Robert E. Howard

“ Ask me not how love comes to a man; but I knew that I loved Zuleika--had loved this mysterious oriental girl since first I saw her--and somehow I felt that she, in a measure, returned my affection. This realization made blacker and more barren the road I had chosen; yet--for pure love must ever strengthen a man--it nerved me to what I must do. ”

“ So I paid Yun Shatu, and going to the Master I--I--oh, you will hate me for this!" she sobbed.
"No--no--never--"
"I told him that you were a man who might be of use to him and begged him to have Yun Shatu supply you with what you needed. He had already noticed you, for his is the eye of the slaver and all the world is his slave market! So he bade Yun Shatu do as I asked; and now--better if you had remained as you were, my friend."
"No! No!" I exclaimed. "I have known a few days of regeneration, even if it was false! I have stood before you as a man, and that is worth all else!" ”

“ Better to go out clean while I have the manhood left."
She stared at me wildly for an instant; then, pressing her red lips suddenly to mine, she sprang up and fled from the room. Strange, strange are the ways of love. Two stranded ships on the shores of life, we had drifted inevitably together, and though no word of love had passed between us, we knew each other's heart--through grime and rags, and through accouterments of the slave, we knew each other's heart and from the first loved as naturally and as purely as it was intended from the beginning of Time. ”