Robert E. Howard

“ Satan's curses on you, speak!" The Wolf shook the man savagely, the other bandit gazing on in wide-eyed horror.
"We reached the hermit's hut just as the moon rose," the man muttered. "I stayed outside--to watch--the others went in--to torture the hermit--to make him reveal--the hiding-place--of his gold."
"Yes, yes! Then what?" The Wolf was raging with impatience.
"Then the world turned red--the hut went up in a roar and a red rain flooded the valley--through it I saw--the hermit and a tall man clad all in black--coming from the trees--"
"Solomon Kane!" gasped the bandit. "I knew it! ”

“ He hunts us down as a wolf hunts deer--by God, Le Loup, you name yourself Wolf but I think you have met at last a fiercer and more crafty wolf than yourself! The first we know of this man is when we find Jean, the most desperate bandit unhung, nailed to a tree with his own dagger through his breast, and the letters S.L.K. carved upon his dead cheeks. Then the Spaniard Juan is struck down, and after we find him he lives long enough to tell us that the slayer is an Englishman, Solomon Kane, who has sworn to destroy our entire band! ”

“ His eyes danced and glittered with a kind of reckless mockery.
The fellow spoken to replied sullenly, "This Solomon Kane is a demon from Hell, I tell you."
"Faugh! Dolt! He is a man--who will die from a pistol ball or a sword thrust."
"So thought Jean, Juan and La Costa," answered the other grimly. "Where are they? Ask the mountain wolves that tore the flesh from their dead bones. Where does this Kane hide? We have searched the mountains and the valleys for leagues, and we have found no trace. I tell you, Le Loup, he comes up from Hell. ”