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may also make of her an instrument for the thwarting of Mitra and the triumph of Set.'
     

    VI
     
    Pirate, Barbarian, Rescuer
     
    'Sail ho!'
    The shout from the masthead of Tigress wakened an answering roar on deck. Her crew bounded about like black panthers, to drag forth chests stowed under rowers' benches, open them, take out battle gear, spring to stations. In the prow, Bêlit laughed aloud and pointed into the starboard quarter. There was no necessity for that; teeth gleamed ivory-white in the faces of the two helmsmen as they changed course. Conan snatched his mate to him and kissed her briefly and fiercely, before he jumped down to equip himself.
    A brisk wind filled the sail and sent the galley soaring across wrinkled, glittery green-and-blue whitecaps. Limber hull and taut rigging creaked, as if to add their voices to the war chant that rose among the buccaneers. The mainland lay below the eastern horizon, but a mile or so to port, surf beat on an islet whose rocks lifted bleached and barren toward the azure emptiness above.
    Conan rejoined Bêlit. His great form now shone in hauberk and horned helmet; sword and dirk were sheathed at his waist and an elliptical Suba shield was on his left arm. For her part she had merely fetched a pair of slender blades, and otherwise wore the same tunic and headband as before. Her hair was braided and coiled for action.
    He peered ahead. They were closing in rapidly on their prey, a big-bellied Stygian merchantman. He could see her crew scramble about, trying to coax more speed out of the square sail, then readying themselves for an encounter they realized was inevitable.
    'Here continues my revenge,' Bêlit exulted.
    'She ought to have a cargo worth taking,' Conan opined, 'and in frankness, dearest, I've gotten hungry for a good fight.' He scowled.
    'I told you before, a woman lacks a man's sheer strength,' she explained. 'Armour would but weight me down, without fending off a hard-driven arrow or keeping a solid blow from breaking my neck. Hut when we come to close quarters, you have seen I am as agile as any and more so than most.'
    He put uneasiness from him. Crom, chief god of the Cimmerians, gave might and heart to those he favoured, and nothing else, that they may be able to hew their own ways through the world. Had the land of Crom reached down to the Black Coast and touched Bêlit in her mother's womb? Conan could well believe that.
    For a moment he recalled his stark homeland. Far indeed had he wandered from it, and wild had been his adventures. Finally he had come upon love, but he knew that was by the same blind chance that -could at any instant reave it away again. He squared his shoulders. It behoved a man – or a woman- to stand up to every onslaught of the fates, unquelled.
    Besides, he thought with a quick grin, it did look like a fine scrap ahead. The freighter's crew did not include many full-fledged warriors, to judge by their conduct, but they outnumbered the pirates, and every sailor learned early on how to handle himself in a tussle.
    Arrows began to fly from her decks. Archers among the Suba returned the barrage, while their comrades gibed and howled at the foe. Sunlight glittered off spears shaken aloft. A shaft thunked into the figurehead of Tigress, an inch from Bêlit, and Conan snarled. She laughed. Down below, a Negro took one in his right thigh. He wrenched it loose, staunched the wound, and resumed his eager stance at the rail. A man aboard the Stygian vessel lurched, smitten in the throat, crumpled, and toppled over the side. As he splashed, a triangular fin cruised forward.
    Bêlit yelled orders. Tigress drew upwind of her quarry. Hauled sharply about and poled out, her sail brought her toward the other hull. A huge ebon warrior amidships whirled a grapnel over his head and let it fly. Trailing a cord, it bit fast in the bulwarks. Immediately he sent another. 'Wa-ho-ah!' roared his fellows, and hauled so the muscles moved like snakes under