"The Black Stranger" is one of the darkest and most disturbing Conan stories Howard wrote. It is nearly novella length. It's mostly about Buccaneers searching for the treasure along a stretch of Pictish Wilderness coast. But at the core of the tale is the story of a corrupt nobleman, Count Valenso, on the run from a mysterious vengeful entity, the "Black Stranger" of the title. Valenso has joined one of two sets of feuding bucaneers, supposedly in hope s of securing Tranicos' treasure himself. But the true reason for his presence among them, which Valenso has kept secret, proves far darker.
The Count is accompanied by his young niece Belasa, and her younger (sister?) Tina, whom he treats with cold indifference. Apparently the two children are orphaned and are forced to live with their callous uncle, and are in among this rough crew of unfeeling adult males because they have no where else to go. Valenso makes it clear later on that he intends to sell both children into slavery or get rid of them. This element of the tale has an almost Dickensian feel to it.
The most disturbing incident in the entire story occur when the Count is discussing with his men how to secure the treasure and survive the Picts, when the young serving girl, Tina, blurts out that she has witnessed a "black man" come ashore in a strange boat limned with blue fire. She was frightened and observed him from behind a ridge of sand. Valenso nearly goes mad, first with horror and astonishment, which then transforms to rage, as whips the poor bewildered child with insane fury, until her back is lacerated and nearly flayed, screaming for her to confess that she is lying. The child screams for mercy and insists she is telling only what she saw. Howard describes the faces of the other men as "uncaring as oxen", the awful scene of child brutality not moving them in the least. Belasa comes to Tina's rescue, as the rage suddenly desert's the uncle, and it is clear to the reader that he is now in state of terrorized despair. There is no question that nothing less than stark terror triggered his brutalization of the child. Needless to say, far from thinking Tina a liar, he believes her every word.
Now when I originally read this, it was a copy of the altered version retitled "The Treasure of Tranicos," and it was co-authored by L. Sprague DeCamp. And something didn't seem right. It is later revealed that the black stranger is none other than Thoth Amon, the Stygian sorcerer, and Conan's old foe. This didn't quite ad up. For one thing, Amon was DeCamp/Carter creation, and had appeared numerous times in the Conan comics. And also the Stygians (proto Egyptians) were dusky skinned, while Tina described the stranger as tall and "black like a Kushite." Knowing how Howard's original Conan stories bordered on belonging to the horror genre, and judging from Valenso's reaction to the news of the stranger's arrival, this being had to something far worse than a human sorcerer, either Stygian nor Kushite.
And thus proved to be the case.
It wasn't until many years later that I finally got hold of the original, unaltered Howard yarn, published along with other similarly dark Howardian yarns in the volume pictured above. When the stanger beats his drum within the woods, a wild storm wrecks Valenso's ship, leaving the men stranded and at the mercy of the indigenous Picts. We learn from Valenso's lips that the stranger is actually a demon cast in a human-like shape, whom he paid a wizard to conjure up to destroy his (Valenso's)enemies, to gain him a position of power. But the corrupt noble tried to cheat the demon, and the dark entity slew the wizard that conjured him, and began pursuing Valenso to the ends of the earth.
Now that's vintage Howard for you!
I won't say more, save---don't read if you don't want to know, slight spoiler---the stranger does get revenge on the count, and has a climactic showdown with Conan. Who unsurprisingly, is the one who recovers the treasure, and uses part of it to make sure the children Belasa and Tina have a secure furtue. One thing Howard makes disturbingly clear in this tale is the utter powerlessness of children, particularly (I imagine) female children among brutal and uncaring adults during the Hyborian age. And that, of course, goes for most of actual recorded history as well.
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