"Yes," said Terrington, kindling sympathetically at the thought of the fight he too had longed for, "I think we just could, though it might be a near thing. I've decided to clear out," he went on, addressing the others, "because the value of being penned up here doesn't impress me politically, and because digging us out of this in mid-winter would mean a horrible waste of life. There are only a few hundred of us to be wiped out at the worst, but it might take thousands of the men who came to save us. These little sieges are often very costly things." "I shouldn't think our retirement will be very popular at home," Clones suggested. "I don't suppose it will," said Terrington; "at home they're rather fond of a siege; it makes the paper more interesting." "And how about the intentions of the Government, Colonel," Clones continued in his reasonable way; "I suppose you were sent up here to carry them out." "No doubt," said Terrington with his grave smile, "but without being told what its intentions were. Consequently one rather seems to be here to make intentions for the Government, and I'm very possibly making them all wrong. But that's their fault for not having sent a better man." "There's one point, Terrington, you don't seem to have considered," Walcot interjected; "that you've got to take a woman over passes which even the natives won't cross at this time of year." "I haven't considered it for a moment," said Terrington shortly. Walcot's face curdled with anger. "That's hardly been the habit of Englishmen hitherto out here," he exclaimed. "I dare say not," said Terrington with dry indifference.