Tanar turned, too, and looked down at Bulf, where he lay in a pool of blood upon the floor. And then quickly he faced Stellara. “Why not?” he cried. “Why not?”
XVII
DOWN TO THE SEA
“What do you mean?” demanded Stellara.
“Wait and you shall see,” replied Tanar, and drawing his dirk he stooped and turned Bulf over upon his back. Then with the razor-sharp blade of his weapon he commenced to hack off the bushy, black beard of the dead Korsar, while Stellara looked on in questioning wonder.
Spreading Bulf’s headcloth flat upon the floor, Tanar deposited upon it the hair that he cut from the man’s face, and when he had completed his grewsome tonsorial effort he folded the hair into the handkerchief, and, rising, motioned for Stellara to follow him.
Going to the door that led into the tunnel through which he had escaped from the dungeon, Tanar opened it, and, smearing his fingers with the pitch that exuded from the boards upon the inside of the door, he smeared some of it upon the side of his face and then turned to Stellara.
“Put this hair upon my face in as natural a way as you can. You have lived among them all your life, so you should know well how a Korsar’s beard should look.”
Horrible as the plan seemed and though she shrank from touching the hair of the dead man, Stellara steeled herself and did as Tanar bid. Little by little, patch by patch, Tanar applied pitch to his face and Stellara placed the hair upon it until presently only the eyes and nose of the Sarian remained exposed. The expression of the former were altered by increasing the size and bushiness of the eyebrows with shreds of Bulf’s beard that had been left over, and then Tanar smeared his nose with some of Bulf’s blood, for many of the Korsars had large, red noses. Then Stellara stood away and surveyed him critically. “Your own mother would not know you,” she said.
“Do you think I can pass as a Korsar?” he asked.