Free Moon of Skulls by Robert E. Howard Page A

races will be dead. The white men’s secrets of war will be his. When it comes, I look for a simultaneous uprising against white supremacy, of all the colored races — races who, in the last war, learned the white men’s ways of battle, and who, led by such a man as Kathulos and armed with white men’s finest weapons, will be almost invincible.
    “A steady stream of rifles and ammunition has been pouring into East Africa and it was not until I discovered the source that it was stopped. I found that a staid and reliable Scotch firm was smuggling these arms among the natives and I found more: the manager of this firm was an opium slave. That was enough. I saw Kathulos’ hand in the matter. The manager was arrested and committed suicide in his cell — that is only one of the many situations with which I am called upon to deal.
    “Again, the case of Major Fairlan Morley. He, like myself, held a very flexible commission and had been sent to the Transvaal to work upon the same case. He sent to London a number of secret papers for safekeeping. They arrived some weeks ago and were put in a bank vault. The letter accompanying them gave explicit instructions that they were to be delivered to no one but the major himself, when he called for them in person, or in event of his death, to myself.
    “As soon as I learned that he had sailed from Africa I sent trusted men to Bordeaux, where he intended to make his first landing in Europe. They did not succeed in saving the major’s life, but they certified his death, for they found his body in a deserted ship whose hulk was stranded on the beach. Efforts were made to keep the affair a secret but somehow it leaked into the papers with the result —”
    “I begin to understand why I was to impersonate the unfortunate major,” I interrupted.
    “Exactly. A false beard furnished you, and your black hair dyed blond, you would have presented yourself at the bank, received the papers from the banker, who knew Major Morley just intimately enough to be deceived by your appearance, and the papers would have then fallen into the hands of the Master.
    “I can only guess at the contents of those papers, for events have been taking place too swiftly for me to call for and obtain them. But they must deal with subjects closely connected with the activities of Kathulos. How he learned of them and of the provisions of the letter accompanying them, I have no idea, but as I said, London is honeycombed with his spies.
    “In my search for clues, I often frequented Limehouse disguised as you first saw me. I went often to the Temple of Dreams and even once managed to enter the back room, for I suspected some sort of rendezvous in the rear of the building. The absence of any exit baffled me and I had no time to search for secret doors before I was ejected by the giant black man Hassim, who had no suspicion of my true identity. I noticed that very often the leper entered or left Yun Shatu’s, and finally it was borne on me that past a shadow of doubt this supposed leper was the Scorpion himself.
    “That night you discovered me on the couch in the opium room, I had come there with no especial plan in mind. Seeing Kathulos leaving, I determined to rise and follow him, but you spoiled that.”
    He fingered his chin and laughed grimly.
    “I was an amateur boxing champion in Oxford,” said he, “but Tom Cribb himself could not have withstood that blow — or have dealt it.”
    “I regret it as I regret few things.”
    “No need to apologize. You saved my life immediately afterward — I was stunned, but not too much to know that that brown devil Yussef Ali was burning to cut out my heart.”
    “How did you come to be at Sir Haldred Frenton’s estate? And how is it that you did not raid Yun Shatu’s dive?”
    “I did not have the place raided because I knew somehow Kathulos would be warned and our efforts would come to naught. I was at Sir Haldred’s that night because I have contrived to spend at