He looked at us, his chin on his hand. I could see the boy nursing his dagger-hilt, his eyes on my face. My mind required no making up. The idea of Aryenis once more in the Shamans’ hands admitted of no compromise. I turned to the old man and said, and in saying it altered the whole course of my life: “Sir, since the matter touches the Lady Aryenis, who has honoured us by being our guest for some days, and since I like not the manners of those who dwell in the Shamans’ gates, I shall remain with you.” Then, pulling out my pistol, I held out the butt to him, as he had done with his sword. He touched the grip, and I could see a look of pleasure in his face. “One is doubly strong when a brave man joins one. Sir Harilek, I thank you again.” He looked at Wrexham and Forsyth, who said nothing, but held out their pistols. As Kyrlos touched them, he rose to his feet. “It draws late now, my guests. I will tell my daughter that she was right. She said of a surety you would join us, for you were clearly all clean brave men. _That_ she knew, since you showed her greater consideration even than if she had been your own sister, and your men treated her as if she were a princess, whereas she came to you a helpless captive. It seems that in your country you bring up men to treat women as they should do, which is sometimes rare.” “It had somewhat to do with our late war, this matter of how women should be treated,” said Forsyth. “Many folk came to the war who might have stayed away because of the indignities which the enemy put upon the women of the countries he invaded.” Kyrlos and his son led us to our room, and saw that we had all we wanted before they left us. As I pulled off my boots I said to Wrexham: “Well, we seem to have stepped into a pretty little kind of war all ready-made. I wonder if a Shaman is anything like a Hun. Their ways are not very dissimilar.” “As you say. It would take a particularly unpleasant type to think of chaining a live girl to a dead man for the vultures to play with while he sat and looked on from the upper storey.” He spat into the fireplace. “Gives one a bad taste in one’s mouth, doesn’t it? I shall look forward to meeting the chief Shaman.” Forsyth was silent, and I could see that he was pondering over something. At last he spoke. “Whatever these people are, they aren’t Greeks for all that Aryenis and her father and some of their friends speak Greek. But the other men’s speech is a totally different language, although there were some Greek words in it, or what sounded like them. They look more like Scandinavians, somewhat sunburnt.” “Yes, that’s the way they struck me,” I replied, “You remember Kyrlos talked of Greeks coming into the country as though they were quite a different race.” “Well, we shall have every opportunity of studying them now. I must get hold of their real speech and see if I can place it.” Forsyth turned into his blankets. “I wonder what kind of a show the war will be.”