Chapter 3

"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.

_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.