“They lifted him off--the Shaman was dead as mutton--and looked him over, and he came to as they did. He had taken something in the body, I think the Shaman’s sword, and he was pretty near gone, but we tried to fix him up. I think he had gone right off his head, for he lay there taking no notice of us, and talking to some one we couldn’t see, stroking the lock of hair round his wrist and smiling. Stephnos, who came up in the middle, said he was still talking to the girl. I hope he was really. He looked as if he could see her until his eyes shut, and then in another minute he was gone. “The men had seven live prisoners, five of them wounded. The rest were all dead, and if Stephnos hadn’t stopped his men they would have finished these fellows, too. Personally, after what I’d seen, _I_ wouldn’t have stopped them, and I wondered why he did. I understood afterwards. “There were six women and a certain amount of gear on the pack-horses. We gathered up the enemy’s mail and weapons and such ponies as were worth keeping. Then we mounted the women on the quietest ones and started back. “We reached the village again about midday, for Stephnos was in a hurry to get back. We had lost four fellows killed and four more pretty badly wounded, as well as lighter cases; but we got off cheap, considering we’d killed forty-five of them. Of course, the arrows and the rifles laid out the majority of them straight off. “We brought the dead and wounded back on the horses; had to strap ’em on. When we got to the village, we found it full of troops from the fort clearing up the mess, and men from the surrounding villages, as well as some of the villagers, who’d managed to get away in the dark when the raid happened. They had got the fires pretty well under, and had found some burnt bodies in the burnt-out houses. “As I said, the Shamans are fair swine. “We found an elderly white-haired gent in charge, who greeted us as we rode in. Stephnos introduced me, and told me he was the chief of those parts. We halted a bit there, and Stephnos handed him over the prisoners, since the raid was in his district. “The old gent had them marched up to where the bodies were laid out. Then he got hold of six of the oldest men present--sort of jury, I fancy--and they stood in a row behind him. He talked to the prisoners a little--the soldiers had their work cut out keeping the villagers off them--and I think he was questioning them, but they didn’t seem to have much to say. “When he’d finished, the crowd round were listening very quietly. He turned round after that, and spoke to his six old men, asking them something, and they all nodded in turn.