my eyes sleep."

And indeed the giant barbarian seemed as much refreshed as if he had
slept the whole night on a golden bed. Having removed the thorns, and
peeled off the tough skin, he handed the girl a thick, juicy cactus
leaf.

"Skin your teeth in that pear. It's food and drink to a desert man. I
was a chief of the Zuagirs once--desert men who live by plundering the
caravans."

"Is there anything you haven't been?" inquired the girl, half in
derision and half in fascination.

"I've never been king of an Hyborian kingdom," he grinned, taking an
enormous mouthful of cactus. "But I've dreamed of being even that. I
may be too, some day. Why shouldn't I?"

She shook her head in wonder at his calm audacity, and fell to devouring
her pear. She found it not unpleasing to the palate, and full of cool
and thirst-satisfying juice. Finishing his meal, Conan wiped his hands
in the sand, rose, ran his fingers through his thick black mane, hitched
at his sword-belt and said:

"Well, let's go. If the people in that city are going to cut our throats
they may as well do it now, before the heat of the day begins."

His grim humor was unconscious, but Valeria reflected that it might be
prophetic. She too hitched her sword-belt as she rose. Her terrors of
the night were past. The roaring dragons of the distant forest were like
a dim dream. There was a swagger in her stride as she moved off beside
the Cimmerian. Whatever perils lay ahead of them, their foes would be
men. And Valeria of the Red Brotherhood had never seen the face of the
man she feared.

Conan glanced down at her as she strode along beside him with her
swinging stride that matched his own.

"You walk more like a hillman than a sailor," he said. "You must be an
Aquilonian. The suns of Darfar never burnt your white skin brown. Many a
princess would envy you."

"I am from Aquilonia," she replied. His compliments no longer irritated
her. His evident admiration pleased her. For another man to have kept
her watch while she slept would have angered her; she had always
fiercely resented any man's attempting to shield or protect her because
of her sex. But she found a secret pleasure in the fact that this man
had done so. And he had not taken advantage of her fright and the
weakness resulting from it. After all, she reflected, her companion was
no common man.

* * * * *

The sun rose behind the city, turning the towers to a sinister cri