“The enemy had wrecked it pretty usefully. About everything that could burn was burning. The men were looking around for some one alive, but it was a long time before they found anything but stiff ’uns. The Shaman seem to be pretty fair devils. I counted a dozen dead bodies lying near me, including three women, and I expect there were more in the houses. One of them had a kid, too--quite dead. “Then two of the men came up leading an old dame with white hair, whom they’d found hiding somewhere. The poor old soul was in a frightful state, of course. But she recovered a bit after Stephnos spoke to her, and told him that the raiders had not been gone long. I noticed one of the fellows with her was pretty agitated, and I discovered afterwards that he was one of the men from the fort and his girl was in the village--poor devil. He was pretty near off his head when we’d done searching the place and found no more people alive. “Then Stephnos started us off again. The lad was breathing hard through his teeth. I don’t think he’d seen much of this sort of thing, and he was white hot to catch up with the swine. “We pushed on over the border, and just after the sun rose ran into a little group of Green Sakae, rather harried-looking, hiding in some undergrowth. They told us that a party of Shaman raiders, about a hundred, with some women, had passed some time before--going toward the Shaman country, they thought. “We went on, and before we’d gone another mile we saw one of the scouts off his horse standing by the roadside. When we reached him the fellow I’d noticed before with the old woman, who was riding just behind Stephnos and me, gave a great cry, leapt off his pony, and went down on his knees by the scout, who I then saw was standing by a woman’s body under a little bank. As we pulled up I saw she’d had a spear or a knife driven in under her ribs. “We all stood back a bit, then, when we understood. The scout got on his horse and cantered off after the others. The men were all pretty mad when we left the village, but this stopped them talking altogether. I could see them fiddling with their sword-hilts. “It was full daylight now, and the hills stood out clear ahead in the rising sun, and there in front of us the man on his knees _talking_ to the girl. Then Stephnos, who was off his horse, stepped up to him and said something, signalling to the rest of us to ride on. “A minute later he came up--his face rather white--and halted us. “‘There is only one path they can take here through the hills. There is a forest ahead, and I’m going to try and get in front. They cannot move very fast with the women. They’re stronger than we probably, from what we heard, and may hold us off and get away. But if we can get to the pass first we can shoot them down in an ambush, and then they won’t have time to hurt the women.’