"Robert E. Howard - Conan - Vale of Lost Women" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

that he was accorded the respect due to a king. Since he had no stool, Bajujh renounced his also,
and sat on the mats with his guest. When a new pot of beer was brought, the king of Bakalah barely
sipped it before he passed it to the white man. Power! All this ceremonial courtesy pointed to
power - strength - prestige! Livia trembled in excitement as a breathless plan began to form in
her mind.
So she watched the white man with painful intensity, noting every detail of his appearance.
He was tall; neither in height nor in massiveness was he exceeded by many of the giant blacks. He
moved with the lithe suppleness of a great panther. When the firelight caught his eyes, they
burned like blue fire. High-strapped sandals guarded his feet, and from his broad girdle hung a
sword in a leather scabbard. His appearance was alien and unfamiliar. Livia had never seen his
like, but she made no effort to classify his position among the races of mankind. It was enough
that his skin was white.
The hours passed, and gradually the roar of revelry lessened, as men and women sank into
drunken sleep. At last Bajujh rose tottering, and lifted his hands, less a sign to end the feast,
than a token of surrender in the contest of gorging and guzzling, and stumbling, was caught by his
warriors, who bore him to his hut. The white man rose, apparently none the worse for the
incredible amount of beer he had quaffed, and was escorted to the guest hut by such of the Bakalah
headmen as were able to reel along. He disappeared into the hut, and Livia noticed that a dozen of
his own spearmen took their places about the structure, spears ready. Evidently the stranger was
taking no chances on Bajujh's friendship.
Livia cast her glance about the village, which faintly resembled a dusky Night of Judgment,
what with the straggling streets strewn with drunken shapes. She knew that men in full possession
of their faculties guarded the outer boma, but the only wakeful men she saw inside the village
were the spearmen about the white man's hut - and some of these were beginning to nod and lean on
their spears.
With her heart beating hammer-like, she glided to the back of her prison hut and out the
door, passing the snoring guard Bajujh had set over her. Like an ivory shadow she glided across
the space between her hut and that occupied by the stranger. On her hands and knees she crawled up
to the back of that hut. A black giant squatted here, his plumed head sunk on his knees. She


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wriggled past him to the wall of the hut. She had first been imprisoned in that hut, and a narrow
aperture in the wall, hidden inside by a hanging mat, represented her weak and pathetic attempt at
escape. She found the opening, turned sidewise and wriggled her lithe body through, thrusting the
inner mat aside.
Firelight from without faintly illumined the interior of the hut. Even as she thrust back the
mat, she heard a muttered curse, felt a vise-like grasp in her hair, and was dragged bodily
through the aperture and plumped down on her feet.
Staggering with the suddenness of it, she gathered her scattered wits together, and raked her
disordered tresses out of her eyes to stare up into the face of the white man who towered over
her, amazement written on his dark scarred face. His sword was naked in his hand, and his eyes
blazed like bale-fire, whether with anger, suspicion or surprize she could not judge. He spoke in
a language she could not understand - a tongue which was not a negro guttural, yet did not have a
civilized sound.
"Oh, please!" she begged. "Not so loud. They will hear ..."
"Who are you?" he demanded, speaking Ophirean with a barbarous accent. "By Crom, I never
thought to find a white girl in this hellish land!"