Read Online Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures by Robert E. Howard - Free Book Online Page B

“No matter. An Andalusian sword can be bought as easily as a Cairene’s, and – ”
    “By the beard of Ali!” exclaimed the Moor in a gust of ungovernable passion, tearing out his saber; then a stealthy pad of feet brought him round, springing back and wheeling to keep both the Turk and the newcomers before him. But the Turk had drawn his own scimitar, and was glaring past him.
    Three huge figures loomed menacingly in the shadows, the dim starlight glinting on broad curved blades. There was a glimmer, too, of white teeth, and rolling white eyeballs.
    For an instant there was tense stillness; then one muttered in the thick gutturals of the Sudan: “Which is the dog? Here be two clad alike and the darkness makes them twins.”
    “Cut them both down,” replied another, who towered half a head above his tall companions. “We must make no mistake, nor leave any witness.”
    And so saying the three negroes came on in deadly silence, the giant advancing on the Moor, the other two on the Turk.
    Yusuf ibn Suleyman did not await the attack. With a snarling oath, he ran at the approaching colossus and slashed furiously at his head. The black man caught the stroke on his uplifted blade, and grunted beneath the impact. But the next instant, with a crafty twist and wrench, he had locked the Moor’s blade under his guard and torn the weapon from his opponent’s hand, to fall ringing on the stones. A searing curse ripped from Yusuf’s lips. He had not expected to encounter such a combination of skill and brute strength.
    But fired to fighting madness, he did not hesitate. Even as the giant swept the broad scimitar aloft, the Moor sprang in under his lifted arm, shouting a wild war-cry, and drove his poniard to the hilt in the negro’s broad breast. Blood spurted along Yusuf’s wrist, and the scimitar fell waveringly, to cut through his silk kafiyeh and glance from the steel cap beneath. The giant sank dying to the ground.
    Yusuf ibn Suleyman caught up his saber and looked about to locate his late antagonist.
    The Turk had met the attack of the two negroes coolly, retreating slowly to keep them in front of him, and suddenly slashed one across the breast and shoulder, so that he dropped his sword and fell to his knees with a moan. But even as he fell, he gripped his slayer’s knees and hung on like a brainless leech, without mind or reason. The Turk kicked and struggled in vain; those black arms, bulging with iron muscles, held him motionless, while the remaining black redoubled the fury of his strokes. The Turk could neither advance nor retreat, nor could he spare the single lightning flicker of his blade that would have rid him of his incubus.
    Even as the black swordsman drew breath for a stroke that the cumbered Turk could not have parried, he heard the swift rush of feet behind him, cast a wild glance over his shoulder, and saw the Moor close upon him, eyes blazing, lips asnarl in the starlight. Before the negro could turn, the Moorish saber drove through him with such fury that the blade sprang its full length out of his breast, while the hilt smote him fiercely between the shoulders; life went out of him with an inarticulate cry.
    The Turk caved in the shaven skull of the other negro with his scimitar hilt, and shaking himself free of the corpse, turned to the Moor who was twisting his saber out of the twitching body it transfixed.
    “Why did you come to my aid?” inquired the Turk. Yusuf ibn Suleyman shrugged his broad shoulders at the unnecessary quality of the question.
    “We were two men beset by rogues,” quoth he. “Fate made us allies. Now if you wish, we will take up anew our quarrel. You said I spied upon you.”
    “And I see my mistake and crave your pardon,” answered the other promptly. “I know now who has been skulking after me down the dark alleys.”
    Sheathing his scimitar, he bent over each corpse in turn, peering intently at the bloody features. When he reached the body of the giant slain by