“The day after to-morrow, the doctor says you can try and walk a little with a stick and an arm. Will you trust mine?” “I’d trust your arm, Shahzadi, more than any arm in all the world. Just as I’d trust you with my whole soul and my hope of a life to come.” She made no reply to that, but I could see a tiny flush run into her cheeks, and a little happy quaver at the corner of her mouth. We relapsed into a long silence after that, but I think a contented one. Mine certainly was. Suddenly she lifted her head, listening: “Horses! I wonder who it is so late? I wonder if it’s news from the army.” She went out, and presently Wrexham’s unmistakable tread came ringing down the passage, and he entered with a clank of war-gear, flinging his steel cap on to my bed. “Good to see you out of bed again, Harry,” he said, pulling up a stool and putting his feet to the blaze. “Aryenis says you’ll be walking in a couple of days.” “Yes, so Alec promised. But what brings you back, John, and what’s the news?” “Fine. We chivied the Shamans right back to their city after a week’s running fight through their hills. Filthiest tangle of knife-edges and precipitous gorges you ever saw. We took a minor knock or two, but on the whole we hustled them good and proper. Not many Shaman prisoners, but a lot of Brown Sakae. Stout savages like Pathans. Kyrlos says he’s going to civilize them when he’s done with the Shamans. Your pal Henga is up there--with the vanguard generally. He’s a tiger and no mistake. Country up there is too bad for horses, so I deserted Stephnos and joined with Henga. He and I had a tophole picnic last week.” “But what have you come back for? It’s not like you to miss a healthy scrap.” “Healthy scraps are off for the moment. As the learned used to say in the war, ‘the front has stabilized.’ In other words, we are sitting on three sides of the Shaman city--huge great walls and a devil of a ditch. The fourth side is sheer mountain near the gate where we found Aryenis. Kyrlos had two shots at assaulting the place, but they took tea with us over it. Now he says he’s going to starve ’em out, but I think he’s a bit of an optimist. They must have months of grub there. But it’s just like a bit of an old book. Boiling lead, hide-covered towers, catapults, and battering-rams.” “Seems to suit you all right. But for the third time what’s fetched you back? If you tell me it’s to inquire after my leg, I’ll say you’re a d----d liar.”