At the Bazaar

There breaks in the bazaar of Zanzibar, red surge of life on life; At eve there came through the sunset's flame a man with a dripping knife. "Eunuchs a score and seven more  I've made today," said he, "The blood and tears of all my years  I've caused would fill a sea. "Search far, search far from Zanzibar for youths of many lands "For my hungry steel and the glee I feel  when they writhe beneath my hand He laid him down where the stains lay brown   on the floor of the gelding room, And his gory blade as it down was laid   clanged like a tone of doom. In sleep he leered and clawed his beard   with fingers black with gore; The ghosts of dead men came from Hell   and staked him to the floor.

Robert E. Howard