We dismounted and caused Aryenis intense astonishment with our pipes. Evidently tobacco was unknown in the Sakae country. However, a shock or two more was nothing after the number she’d had. But the box of matches intrigued her tremendously. I think, after the mirror, the matches were the thing which took her fancy most of all. Both were articles of practical utility, whereas guns and watches--especially watches--were obviously inconsequential frills to the feminine mind, playthings for the stupider sex, but of no use to the more practical one intent on much bigger problems of dress and the household. Aryenis, like most women, had only three times she took notice of--past, Present (with a capital P), and future. The idea of a finicky division into hours and minutes struck her severely logical mind as absolutely unnecessary. The more I saw of Aryenis, the more convinced did I become that woman--the ever-changing--never changes at all in reality. Except that Aryenis is much nicer-looking and cleverer, there is not the slightest difference between her and the various women I used to meet at home. Half an hour later Wrexham and Payindah came up, the latter carrying the steel cap of the first fellow I had killed. The irrepressible Wrexham had collected it as a souvenir. Nothing would have induced me to crawl out into the clearing under the gate merely to gather a useless bit of loot. He said that they had seen no signs of life all night, save for the lights mentioned in his note. At daybreak some arrows had been fired rather aimlessly from the loopholes toward the gorge, whereupon he and Payindah had opened rapid fire at the arrow-slits, and the arrows forthwith ceased for good. After spending an hour sniping the gate at longer and longer intervals, they had connected up the booby-traps Wrexham had prepared with his little tin of powder and slipped noiselessly away. He reckoned the enemy would not venture to follow us for a while, and if they did the booby-traps would stop them the first time they tried, even if not indefinitely. All five of the men in the clearing were dead now, and no effort had been made from the gate to get them in, so the enemy were obviously pretty panicky. Still, for the rest of the time we were under the cliffs we never dispensed with a sentry at night.