DEAR H.,--We have just pushed the Shamans over the border, and hammered them some in the process. But there is real bad news. I went with Stephnos’s mounted men on the left, chasing some enemy cavalry. We halted that night within a mile or so of Kyrlos’s house near the caves, and then learnt that the enemy had burnt the place. Being anxious about Sadiq and the camels, I rode up with some men in the morning, and the very first thing I ran into in the garden was poor Sadiq’s body, much cut about. We went off straight to the caves, and almost at the mouth found a dead Blue Sakae, whom the men identified as one of the guard that had been left. We followed the passage through the caves and down--the ropes were still in place--and then below the cliffs, even before we got down, the kites and ravens told us the worst. There were eight of the camels lying about dead with arrows sticking in them, and close by we found the bodies of the rest of the guard. Where the other two camels went, I don’t know. Don’t think they can have been taken round anywhere below the cliffs. There was no one at the house able to give us any idea of what had happened. The old man who had been left in charge was dead. I think Sadiq must have come up with one of the guard to have a look round the place, and then fallen in with the enemy, who thereby discovered the caves. Sadiq’s uncommon clothes and appearance, and perhaps his speech, if they caught him alive, probably made them connect him with us, so they went down to look below, and finding the guard and camels killed the lot off. This seems to be the usual Shaman way of dealing with anything for which they have no immediate use. So here we are fixed in Sakaeland until we can evolve some scheme of getting across the desert. At the moment I can think of nothing. The news was pretty staggering, and, like Wrexham, I could think of no scheme whereby we could get back. Even if the two missing camels turned up, they would hardly suffice to carry water enough for the five of us to get back across the sands, even supposing the animals themselves could do the journey without any, which, after the outward march, it seemed pretty clear they could not. Anyway, for the moment there was nothing to do but put the best face on matters, and content one’s self with the present. Forsyth did not seem to take the news at all hardly, but then at the moment Sakaeland and Ziné, or rather Ziné in Sakaeland, completely filled his attention. Payindah, of course, was in no way perturbed, and merely considered it another good proof that we were meant to stop in the country and annex some of the land. He seemed to have made up his mind quite firmly on that point.