Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously. "Who dies first?"

"They have no hope here or hereafter," answered Conan. "Their gods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Mitra! The ways of the Aesir were more to my liking."

Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet;But now I am a great king, the people hound my trackWith poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.

The ancient empires fall, the dark-skinned peoples fade and even the demons of antiquity gasp their last, but over all stands the Aryan barbarian, white-skinned, cold-eyed, dominant, the supreme fighting man of the earth.

"...Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!"

"Crom!" his mighty shoulders twitched. "A murrain of these wizardly feuds! Pelias has dealt well with me, but I care not if I see him no more. Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation! What would I not give for a flagon of wine!"

Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a black man gold can never pay for blood.

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.