'Where is _he_?' she shuddered. 'Gone back to hell whence he crawled,' he replied cheerfully. 'Why didn't you climb the stair and make your escape in my boat?' 'I wouldn't desert--' she began, then changed her mind, and amended rather sulkily, 'I have nowhere to go. The Hyrkanians would enslave me again, and the pirates would--' 'What of the _kozaks_?' he suggested. 'Are they better than the pirates?' she asked scornfully. Conan's admiration increased to see how well she had recovered her poise after having endured such frantic terror. Her arrogance amused him. 'You seemed to think so in the camp by Ghori,' he answered. 'You were free enough with your smiles then.' Her red lip curled in disdain. 'Do you think I was enamored of you? Do you dream that I would have shamed myself before an ale-guzzling, meat-gorging barbarian unless I had to? My master--whose body lies there--forced me to do as I did.' 'Oh!' Conan seemed rather crestfallen. Then he laughed with undiminished zest. 'No matter. You belong to me now. Give me a kiss.' 'You dare ask--' she began angrily, when she felt herself snatched off her feet and crushed to the _hetman's_ muscular breast. She fought him fiercely, with all the supple strength of her magnificent youth, but he only laughed exuberantly, drunk with his possession of this splendid creature writhing in his arms. He crushed her struggles easily, drinking the nectar of her lips with all the unrestrained passion that was his, until the arms that strained against him melted and twined convulsively about his massive neck. Then he laughed down into the clear eyes, and said: 'Why should not a chief of the Free People be preferable to a city-bred dog of Turan?' She shook back her tawny locks, still tingling in every nerve from the fire of his kisses. She did not loosen her arms from his neck. 'Do you deem yourself an Agha's equal?' she challenged. He laughed and strode with her in his arms toward the stair. 'You shall judge,' he boasted. 'I'll burn Khawarizm for a torch to light your way to my tent.' End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Devil in Iron, by Robert E. Howard