"Robert E. Howard - Conan - Rogues In The House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

Murilo scaled the wall and dropped down into the gardens, which were
expanses of shadow, darkened by clumps of shrubbery and waving foliage.
No light shone in the windows of the house, which loomed so blackly among
the trees. The young nobleman stole stealthily yet swiftly through the
shrubs. Momentarily he expected to hear the baying of the great dog and to
see its giant body hurtle through the shadows. He doubted the effectiveness
of his sword against such an attack, but he did not hesitate. As well die
beneath the fangs of a beast as of the headsman.

He stumbled over something bulky and yielding. Bending close in the dim
starlight, he made out a limp shape on the ground. It was the dog that
guarded the gardens, and it was dead. Its neck ws broken and it bore what
seemed to be the marks of great fangs. Murilo felt that no human being had
done this. The beast had met a monster more savage than itself. Murilo
glared nervously at the cryptic masses of bush and shrub; then with a shrug
of his shoulders, he approached the silent house.

The first door he tried proved to be unlocked. He entered warily, sword in
hand, and found himself in a long, shadowy hallway dimly illuminated by a
light that gleamed through the hangings at the other end. Complete silence
hung over the whole house. Murilo glided along the hall and halted to peer
through the hangings. He looked into a lighted room, over the windows of
which velvet curtains were drawn so closely as to allow no beam to shine
through. The room was empty, in so far as human life was concerned, but it
had a grisly occupant, nevertheless. in the midst of a wreckage of furniture
and torn hangings that told of a fearful struggle, lay the body of a man. The
form lay on its belly, but the head was twisted about so that the chin rested
behind a shoulder. The features, contorted into an awful grin, seemed to leer
at the horrified nobleman.

For the first time that night, Murilo's resolution wavered. He cast an
uncertain glance back the way he had come. Then the memory of the
headsman's block and axe steeled him, and he crossed the room, swerving
to avoid the grinning horror sprawled in its midst. Though he had never seen
the man before, he knew from former descriptions that it was Joka,
Nabonidus' saturnine servant.

He peered through a curtained door into a broad circular chamber,
banded by a gallery half-way between the polished floor and the lofty ceiling.
This chamber was furnished as if for a king. In the midst of it stood an
ornate mahogany table, loaded with vessels of wine and rich viands. And
Murilo stiffened. In a great chair whose broad back was toward him, he saw
a figure whose habilments were familiar. He glimpsed an arm in a red sleeve
resting on the arm of the chair; the head, clad in the familiar scarlet hood of
the gown, was bent forward as if in meditation. Just so had Murilo seen
Nabonidus sit a hundred times in the royal court.

Cursing the pounding of his own heart, the young nobleman stole across
the chamber, sword extended, his whole frame poised for the thrust. His