Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 29: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

QUEEN OF THE BLACK COAST 25 hips it caught the hurtling shape, and the knotted legs fell one way, the torso another as the blade sheared clear through its hairy body. Conan steod in the moonlit silence, the dripping sword sagging in his hand, staring down at the remnants of his enemy. The red eyes glared up at him with awful life, then glazed and set; the great hands knotted spasmodically and stiffened. And the oldest race in the world was extinct. Conan lifted his head, mechanically searching for the beast-things that had been its slaves and executioners. None met his gaze. The bodies he saw litter- ing the moon-splashed grass were of men, not beasts: hawk-faced, dark- skinned men, naked, transfixed by arrows or mangled by sword-strokes. And they were crumbling into dust before his eyes. Why had not the winged master come to the aid of its slaves when he struggled with them? Had it feared to come within reach of fangs that might turn and rend it? Craft and caution had lurked in that misshapen skull, but had not availed in the end. Turning on his heel, the Cimmerian strode down the rotting wharfs and stepped aboard the galley. A few strokes of his sword cut her adrift, and he went to the sweep-head. The Tigress rocked slowly in the sullen water, sliding out sluggishly toward the middle of the river, until the broad current caught her. Conan leaned on the sweep, his somber gaze fixed.on the cloak-wrapped shape that lay in state on the pyre the richness of which was equal to the ransom of an empress. 5. The Funeral Pyre Now we are done with roaming, evermore; No more the oars, the windy harp’s refrain; Nor crimson pennon frights the dusky shore; Blue girdle of the world, receive again Her whom thou gavest me. —The Song of Bélit. Again dawn tinged the ocean. A redder glow lit the river-mouth. Conan of Cimmeria leaned on, his great sword upon the white beach, watching the Tigress swinging out on her last voyage. There was no light in his eyes that contemplated the glassy swells. Out of the rolling blue wastes all’ glory and wonder had gone. A fierce revulsion shook him as he gazed at the green surges that deepened into purple hazes of mystery. Bélit had been of the sea; she had lent it splendor and allure. Without her it rolled a barren, dreary and desolate waste from pole to pole. She belonged to the sea; to its everlasting mystery he returned her. He could do no more. For himself, its glittering blue splendor was more repellent than the leafy conmicbooks (©)