Free The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1 by Robert E. Howard Page A

breast, and the letters S.L.K. carved upon his dead cheeks.
    “Then the Spaniard Juan is struck down, and after we find him he lives long enough to tell us that his slayer is an Englishman, Solomon Kane, who has sworn to destroy our entire band! What then? La Costa, a swordsman second only to yourself, goes forth swearing to meet this Kane. By the demons of perdition, it seems he met him! For we found his sword-pierced corpse upon a cliff. What now? Are we all to fall before this English fiend?”
    “True, our best men have been done to death by him,” mused the bandit chief. “Soon the rest return from that little trip to the hermit’s; then we shall see. Kane can not hide forever. Then–ha, what was that?”
    The two turned swiftly as a shadow fell across the table. Into the entrance of the cave that formed the bandit lair, a man staggered. His eyes were wide and staring; he reeled on buckling legs, and a dark red stain dyed his tunic. He came a few tottering steps forward, then pitched across the table, sliding off onto the floor.
    “Hell’s devils!” cursed the Wolf, hauling him upright and propping him in a chair. “Where are the rest, curse you?”
    “Dead! All dead!”
    “How? Satan’s curses on you, speak!” The Wolf shook the man savagely, the other bandit gazing on in wide-eyed horror.
    “We reached the hermit’s hut just as the moon rose,” the man muttered. “I stayed outside–to watch–the others went in–to torture the hermit–to make him reveal–the hiding place–of his gold.”
    “Yes, yes! Then what?” The Wolf was raging with impatience.
    “Then the world turned red–the hut went up in a roar and a red rain flooded the valley–through it I saw–the hermit and a tall man clad all in black–coming from the trees–”
    “Solomon Kane!” gasped the bandit. “I knew it! I–”
    “Silence, fool!” snarled the chief. “Go on!”
    “I fled–Kane pursued–wounded me–but I outran–him–got–here–first–”
    The man slumped forward on the table.
    “Saints and devils!” raged the Wolf. “What does he look like, this Kane?”
    “Like–Satan–”
    The voice trailed off in silence. The dead man slid from the table to lie in a red heap upon the floor.
    “Like Satan!” babbled the other bandit. “I told you! ’Tis the Horned One himself! I tell you–”
    He ceased as a frightened face peered in at the cave entrance.
    “Kane?”
    “Aye.” The Wolf was too much at sea to lie. “Keep close watch, La Mon; in a moment the Rat and I will join you.”
    The face withdrew and Le Loup turned to the other.
    “This ends the band,” said he. “You, I, and that thief La Mon are all that are left. What would you suggest?”
    The Rat’s pallid lips barely formed the word: “Flight!”
    “You are right. Let us take the gems and gold from the chests and flee, using the secret passageway.”
    “And La Mon?”
    “He can watch until we are ready to flee. Then–why divide the treasure three ways?”
    A faint smile touched the Rat’s malevolent features. Then a sudden thought smote him.
    “He,” indicating the corpse on the floor, “said, ‘I got here first.’ Does that mean Kane was pursuing him here?” And as the Wolf nodded impatiently the other turned to the chests with chattering haste.
    The flickering candle on the rough table lighted up a strange and wild scene. The light, uncertain and dancing, gleamed redly in the slowly widening lake of blood in which the dead man lay; it danced upon the heaps of gems and coins emptied hastily upon the floor from the brass-bound chests that ranged the walls; and it glittered in the eyes of the Wolf with the same gleam which sparkled from his sheathed dagger.
    The chests were empty, their treasure lying in a shimmering mass upon the blood-stained floor. The Wolf stopped and listened. Outside was silence. There was no moon, and Le Loup’s keen imagination pictured the dark slayer, Solomon Kane, gliding through the blackness, a