step as he was driven back before the ferocious onslaught, bellowing for his companions. Before Conan could deal the finishing stroke, the two chiefs came at him with swords in their hands, shouting for their men.

The Cimmerian bounded back and leaped out on to the ledge. Although he felt himself a match for all three men—each a famed swordsman—he did not wish to be trapped by the crews, which would come charging up the path at the sound of the battle.

These were not coming with as much celerity as he expected, however. They were bewildered by the sounds and the muffled shouts issuing from the cavern above them, but no man dared start up the path for fear of a sword in the back. Each band faced the other tensely, grasping their weapons but incapable of decision. When they saw the Cimmerian bound out on the ledge, they still hesitated. While they stood with their arrows nocked, he ran up the ladder of handholds niched in the crag near the cleft and threw himself prone on the summit of the crag, out of their sight.

The captains stormed out on the ledge, raving and brandishing their swords.

Their men, seeing that their leaders were not at sword-strokes, ceased menacing each other and gaped in bewilderment

“Dog!” screamed Zarono. “You planned to trap and murder us! Traitor!”

Conan mocked them from above. “Well, what did you expect? You two were planning to cut my throat as soon as I got the plunder for you. If it hadn’t been for that fool Galbro, I should have trapped the four of you and explained to your men how you rushed in heedless to your doom.”

“And with us both dead, you’d have taken my ship and all the loot, too!” frothed Strombanni.

“Aye! And the pick of each crew! I’ve been thinking of coming back to the Main for months, and this was a good opportunity!

“It was Galbro’s footprints I saw on the trail, although I know not how the fool learned of this cave, or how he expected to lug the loot away by himself.”

“But for the sight of his body, we should have walked into that deathtrap,” muttered Zarono, his swarthy face still ashy.

“What was it,” said Strombanni. “Some poisonous mist?”

“Nay, it writhed like a live thing and came together in some fiendish form ere we backed out. It is some devil bound to the cave by a spell.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” their unseen tormentor yelled sardonically.

“What shall we do?” Zarono asked Strombanni. “The treasure cavern cannot be entered.”

“You, can’t get the treasure,” Conan assured them from his eyrie. “The demon will strangle you. It nearly got me, when I stepped in there. Listen, and I’ll tell you a tale the Picts tell in their huts when the fires bum low!

“Once, long ago, twelve strange men came out of the sea. They fell upon a Pictish village and put all the folk to the sword, except a few who fled in time. Then they found a cave and heaped it with gold and jewels. But a shaman of the slaughtered Picts—one of those who escaped—made magic and evoked a demon from one of the lower hells. By his sorcerous powers, he forced this demon to enter the cavern and strangle the men as they sat at wine. And, lest this demon thereafter roam abroad and molest the Picts themselves, the shaman confined it by his magic to the inner cavern. The tale was told from tribe to tribe, and all the clans shun the accursed spot.

“When I crawled in there to escape the Eagle Picts, I realized that the old legend was true and referred to Tranicos and his men. Death guards old Tranicos’s treasure!”

“Bring up the men!” frothed Strombanni. “We’ll climb up and hew him down!”

“Don’t be a fool!” snarled Zarano. “Think you any man on earth could climb those handholds in the teeth of his sword? We’ll have the men up here, right enough, to feather him with shafts if he dares show himself. But we’ll get those gems yet. He has some plan of obtaining the loot, or he’d not have brought thirty men to bear it back. If he could get it, so can we. We’ll bend a cutlass blade to make a hook, tie it to a rope, and cast it about the leg of that table, then drag it to the door.”

“Well thought, Zarono!” came down Conan’s mocking voice. “Exactly what I had in mind. But how will you find your way back to the beach path? It’ll be dark long before you reach the beach, if you have to feel your way through the woods, and I’ll follow you and kill you one by one in the dark.”

“If’s no empty boast,” muttered Strombanni. “He can move and strike in the dark as subtly and silently as a ghost. If he hunts us back through the forest, few of us will live to see the beach.”

“Then we’ll kill him here,” gritted Zarono. “Some of us will shoot at him, while the rest climb the crag. If he is not struck by arrows, some of us will reach him with our swords. Listen! Why does he laugh?”

“To hear dead men making plots,” came Conan’s grimly amused voice.

“Heed him not,” scowled Zarono. Lifting his voice, he shouted for the men below to join him and Strombanni on the ledge.

The sailors started up the slanting trail, and one started to shout a question. Simultaneously there sounded a hum like that of an angry bee, ending with a sharp thud. The buccaneer gasped, and blood gushed from his open mouth. He sank to his knees, a black shaft protruding from his back. A yell of alarm went up from his companions.

“What’s the matter?” shouted Strombanni.

“Picts!” bawled a pirate, lifting his bow and loosing blindly. At his side, a man moaned and went down with an arrow through his throat.

“Take cover, you fools!” shrieked Zarono. From his vantage point, he glimpsed painted figures moving in the bushes. One of the men on the winding path fell back dying. The rest scrambled hastily down among the rocks about the foot of the crag. They took cover clumsily, not being used to fighting of this kind. Arrows flickered from the bushes, splintering on the boulders. The men on the ledge lay prone.

“We’re trapped!” said Strombanni, his face pale. Bold enough with a deck under his feet, this silent, savage warfare shook his ruthless nerves. “Conan said they feared this crag,” said Zarono. “When night falls, the men must climb up here. We’ll hold this crag; the Picts won’t rush us.”

“Aye!” mocked Conan above them. “They won’t climb the crag to get at you, that’s true. They’ll merely surround it and keep you here until you all die of thirst and starvation.”

“He speaks truth,” said Zarono helplessly. “What shall we do?”

“Make a truce with him,” muttered Strombanni. “If any man can get us out of this jam, he can. Time enough to cut his throat later.” Lifting his voice, he called:

“Conan, let’s forget our feud for the time being. You’re in this fix as much as we are. Come down and help us out of it.”

“How do you figure that?” retorted the Cimmerian. “I have but to wait until dark, climb down the other side of this crag, and melt into the forest. I can crawl through the line the Picts have thrown around this hill, return to the fort, and report you all slain by the savages—which will shortly be the truth!”