One, for all the blue tattoo marks on his forehead and on the roots of his flat nose, for all the loose tunic of Mongolian tiger which covered his massive body, was an exact double of the peaceful, red-faced Cantonese coolie who kept the little laundry shop. And another, famed for his great strength, his massive thirst, and his loud, hoarse, reedy war yells, was to him an incarnation of Ivan Sborr, the cobbler of Russian nationality and unclassified race.
Factory-workers? Laundry coolie? Cobbler? What did those terms signify?
To-night they were his equals, his friends, his tribemates, his brothers-in-arms!
He saw them in the twilight which grew from pink to green and from green to black. They were lifting their crude weapons to the naked sword which was their god, and shouting a barbarous song of triumph.
He joined in it, and his voice rose clear above the voices of the others.
"I have ridden through the desert which dried up my skin and burnt the feet of my horses.
I have made crimson war in the North where rivers roll waters that are solid and white.
