"And you said the builders of the place were humans who only worshiped the swamp-lizards!"  Zafriti turned in her saddle to give Isaiab a petulant, angry look.  "Conan guessed otherwise - didn't you, Conan?"

The Cimmerian's horse ambled some distance from hers, yet the glance of her artfully painted eyes brushed him so forcefully that he could almost feel its tingle.

Zafriti held up a ring poised in her fingertips for her companions' inspection.  It was a large stone of pink carnelian with a greenish-silver setting in the form of two crocodiles biting one another's tails.  "Knowing the truth, I could never bear to put this on my finger."  She turned it glinting in the sunrays, affecting a shiver of her trim shoulders.

Conan made no answer, thinking of what she had not scrupled to hide inside her shirt.  But Isaiab rode near her and reached out a hand.  "If it offends, I will gladly relieve you of it."

"Nay."  The Stygian promptly slipped the gem back into her belt-purse.  "The profit from our expedition is slim enough already."  This reproachful statement seemed to be directed at Otsgar, who rode at the head of the band.

But their chief went on in silence without looking back.  He and the five other survivors, including Asrafel and the old Zuagir at the rear, were now mounted on horses traded for along the way, because camels were less suited to travel the hills and meadows of western Shem.  Fewer beasts were needed in any case since so little of their baggage had weathered the windstorm.  The riders were winding through a magnificent cedar forest, going from the cool dark shadows of the trees and through patches of brilliant sunlight.  Beside the trail meandered a sparkling, splashing stream.

The six had rejoiced at leaving the desert.  In the first Shemitish hostelry they found among the western oases, they had gorged on wine, fruit, and fowl, then slept the sun nearly around its course.  But their zest at mere survival quickly wore off.  Now, as they thought of their future prospects, their mood was pensive and gloomy - all except Isaiab, who had been swigging at a wineskin along the day's hilly, winding trek, and whose exuberance showed it.

"Our profit may be slight," he declared, "but at least it is not divided many ways.  As ever the hazards of the tombs have weeded out the unfit, thinning our numbers considerably in the process."

Otsgar swung back in his saddle and glared as if to silence the goat-bearded one.  But it was too late; Asrafel already was aroused.

"Then it is as I suspected!  You knew the dangers all along, yet goaded my companions onward in spite of them.  Or rather, because of them!"  The dark-eyed young Shemite spurred his horse forward, then reined it in angrily.  He directed his rebuke first at Isaiab, then at Otsgar, his gold earring glinting in the forest rays.  "Some of those fellows were my friends from boyhood - idlers, 'tis true, and not yet of manly parts - but they should never have died to serve your greed!"