The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane Read Online Free PDF

with a kind of reckless mockery.
    The fellow spoken to replied sullenly, “This Solomon Kane is a demon from hell, I tell you.”
    “Faugh! Dolt! He is a man – who will die from a pistol ball or a sword thrust.”
     

     
    “So thought Jean, Juan and La Costa,” answered the other grimly. “Where are they? Ask the mountain wolves that tore the flesh from their dead bones. Where does this Kane hide? We have searched the mountains and the valleys for leagues, and we have found no trace. I tell you, Le Loup, he comes up from hell. I knew no good would come from hanging that friar a moon ago.”
    The Wolf strummed impatiently upon the table. His keen face, despite lines of wild living and dissipation, was the face of a thinker. The superstitions of his followers affected him not at all.
    “Faugh! I say again. The fellow has found some cavern or secret vale of which we do not know where he hides in the day.”
    “And at night he sallies forth and slays us,” gloomily commented the other. “He hunts us down as a wolf hunts deer – by God, Le Loup, you name yourself Wolf but I think you have met at last a fiercer and more crafty wolf than yourself! The first we know of this man is when we find Jean, the most desperate bandit unhung, nailed to a tree with his own dagger through his breast, and the letters S.L.K. carved upon his dead cheeks.Then the Spaniard Juan is struck down, and after we find him he lives long enough to tell us that the slayer is an Englishman, Solomon Kane, who has sworn to destroy our entire band! What then? La Costa, a swordsman second only to yourself, goes forth swearing to meet this Kane. By the demons of perdition, it seems he met him! For we found his sword-pierced corpse upon a cliff. What now? Are we all to fall before this English fiend?”
     

     
    “True, our best men have been done to death by him,” mused the bandit chief. “Soon the rest return from that little trip to the hermit's; then we shall see. Kane can not hide forever. Then – ha, what was that?”
    The two turned swiftly as a shadow fell across the table. Into the entrance of the cave that formed the bandit lair, a man staggered. His eyes were wide and staring; he reeled on buckling legs, and a dark red stain dyed his tunic. He came a few tottering steps forward, then pitched across the table, sliding off onto the floor.
     

     
    “Hell's devils!” cursed the Wolf, hauling him upright and propping him in a chair. “Where are the rest, curse you?”
    “Dead! All dead!”
    “How? Satan's curses on you, speak!” The Wolf shook the man savagely, the other bandit gazing on in wide-eyed horror.
    “We reached the hermit's hut just as the moon rose,” the man muttered. “I stayed outside – to watch – the others went in – to torture the hermit – to make him reveal – the hiding-place – of his gold.”
    “Yes, yes! Then what?” The Wolf was raging with impatience.
    “Then the world turned red – the hut went up in a roar and a red rain flooded the valley – through it I saw – the hermit and a tall man clad all in black – coming from the trees–”
    “Solomon Kane!” gasped the bandit. “I knew it! I –”
    “Silence, fool!” snarled the chief. “Go on!”
    “I fled – Kane pursued – wounded me – but I outran – him – got – here – first–”
    The man slumped forward on the table.
    “Saints and devils!” raged the Wolf. “What does he look like, this Kane?”
    “Like – Satan –”
    The voice trailed off in silence. The dead man slid from the table to lie in a red heap upon the floor.
    “Like Satan!” babbled the other bandit. “I told you! 'Tis the Horned One himself! I tell you –”
    He ceased as a frightened face peered in at the cave entrance.
    “Kane?”
    “Aye.” The Wolf was too much at sea to lie. “Keep close watch, La Mon; in a moment the Rat and I will join you.”
    The face withdrew and Le Loup turned to the other.
    “This ends the band,” said he.