The Red Lion was three days out from the Barachan Isles when her people sighted the green galley.

It was dawn of the third day.  Naked to the waist, with his heavy broadsword hanging at his side, Conan stood on the poop deck drinking deep of the clean salt wind.  Spray had stiffened his mane and beard with salt.  A sunrise of golden flame drenched the east with light and set the long, thin clouds afire.  The brisk northeasterly trade wind sang in the carack's rigging and bellied out the broad sails above.

"Ho, Amra!  Up with the dawn, eh?" boomed a deep voice.  Conan turned to see Sigurd standing spraddle-legged at the rail, roaring with good humor.  The wind ruffled his flaming bush of beard and stung his apple-red cheeks to an even ruddier hue.  It spread the wings of his billowing crimson cloak, which had once adorned the back of a pompous Zingaran admiral.

Conan ginned at the spectacle the bluff old Northman made.  The golden thread that covered his cloak with embroidered arabesques was worn and tarnished, and several of the big, ornate ivory buttons were missing.  A sash of many clashing colors, which bristled with the usual half-dozen jeweled dirks, bludgeons, and a hugh scimitar with a notched blade, girdled Sigurd's massive belly.  Under the vast cloak, the old Vanr wore a patched, torn white blouse, spotted with wine stains and gravy.  It was open to the navel, and through the opening bristled the silver-shot red fur that thatched the Northman's chest.  A gaudy scarlet kerchief was wound about his bald head, and glittering hoops of gold wobbled from each ear.

"Hah!  By Heimdal's horn and Tanit's veil, 'tis a morning for the very gods, eh, Lion?" he said.  "'Tis like wine to me thirsty guts to be at sea again with a good deck under me heels and a crew of rascally cutthroats ready at call to fill the nine seas with blood!"

"Aye," growled Conan.  "It is a stout ship the king of Argos' gems got us, and as staunch a crew of rogues as ever I shipped with in the old days."

He peered down into the waist, where the crew scrubbed the deck and performed other sailorly chores.  The legends that burned with lurid light around the name of Amra the Lion had brought a full complement of seasoned sea-thieves, eager to share the glory and loot of Amra's venture into the dim West.  They were a motley lot, the throng of men that milled and toiled in the waist with half-naked brown bodies, smelling of tar and sour wine, but the very cream of the pirates of the Barachas.