CHAPTER II. The Black Lotus

    _In that dead citadel of crumbling stone
      Her eyes were snared by that unholy sheen,
    And curious madness took me by the throat,
      As of a rival lover thrust between._

    THE SONG OF BÊLIT

The _Tigress_ ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tomtoms
beat in the night, with a tale that the she-devil of the sea had found a
mate, an iron man whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. And
survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Bêlit with curses, and a
white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered
this man long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore
crimson fruit in the years to come.

But heedless as a vagrant wind, the _Tigress_ cruised the southern
coasts, until she anchored at the mouth of a broad sullen river, whose
banks were jungle-clouded walls of mystery.

'This is the river Zarkheba, which is Death,' said Bêlit. 'Its waters
are poisonous. See how dark and murky they run? Only venomous reptiles
live in that river. The black people shun it. Once a Stygian galley,
fleeing from me, fled up the river and vanished. I anchored in this very
spot, and days later, the galley came floating down the dark waters, its
decks blood-stained and deserted. Only one man was on board, and he was
mad and died gibbering. The cargo was intact, but the crew had vanished
into silence and mystery.

'My lover, I believe there is a city somewhere on that river. I have
heard tales of giant towers and walls glimpsed afar off by sailors who
dared go part-way up the river. We fear nothing: Conan, let us go and
sack that city!'

Conan agreed. He generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind that
directed their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas. It
mattered little to him where they sailed or whom they fought, so long as
they sailed and fought. He found the life good.

Battle and raid had thinned their crew; only some eighty spearmen
remained, scarcely enough to work the long galley. But Bêlit would not
take the time to make the long cruise southward to the island kingdoms
where she recruited her buccaneers. She was afire with eagerness for her
latest venture; so the _Tigress_ swung into the river mouth, the oarsmen
pulling strongly as she breasted the broad current.

They rounded the mysterious bend that shut out the sight of the sea, and
sunset found them forging steadily against the sluggish flow, avoiding
sandbars where strange reptiles coiled. Not even a crocodile did they
see, nor any four-legged beast or winged bird coming down to the water's
edge to drink. On through the blackness that preceded moonrise they
drove, between banks that were solid palisades of darkness, whence came
mysterious rustlings and stealthy footfalls, and the gleam of grim eyes.
And once an inhuman voice was lifted in awful mockery--the cry of an
ape, Bêlit said, adding that the souls of evil men were imprisoned in
these man-like animals as punishment for past crimes. But Conan doubted,
for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an
abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been
about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the
shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.

Then the moon rose, a splash of blood, ebony-barred, and the jungle
awoke in horrific bedlam to greet it. Roars and howls and yells set the
black warriors to trembling, but all this noise, Conan noted, came from
farther back in the jungle, as if the beasts no less than men shunned
the black waters of Zarkheba.

Rising above the black denseness of the trees and above the waving
fronds, the moon silvered the river, and their wake became a rippling
scintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shining road
of bursting jewels. The oars dipped into the shining water and came up
sheathed in frosty silver. The plumes on the warrior's headpiece nodded
in the wind, and the gems on sword-hilts and harness sparkled frostily.

The cold light struck icy fire from the jewels in Bêlit's clustered
black locks as she stretched her lithe figure on a leopardskin thrown
on the deck. Supported on her elbows, her chin resting on her slim
hands, she gazed up into the face of Conan, who lounged beside her, his
black mane stirring in the faint breeze. Bêlit's eyes were dark jewels
burning in the moonlight.

'Mystery and terror are about us, Conan, and we glide into the realm of
horror and death,' she said. 'Are you afraid?'

A shrug of his mailed shoulders was his only answer.

'I am not afraid either,' she said meditatively. 'I was never afraid. I
have looked into the naked fangs of Death too often. Conan, do you fear
the gods?'

'I would not tread on their shadow,' answered the barbarian
conservatively. 'Some gods are strong to harm, others, to aid; at least
so say their priests. Mitra of the Hyborians must be a strong god,
because his people have builded their cities over the world. But even
the Hyborians fear Set. And Bel, god of thieves, is a good god. When I
was a thief in Zamora I learned of him.'

'What of your own gods? I have never heard you call on them.'

'Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on
him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to
call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is
grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay
into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?'

'But what of the worlds beyond the river of death?' she persisted.

'There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people,' answered
Conan. 'In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure
only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray
misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout
eternity.'

Bêlit shuddered. 'Life, bad as it is, is better than such a destiny.
What do you believe, Conan?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'I have known many gods. He who denies them
is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death.
It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's
realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the
Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while
I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my
palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when
the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and
priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I
know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being
thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I
slay, and am content.'

'But the gods are real,' she said, pursuing her own line of thought.
'And above all are the gods of the Shemites--Ishtar and Ashtoreth and
Derketo and Adonis. Bel, too, is Shemitish, for he was born in ancient
Shumir, long, long ago and went forth laughing, with curled beard and
impish wise eyes, to steal the gems of the kings of old times.

'There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of
Cimmeria--' she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish
embrace--'my love is stronger than any death! I have lain in your arms,
panting with the violence of our love; you have held and crushed and
conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with the fierceness of your
bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart, my soul is part of
your soul! Were I still in death and you fighting for life, I would come
back from the abyss to aid you--aye, whether my spirit floated with the
purple sails on the crystal sea of paradise, or writhed in the molten
flames of hell! I am yours, and all the gods and all their eternities
shall not sever us!'

A scream rang from the lookout in the bows. Thrusting Bêlit aside, Conan
bounded up, his sword a long silver glitter in the moonlight, his hair
bristling at what he saw. The black warrior dangled above the deck,
supported by what seemed a dark pliant tree trunk arching over the rail.
Then he realized that it was a gigantic serpent which had writhed its
glistening length up the side of the bow and gripped the luckless
warrior in its jaws. Its dripping scales shone leprously in the
moonlight as it reared its form high above the deck, while the stricken
man screamed and writhed like a mouse in the fangs of a python. Conan
rushed into the bows, and swinging his great sword, hewed nearly through
the giant trunk, which was thicker than a man's body. Blood drenched the
rails as the dying monster swayed far out, still gripping its victim,
and sank into the river, coil by coil, lashing the water to bloody foam,
in which man and reptile vanished together.

Thereafter Conan kept the lookout watch himself, but no other horror
came crawling up from the murky depths, and as dawn whitened over the
jungle, he sighted the black fangs of towers jutting up among the trees.
He called Bêlit, who slept on the deck, wrapped in his scarlet cloak;
and she sprang to his side, eyes blazing. Her lips were parted to call
orders to her warriors to take up bow and spears; then her lovely eyes
widened.

It was but the ghost of a city on which they looked when they cleared a
jutting jungle-clad point and swung in toward the in-curving shore.
Weeds and rank river grass grew between the stones of broken piers and
shattered paves that had once been streets and spacious plazas and broad
courts. From all sides except that toward the river, the jungle crept
in, masking fallen columns and crumbling mounds with poisonous green.
Here and there buckling towers reeled drunkenly against the morning sky,
and broken pillars jutted up among the decaying walls. In the center
space a marble pyramid was spired by a slim column, and on its pinnacle
sat or squatted something that Conan supposed to be an image until his
keen eyes detected life in it.

'It is a great bird,' said one of the warriors, standing in the bows.

'It is a monster bat,' insisted another.

'It is an ape,' said Bêlit.

Just then the creature spread broad wings and flapped off into the
jungle.

'A winged ape,' said old N'Yaga uneasily. 'Better we had cut our throats
than come to this place. It is haunted.'

Bêlit mocked at his superstitions and ordered the galley run inshore and
tied to the crumbling wharfs. She was the first to spring ashore,
closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinned
pirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyes
rolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.

Over all brooded a silence as sinister as that of a sleeping serpent.
Bêlit posed picturesquely among the ruins, the vibrant life in her lithe
figure contrasting strangely with the desolation and decay about her.
The sun flamed up slowly, sullenly, above the jungle, flooding the
towers with a dull gold that left shadows lurking beneath the tottering
walls. Bêlit pointed to a slim round tower that reeled on its rotting
base. A broad expanse of cracked, grass-grown slabs led up to it,
flanked by fallen columns, and before it stood a massive altar. Bêlit
went swiftly along the ancient floor and stood before it.

'This was the temple of the old ones,' she said. 'Look--you can see the
channels for the blood along the sides of the altar, and the rains of
ten thousand years have not washed the dark stains from them. The walls
have all fallen away, but this stone block defies time and the
elements.'

'But who were these old ones?' demanded Conan.

She spread her slim hands helplessly. 'Not even in legendary is this
city mentioned. But look at the handholes at either end of the altar!
Priests often conceal their treasures beneath their altars. Four of you
lay hold and see if you can lift it.'

She stepped back to make room for them, glancing up at the tower which
loomed drunkenly above them. Three of the strongest blacks had gripped
the handholes cut into the stone--curiously unsuited to human
hands--when Bêlit sprang back with a sharp cry. They froze in their
places, and Conan, bending to aid them, wheeled with a startled curse.

'A snake in the grass,' she said, backing away. 'Come and slay it; the
rest of you bend your backs to the stone.'

Conan came quickly toward her, another taking his place. As he
impatiently scanned the grass for the reptile, the giant blacks braced
their feet, grunted and heaved with their huge muscles coiling and
straining under their ebon skin. The altar did not come off the ground,
but it revolved suddenly on its side. And simultaneously there was a
grinding rumble above and the tower came crashing down, covering the
four black men with broken masonry.

A cry of horror rose from their comrades. Bêlit's slim fingers dug into
Conan's arm-muscles. 'There was no serpent,' she whispered. 'It was but
a ruse to call you away. I feared; the old ones guarded their treasure
well. Let us clear away the stones.'

With herculean labor they did so, and lifted out the mangled bodies of
the four men. And under them, stained with their blood, the pirates
found a crypt carved in the solid stone. The altar, hinged curiously
with stone rods and sockets on one side, had served as its lid. And at
first glance the crypt seemed brimming with liquid fire, catching the
early light with a million blazing facets. Undreamable wealth lay before
the eyes of the gaping pirates; diamonds, rubies, bloodstones,
sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, opals, emeralds, amethysts, unknown
gems that shone like the eyes of evil women. The crypt was filled to the
brim with bright stones that the morning sun struck into lambent flame.

With a cry Bêlit dropped to her knees among the blood-stained rubble on
the brink and thrust her white arms shoulder-deep into that pool of
splendor. She withdrew them, clutching something that brought another
cry to her lips--a long string of crimson stones that were like clots of
frozen blood strung on a thick gold wire. In their glow the golden
sunlight changed to bloody haze.

Bêlit's eyes were like a woman's in a trance. The Shemite soul finds a
bright drunkenness in riches and material splendor, and the sight of
this treasure might have shaken the soul of a sated emperor of Shushan.

'Take up the jewels, dogs!' her voice was shrill with her emotions.

'Look!' a muscular black arm stabbed toward the _Tigress_, and Bêlit
wheeled, her crimson lips a-snarl, as if she expected to see a rival
corsair sweeping in to despoil her of her plunder. But from the gunwales
of the ship a dark shape rose, soaring away over the jungle.

'The devil-ape has been investigating the ship,' muttered the blacks
uneasily.

'What matter?' cried Bêlit with a curse, raking back a rebellious lock
with an impatient hand. 'Make a litter of spears and mantles to bear
these jewels--where the devil are you going?'

'To look to the galley,' grunted Conan. 'That bat-thing might have
knocked a hole in the bottom, for all we know.'

He ran swiftly down the cracked wharf and sprang aboard. A moment's
swift examination below decks, and he swore heartily, casting a clouded
glance in the direction the bat-being had vanished. He returned hastily
to Bêlit, superintending the plundering of the crypt. She had looped the
necklace about her neck, and on her naked white bosom the red clots
glimmered darkly. A huge naked black stood crotch-deep in the
jewel-brimming crypt, scooping up great handfuls of splendor to pass
them to eager hands above. Strings of frozen iridescence hung between
his dusky fingers; drops of red fire dripped from his hands, piled high
with starlight and rainbow. It was as if a black titan stood
straddle-legged in the bright pits of hell, his lifted hands full of
stars.

'That flying devil has staved in the water-casks,' said Conan. 'If we
hadn't been so dazed by these stones we'd have heard the noise. We were
fools not to have left a man on guard. We can't drink this river water.
I'll take twenty men and search for fresh water in the jungle.'

She looked at him vaguely, in her eyes the blank blaze of her strange
passion, her fingers working at the gems on her breast.

'Very well,' she said absently, hardly heeding him. 'I'll get the loot
aboard.'

The jungle closed quickly about them, changing the light from gold to
gray. From the arching green branches creepers dangled like pythons. The
warriors fell into single file, creeping through the primordial
twilights like black phantoms following a white ghost.

Underbrush was not so thick as Conan had anticipated. The ground was
spongy but not slushy. Away from the river, it sloped gradually upward.
Deeper and deeper they plunged into the green waving depths, and still
there was no sign of water, either running stream or stagnant pool.
Conan halted suddenly, his warriors freezing into basaltic statues. In
the tense silence that followed, the Cimmerian shook his head irritably.

'Go ahead,' he grunted to a sub-chief, N'Gora. 'March straight on until
you can no longer see me; then stop and wait for me. I believe we're
being followed. I heard something.'

The blacks shuffled their feet uneasily, but did as they were told. As
they swung onward, Conan stepped quickly behind a great tree, glaring
back along the way they had come. From that leafy fastness anything
might emerge. Nothing occurred; the faint sounds of the marching
spearmen faded in the distance. Conan suddenly realized that the air was
impregnated with an alien and exotic scent. Something gently brushed his
temple. He turned quickly. From a cluster of green, curiously leafed
stalks, great black blossoms nodded at him. One of these had touched
him. They seemed to beckon him, to arch their pliant stems toward him.
They spread and rustled, though no wind blew.

He recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, and
whose scent brought dream-haunted slumber. But already he felt a subtle
lethargy stealing over him. He sought to lift his sword, to hew down the
serpentine stalks, but his arm hung lifeless at his side. He opened his
mouth to shout to his warriors, but only a faint rattle issued. The next
instant, with appalling suddenness, the jungle waved and dimmed out
before his eyes; he did not hear the screams that burst out awfully not
far away, as his knees collapsed, letting him pitch limply to the earth.
Above his prostrate form the great black blossoms nodded in the windless
air.