Short Fiction - Robert E. Howard (the reading list TXT) 📗

In the dark shadows of the forest some uncanny nightbird lifted a mocking voice. A thousand minor notes sounded⁠—birds, and beasts, and the devil knows what else! Some great jungle cat began a hair-lifting yowling. I shrugged my shoulders and turned from the windows. Surely devils lurked in those somber depths.

There came a knock at my door and I opened it, to admit de Montour.

He strode to the window and gazed at the moon, which rode resplendent and glorious.

“The moon is almost full, is it not, Monsieur?” he remarked, turning to me. I nodded, and I could have sworn that he shuddered.

“Your pardon, Monsieur. I will not annoy you further.” He turned to go, but at the door turned and retraced his steps.

“Monsieur,” he almost whispered, with a fierce intensity, “whatever you do, be sure you bar and bolt your door tonight!”

Then he was gone, leaving me to stare after him bewilderedly.

I dozed off to sleep, the distant shouts of the revelers in my ears, and though I was weary, or perhaps because of it, I slept lightly. While I never really awoke until morning, sounds and noises seemed to drift to me through my veil of slumber, and once it seemed that something was prying and shoving against the bolted door.

As is to be supposed, most of the guests were in a beastly humor the following day and remained in their rooms most of the morning or else straggled down late. Besides Dom Vincente there were really only three of the masculine members sober: de Montour; the Spaniard, de Seville (as he called himself); and myself. The Spaniard never touched wine, and though de Montour consumed incredible quantities of it, it never affected him in any way.

The ladies greeted us most graciously.

“S’truth, Signor,” remarked that minx Marcita, giving me her hand with a gracious air that was like to make me snicker, “I am glad to see there are gentlemen among us who care more for our company than for the wine cup; for most of them are most surprisingly befuddled this morning.”

Then with a most outrageous turning of her wondrous eyes, “Methinks someone was too drunk to be discreet last night⁠—or not drunk enough. For unless my poor senses deceive me much, someone came fumbling at my door late in the night.”

“Ha!” I exclaimed in quick anger, “some⁠—!”

“No. Hush.” She glanced about as if to see that we were alone, then: “Is it not strange that Signor de Montour, before he retired last night, instructed me to fasten my door firmly?”

“Strange,” I murmured, but did not tell her that he had told me the same thing.

“And is it not strange, Pierre, that though Signor de Montour left the banquet hall even before you did, yet he has the appearance of one who has been up all night?”

I shrugged. A woman’s fancies are often strange.

“Tonight,” she said roguishly, “I will leave my door unbolted and see whom I catch.”

“You will do no such thing.”

She showed her little teeth in a contemptuous smile and displayed a small, wicked dagger.

“Listen, imp. De Montour gave me the same warning he did you. Whatever he knew, whoever prowled the halls last night, the object was more apt murder than amorous adventure. Keep you your doors bolted. The lady Ysabel shares your room, does she not?”

“Not she. And I send my woman to the slave quarters at night,” she murmured, gazing mischievously at me from beneath drooping eyelids.

“One would think you a girl of no character from your talk,” I told her, with the frankness of youth and of long friendship. “Walk with care, young lady, else I tell your brother to spank you.”

And I walked away to pay my respects to Ysabel. The Portuguese girl was the very opposite of Marcita, being a shy, modest young thing, not so beautiful as the Italian, but exquisitely pretty in an appealing, almost childish air. I once had thoughts⁠—Hi ho! To be young and foolish!

Your pardon, Messieurs. An old man’s mind wanders. It was of de Montour that I meant to tell you⁠—de Montour and Dom Vincente’s mink-faced cousin.

A band of armed natives were thronged about the gates, kept at a distance by the Portuguese soldiers. Among them were some score of young men and women all naked, chained neck to neck. Slaves they were, captured by some warlike tribe and brought for sale. Dom Vincente looked them over personally.

Followed a long haggling and bartering, of which I quickly wearied and turned away, wondering that a man of Dom Vincente’s rank could so demean himself as to stoop to trade.

But I strolled back when one of the natives of the village nearby came up and interrupted the sale with a long harangue to Dom Vincente.

While they talked de Montour came up, and presently Dom Vincente turned to us and said, “One of the woodcutters of the village was torn to pieces by a leopard or some such beast last night. A strong young man and unmarried.”

“A leopard? Did they see it?” suddenly asked de Montour, and when Dom Vincente said no, that it came and went in the night, de Montour lifted a trembling hand and drew it across his forehead, as if to brush away cold sweat.

“Look you, Pierre,” quoth Dom Vincente, “I have here a slave who, wonder of wonders, desires to be your man. Though the devil only knows why.”

He led up a slim young Jakri, a mere youth, whose main asset seemed a merry grin.

“He is yours,” said Dom Vincente. “He is goodly trained and will make a fine servant. And look ye, a slave is of an advantage over a servant, for all he requires is food and a loincloth or so with a touch of the whip to keep him in his place.”

It was not long before I learned why Gola wished to be “my man,” choosing me among all the rest. It was because of my hair. Like many dandies of that day, I wore it long