A bloodthirsty yell from a hundred throats answered him, with such a waving of weapons and a clamor that he could not understand what they were saying. He beat down the din with a bull-like roar, and bellowed: 'What devil's play is this? Let one of you speak, so I can understand what you mean!'
A gaunt old chief elected himself to this position, shook his tulwar at Conan as a preamble, and shouted accusingly: 'You would not let us go raiding Peshkhauri to rescue our brothers!'
'No, you fools!' roared the exasperated Cimmerian. 'Even if you'd breached the wall, which is unlikely, they'd have hanged the prisoners before you could reach them.'
'And you went alone to traffic with the governor!' yelled the Afghuli, working himself into a frothing frenzy.
'Well?'
'Where are the seven chiefs?' howled the old chief, making his tulwar into a glimmering wheel of steel about his head. 'Where are they? Dead!'
'What!' Conan nearly fell off his horse in his surprize.
'Aye, dead!' five hundred bloodthirsty voices assured him.
The old chief brandished his arms and got the floor again. 'They were not hanged!' he screeched. 'A Wazuli in another cell saw them die! The governor sent a wizard to slay them by craft!'
'That must be a lie,' said Conan. 'The governor would not dare. Last night I talked with him—'