Forsyth and the two girls came back at midday escorting Milos’s wife Annais, a very stately-looking middle-aged woman. Her thick brown hair was streaked with grey, but she had kept a girl’s complexion, and her chiselled features and young blue eyes, together with her beautiful figure and elastic walk, made it hard to believe that she was, indeed, as Aryenis told me, well on the wrong side of forty. She spoke to me very graciously, thanking me for helping her niece. “We felt as if she had been given back to us from the dead when we got my brother-in-law’s letter. I thank God every day that she found some brave good men to help her in her danger. I hope your face is nearly healed now, Sir Harilek?” “The bandage comes off to-morrow, lady,” said I, thanking her for her kind words. Then Andros came up and kissed her on both cheeks, calling her “mother.” I guessed then that, as indeed I found later, he was looked upon by Milos and Annais as a son, and had it been possible to dislike him I should have hated him thoroughly. But one could not dislike such a typical _preux chevalier_ as Andros, courteous in speech, thoughtful in deed and manner, and as unselfishly brave as any soldier I have ever met, though six years’ war has given me the acquaintance of many brave and unselfish men, such as Wrexham, for instance. Still, I did wish most violently that he was other than he was, or else that he would produce a wife. I wished it the more ardently all the fortnight following the council when he rode daily with Aryenis, except when his duties kept him too busy. It is true that I saw a lot of her, because he was engaged either with Kyrlos or else with other officers nearly the whole day. But he managed to find time to ride with Aryenis either morning or evening, and of course played her accompaniments after the evening meal, when we nearly always had music. Forsyth was made to produce his banjoline, and sat both metaphorically and literally at the feet of Ziné, learning Sakae tunes and teaching her bits and snatches of _revues_. Having no such parlour tricks I was perforce driven to conversation with the others, talking to Annais, or discussing European methods of war with Milos. Kyrlos had taken a great liking to Wrexham, and the two talked together nearly the whole time most evenings, chiefly shop about fortifications and methods of attack. The Shamans’ fortress was very strong, and, even after dealing with their troops in the field, there was every possibility of a long and arduous siege before us. I think Kyrlos hoped that Wrexham, with his knowledge of strange devices of war, might produce some wonderful invention which would help him to finish off the enemy quickly. Considering how long the Sakae had been isolated, the breadth of mind possessed by the educated classes was amazing. One would have expected the most narrow-minded conservatism and prejudice, whereas, on the contrary, we found them exceptionally keen to take up any new idea.