When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horse’s feet; But now I am a great king, the people h… - Robert E. Howard

Slowly the pale-faced noblemen and frightened women knelt, bowing in fear and reverence to the bloodstained giant who towered above them with his eyes ablaze.
"I am king!"

Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.

And suddenly all fear and repulsion went from him, to be replaced by a great pity. What this monster was, Conan could not know, but the evidences of its sufferings were so terrible and pathetic that a strange aching sadness came over the Cimmerian, he knew not why. He only felt that he was looking upon a cosmic tragedy, and he shrank with shame, as if the guilt of a whole race were laid upon him.