"With us also. I preserve these heads only out of respect for my ancestors. Since more than two hundred years, the prisoners of war are no longer mutilated. The habit existed in the days of the kings whom Ritha-Gaur shaved of their hair, as you mentioned before, to make himself a blouse out of their beards. Those were gay days of barbarism, were those days of royalty. I heard my grandfather Kirio say that even as late as in the days of his father, Tiras, the men who went to war returned to their tribes carrying the heads of their enemies stuck to the points of their lances, or trailed by the hair from the breast-plates of their horses. They were then nailed to the doors of the houses for trophies, just as you see yonder on the wall the heads of wild animals." "With us, in olden days, friend Joel, these trophies were also preserved, but preserved in cedar oil when they were the heads of a hostile chieftain." "By Hesus! Cedar oil!... What magnificence!" exclaimed Joel smiling. "That is the way our wives reason: 'for good fish, good sauce.'" "These relics were with us, as with you, the book from which the young Gaul learned of the exploits of his fathers. Often did the families of the vanquished offer to ransom these spoils; but to relinquish for money a head conquered by oneself or an ancestor was looked upon as an unpardonable crime of avarice and impiousness. I say with you, those barbarous customs passed away with royalty, and with them the days when our ancestors painted their bodies blue and scarlet, and dyed their hair and beard with lime water to impart to them a copper-red hue." "Without wronging their memory, friend guest, our ancestors must have been unpleasant beings to look upon, and must have resembled the frightful red and blue dragons that ornament the prows of the vessels of those savage pirates of the North that my son Albinik the sailor and his lovely wife Meroe have told us some curious tales about. But here are our men back from the stables; we shall not have to wait much longer for supper. I see Margarid unspitting the lambs. You shall taste them, friend, and see what a fine taste the salt meadows on which they browse impart to their flesh." All the men of the family of Joel who entered the hall wore, like him, a sleeveless blouse of coarse wool, through which the sleeves of their jackets or white shirts were passed. Their breeches reached down to their ankles; and they were shod with low slippers. Several of these laborers, just in from the fields, wore over their shoulders a cloak of sheep-skin, which they immediately took off. All wore woolen caps, long hair cut round, and bushy beards. The last two to enter held each other by the arm; they were especially handsome and robust. "Friend Joel," inquired the stranger, "who are those two young fellows? The statues of the heathen god Mars are not better shaped, nor have so valiant an aspect."