It seemed strange indeed to me that I stood conversing thus amicably with an Or-tis. I should have been at his throat, but there was something about him that disarmed me, and after his speech I felt, I am almost ashamed to say, something of friendliness for him. He was an American after all, and he hated the common enemy. Was he responsible for the mad act of an ancestor dead now almost four hundred years? But the hate that was almost a part of my being would not down entirely—he was still an Or-tis. I told him as much. He shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know that I can blame you,” he said; “but what matters it? Tomorrow we shall both be dead. Let us at least call a truce until then.” He was a pleasant-faced young fellow, two or three years my senior, perhaps, with a winning way that disarmed malice. It would have been very hard to have hated this Or-tis. “Agreed!” I said, and held out my hand. He took it and then he laughed. “Thirty-four ancestors would turn over in their graves if they could see this,” he cried. We talked there by the opening for a long time, while in the trail below us constant streams of Kalkars moved steadily to the battle front. Faintly, from a great distance, came the booming of the drums. “You beat them badly yesterday,” he said. “They are filled with terror.” “We will beat them again today and tomorrow and the next day until we have driven them into the sea,” I said. “How many warriors have you?” he asked. “There were full twenty-five thousand when we rode out of the desert,” I replied proudly. He shook his head dubiously. “They must have ten, twenty times twenty-five thousand,” he told me. “Even though they have forty times twenty-five thousand we shall prevail,” I insisted. “Perhaps you will, for you are better fighters; but they have so many youths growing into the warrior class every day. It will take years to wear them down. They breed like rabbits. Their women are married before they are fifteen, as a rule. If they have no child at twenty they are held up to scorn, and if they are still childless at thirty they are killed, and unless they are mighty good workers they are killed at fifty anyhow—their usefulness to the State is over.” Night came on. The Kalkars brought us no food or water. It became very dark. In the trail below and in some of the surrounding tents flares gave a weird, flickering light. The sky was overcast with light clouds. The Kalkars in the avenue beyond our doorway dozed. I touched the Or-tis upon the shoulder where he lay stretched beside me on the hard floor. “What is it?” he whispered. “I am going,” I said. “Do you wish to come?” He sat up. “How are you going?” he demanded, still in a low whisper. “I do not know, nor how far I shall go; but I am going, if only far enough to cheat The Butcher.” He laughed. “Good! I will go with you.”