Watching him as we halted for a moment to let an outcoming drove of sheep pass, I could not help thinking that, in spite of the great grey gates, with the mail-clad bowmen sliding to and fro on top, their arms glittering in the sun, the quaint, heavily laden bullock-waggons, the loose-smocked men and the full-skirted, bareheaded women, the droves of cattle along the sunlit poplar-lined road, there was hardly any difference between the mail-clad archer’s and the crowd’s common atmosphere and that to be observed around any blue-coated policeman at any busy plate-glass-fronted corner in London. Just as we reached the cross-roads near the place there was a stir and a bustle on the far side, and out through the crowd rode Stephnos, Wrexham, and their men. The people seemed excited, and as we drew nearer I saw that the party looked weary, their horses tucked up, and mud splashed more than a simple road journey justified. But when we met, I understood, for some of the men had blood on their mail; one, with his arm swathed in a blood-clotted bandage, was being supported in the saddle by a comrade, while two mounted men were leading horses whose empty saddles were hung with mail and gear. Evidently they had found the enemy. “Hulloa, John,” said I as Milos greeted Stephnos, the crowd surging about us seeking news from the men. “You seem to have bumped them all right. What’s happened?” “Hulloa, Harry; didn’t recognize you in that get-up. Raid. D----d swine! However, we caught ’em in the end, eight miles over the border, and dusted the floor with them pretty usefully. Firoz is chucking a hell of a chest because he laid out six to his own gun, all stiffs, too. That mail shirt is off one of them.” I remarked Firoz then--in a mail shirt--riding with an N.C.O., who was talking rapidly to a tall, red-haired, brown-skirted girl holding his stirrup leather. By the flat silver bangle above her right elbow I judged she was his wife, a conjecture which proved correct. The unmarried women among the Sakae wear no bangles above the right elbow, while the engaged girls have a little thin one of silver wire. The crowd pressed about them listening, and I could see them looking at Firoz, his rifle slung across his saddle bow, with admiring eyes; and, as the speaker stopped and pointed to Firoz’s rifle, the red-haired girl and the women near clapped their hands softly. Milos and Stephnos rode on, and we followed them, many of the crowd, especially the women and above all the small urchins, moving with us. “D----d glad we’re going to have a biff at the Shaman blokes,” said Wrexham. “After what I’ve seen to-day, I’m all for wiping them out. Tell you about it as soon as I’ve washed the dust out of my throat.”