Conan's volcanic temper, never long at best, burst into explosion. Not in years, even before he was king, had a man spoken to him thus and lived.
'Don't lift your voice to me, you tar-breeched dog!' he roared in a voice as gusty as the sea-wind, while the sailors gaped dumfounded. 'Draw that toy and I'll feed you to the fishes!'
'Who do you think you are?' gasped the captain.
'I'll show you!' roared the maddened Cimmerian, and he wheeled and bounded toward the rail, where weapons hung in their brackets.
The captain drew his knife and ran at him bellowing, but before he could strike, Conan gripped his wrist with a wrench that tore the arm clean out of the socket. The captain bellowed like an ox in agony, and then rolled clear across the deck as he was hurled contemptuously from his attacker. Conan ripped a heavy ax from the rail and wheeled cat-like to meet the rush of the sailors. They ran in, giving tongue like hounds, clumsy-footed and awkward in comparison to the pantherish Cimmerian. Before they could reach him with their knives he sprang among them, striking right and left too quickly for the eye to follow, and blood and brains spattered as two corpses struck the deck.
Knives flailed the air wildly as Conan broke through the stumbling, gasping mob and bounded to the narrow bridge that spanned the waist from poop to forecastle, just out of reach of the slaves below. Behind him the handful of sailors on the poop were floundering after him, daunted by the destruction of their fellows, and the rest of the crew—some thirty in all—came running across the bridge toward him, with weapons in their hands.
Conan bounded out on the bridge and stood poised above the upturned black faces, ax lifted, black mane blown in the wind.
'Who am I?' he yelled. 'Look, you dogs! Look, Ajonga, Yasunga, Laranga! Who am I?'
And from the waist rose a shout that swelled to a mighty roar: 'Amra! It is Amra! The Lion has returned!'
The sailors who caught and understood the burden of that awesome shout paled and shrank back, staring in sudden fear at the wild figure on the bridge. Was this in truth that blood-thirsty ogre of the southern seas who had so mysteriously vanished years ago, but who still lived in gory legends? The blacks were frothing crazy now, shaking and tearing at their chains and shrieking the name of Amra like an invocation. Kushites who had never seen Conan before took up the yell. The slaves in the pen under the after-cabin began to batter at the walls, shrieking like the damned.