JEWELS OF GWAHLUR
By Robert E. Howard
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird Tales March1935. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
1 Paths of Intrigue
The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone thatglinted jade-blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved awayand away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds andleaves. It looked insurmountable, that giant palisade with its sheercurtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in thesunlight. But the man who was working his tedious way upward was alreadyhalfway to the top.
He came of a race of hillmen, accustomed to scaling forbidding crags,and he was a man of unusual strength and agility. His only garment was apair of short red silk breeks, and his sandals were slung to his back,out of his way, as were his sword and dagger.
The man was powerfully built, supple as a panther. His skin was bronzedby the sun, his square-cut black mane confined by a silver band abouthis temples. His iron muscles, quick eyes and sure feet served him wellhere, for it was a climb to test these qualities to the utmost. Ahundred and fifty feet below him waved the jungle. An equal distanceabove him the rim of the cliffs was etched against the morning sky.
He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste; yet he was forcedto move at a snail's pace, clinging like a fly on a wall. His gropinghands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holds at best, andsometimes he virtually hung by his finger nails. Yet upward he went,clawing, squirming, fighting for every foot. At times he paused to resthis aching muscles, and, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, twisted hishead to stare searchingly out over the jungle, combing the green expansefor any trace of human life or motion.
Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed, only a few feetabove his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instantlater he had reached it—a small cavern, just below the edge of the rim.As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung there,his elbows hooked over the lip. The cave was so tiny that it was littlemore than a niche cut in the stone, but held an occupant. A shriveledmummy, cross-legged, arms folded on the withered breast upon which theshrunken head was sunk, sat in the little cavern. The limbs were boundin place with rawhide thongs which had become mere rotted wisps. If theform had ever been clothed, the ravages of time had long ago reduced thegarments to dust. But thrust between the crossed arms and the shrunkenbreast there was a roll of parchment, yellowed with age to the color ofold ivory.
The climber stretched forth a long arm and wrenched away this cylinder.Without investigation he thrust it into his girdle and hauled himself upuntil he was standing in the opening of the niche. A spring upward andhe caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself up and over almostwith the same motion.
There he halted, panting, and stared downward.
It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by acircular stone wall. The floor of the bowl was covered with trees anddenser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungledenseness of the outer forest. The cliffs marched around it without abreak and of uniform height. It was a freak of nature, not to beparalleled, perhaps, in the whole world: a vast natural amphitheater, acircular bit of forested plain, three or four miles in diame