Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 02.djvu/53

Rh Thwaine asked in gentle tones calculated not to alarm the nervous woman: "Ating, what danger threatens us in the arena!"

"Hess… Bubaste… Bast, the cat-goddess. She lives only when the moon is full. When its first rays touch her image she awakes to stalk whatever prey is convenient, and no man has ever come forth alive from the arena. If Throal chances to be asleep when the moon blooms, Hess will wander out over the desert and slay any unfortunate she may encounter. After killing a victim, she devours the body. I have seen her kill; the screaming is terrible, for she stalks her prey as a cat pursues a mouse. There is no escape from the arena, for the walls are sheer and often slippery with the evening dews."

"Where do your people keep this cat-goddess?" inquired Thwaine, while Rald lay silent on his cot and lent an anxious ear to her tremulous reply.

"Did not you see it out on the sands? In the center?"

"That was a stone image!" grunted Rald. "A sphinx–or some other Eastern idiosyncrasy. Do you seek to make fools of us, woman?"

"In the daytime it is stone," explained the girl, "but at night, when the sun is down, it quivers with life. And when the full moon illuminates the heavens it stalks the earth–and those that meet it die!"

"Listen!" yelled Rald in an angry tone. "I've had enough of this! Women who are warriors! A queen who is not a queen! Magicians that hypnotize a kingdom but sleep for sixty days! A goddess in the shape of a cat that lopes about for her dinner in the moonlight and becomes stone in the sunlight! By the Seven, Thwaine, if you must rant and rave, at least have the courtesy to do it more quietly so I can get some rest."

sideways on his uncomfortable cot, Rald promptly went to sleep, ignoring them both. Occasionally he emitted rude snorts as he slept that may have been subconscious remarks directed at the ignominy of his incarceration.

"My regrets," apologized the ever-tactful Thwaine to their wide-eyed guard. "My associate, while always the truest comrade and the bravest friend, is inclined to be suspicious of new acquaintances and somewhat dubious of magical forces. You will observe what I mean when we are placed, as you have told us we shall be, in the den of this cat-goddess."

With a stifled cry Ating abruptly fled from the bars of the cell. Whether she was possessed with solicitude for the mercenaries or filled with anger at Rald's incivility Thwaine could not determine. He mused while his companion snored. If only, he thought, he had a sword-hilt with which to soundly thwack Rald's scarred brow! Now and then some slight sound, such as the movement of a sandaled foot when its wearer changes position, told him Ating was still at her post in the corridor. But she did not come to the bars again, nor did he attempt to summon her. Disconsolately he sought to relax as best he could amid his hampering chains, and wooed Morpheus–without success.

He was still awake when tramping feet announced the return of the guard; softly he called to the sleeping Rald, but with such a note of urgency in his voice that the dazed ex-thief strove to spring to his feet, bewildered and reaching in vain for a sword he no longer wore.

"They come for us, Rald!"

"Is that all? I was just about to skewer King Hagar on a very excellent Livian spear–and then these cursed women come to stumble around my bedchamber!" He yawned. "Well, it will be