Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

— ie of the Black Coast 1. Conan Joins the Pirates Probably the most popular series of stories that ever appeared in Weird Tales magazine were the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard. Taking place in a period of time lying just before the last ice age—roughly about 25,000 years ago—Mr. Howard had worked out for his own guidance a history and chronology of these barbarous and mystery-darkened realms he fancied may have existed in that “Hyborian” age. Among those time-lost scenes there roves the figure of his hero, a savage from the North, who fights and romances his restless way among the witchcraft and magic-makers of the shadowy kingdoms that antedated Egypt. “Queen of the Black Coast’ is a Conan story of high adventure among pirates in an Africa darker ny far than any known to our explorers. Believe green buds awaken in the spring, That autumn paints the leaves with somber fire; Believe I held my heart inviolate To lavish on one man my hot desire. —The Song of Bélit. Z OOFS drummed down the street that sloped to the wharfs. The folk that yelled and scattered had only a fleet- ing glimpse of a mailed figure on a black stallion, a wide scarlet cloak flowing | out on the wind. Far up the street came the shout and clatter of pursuit, but the horseman did not look back. He swept out onto the wharfs and jerked the plunging stallion back on its haunches at the very lip of the pier. Seamen gaped up at him, as they stood to the sweep and striped sail of a high- prowed, broad-waisted : galley. The master, sturdy and black-bearded, stood in the bows, easing her away from the piles with a boat-hook. He veld angrily as the horseman sprang from the saddle and with a long leap yes squarely on the mid-deck. “Who invited you aboard?” “Get under way!” roared the intruder with a fierce gesture that spattered red drops from his broadsword. Comicbooks.com