have any effect on that mountain of
muscle and fury.

"There's pain in his voice," declared Conan. "First he was merely angry
because of the stinging in his jaw. Now he feels the bite of the poison.
Look! He's staggering. He'll be blind in a few more minutes. What did I
tell you?"

For suddenly the dragon had lurched about and went crashing off through
the bushes.

"Is he running away?" inquired Valeria uneasily.

"He's making for the pool!" Conan sprang up, galvanized into swift
activity. "The poison makes him thirsty. Come on! He'll be blind in a
few moments, but he can smell his way back to the foot of the crag, and
if our scent's here still, he'll sit there until he dies. And others of
his kind may come at his cries. Let's go!"

"Down there?" Valeria was aghast.

"Sure! We'll make for the city! They may cut our heads off there, but
it's our only chance. We may run into a thousand more dragons on the
way, but it's sure death to stay here. If we wait until he dies, we may
have a dozen more to deal with. After me, in a hurry!"

He went down the ramp as swiftly as an ape, pausing only to aid his less
agile companion, who, until she saw the Cimmerian climb, had fancied
herself the equal of any man in the rigging of a ship or on the sheer
face of a cliff.

* * * * *

They descended into the gloom below the branches and slid to the ground
silently, though Valeria felt as if the pounding of her heart must
surely be heard from far away. A noisy gurgling and lapping beyond the
dense thicket indicated that the dragon was drinking at the pool.

"As soon as his belly is full he'll be back," muttered Conan. "It may
take hours for the poison to kill him--if it does at all."

Somewhere beyond the forest the sun was sinking to the horizon. The
forest was a misty twilight place of black shadows and dim vistas. Conan
gripped Valeria's wrist and glided away from the foot of the crag. He
made less noise than a breeze blowing among the tree-trunks, but Valeria
felt as if her soft boots were betraying their flight to all the forest.

"I don't think he can follow a trail," muttered Conan. "But if a wind
blew our body-scent to him, he could smell us out."

"Mitra grant that the wind blow not!" Valeria breathed.

Her face was a pallid oval in the gloom. She gripped her sword in her
free hand, but the feel of the shagreen-bound hilt inspired only a
feeling of helplessness in her.

They were s