"A stealer of women is not such a one as needs a regiment under a general to face him."
Suddenly Travis was impatient of the ceremonious talking; there was so little time.
"Listen, and listen well, Shaman!" He spoke curtly now. "I have not your woman. She is already crossing the mountains southward," he pointed with his chin—"leading the Reds into a trap."
Would Menlik believe him? There was no need, Travis decided, to tell him now that Kaydessa's part in this affair was involuntary.
"And you?" The shaman asked the question the Apache had hoped to hear.
"We," Travis emphasized that, "march now against those hiding behind in their ship out there." He indicated the northern plains.
Menlik raised his head, surveying the land about them with disbelieving, contemptuous appraisal.
"You are chief then of an army, an army equipped with magic to overcome machines?"
"One needs no army when he carries this." For the second time Travis displayed the power of the weapon he carried, this time cutting into shifting rubble an outcrop of cliff wall. Menlik's expression did not change, though his eyes narrowed.
The shaman signaled his small company, and they dismounted. Travis was heartened by this sign that Menlik was willing to talk. The Apache made a similar gesture, and Jil-Lee and Buck, their own weapons well in sight, came out to back him. Travis knew that the Tatar had no way of knowing that the three were alone; he well might have believed an unseen troop of Apaches were near-by and so armed.