Stark brutes were most of these, naked but for shorts and the inevitable gaudy sashes and head cloths—an unlovely company, yet picturesque.
At The Cid’s side stood a younger man who well could boast as hideous a countenance as any sun ever shone upon, for across a face that might have taxed even a mother’s love, ran a repulsive scar from above the left eye to below the right hand corner of the mouth, cleaving the nose with a deep, red gash. The left eye was lidless and gazed perpetually upward and outward, as a dead eye might, while the upper lip was permanently drawn upward at the right side in a sardonic sneer that exposed a single fang-like tooth. No, Bohar the Bloody was not beautiful.
Before these two, The Cid and The Bloody One, Tanar was roughly dragged.
“They call you Tanar?” bellowed The Cid.
Tanar nodded.
“And you are the son of a king!” and he laughed loudly. “With a ship’s company I could destroy your father’s entire kingdom and make a slave of him, as I have of his son.”
“You had many ships’ companies,” replied Tanar; “but I did not see any of them destroying the kingdom of Sari. The army that chased them into the ocean was commanded by my father, under the Emperor.”
The Cid scowled. “I have made men walk the plank for less than that,” he growled.
“I do not know what you mean,” said Tanar.
“You shall,” barked The Cid; “and then, by the beard of the sea god, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head. Hey!” he shouted to one of his officers, “have a prisoner fetched and the plank run out. We’ll show this son of a king who The Cid is and that he is among real men now.”