“We all stood back a bit, then, when we understood. The scout got on his horse and cantered off after the others. The men were all pretty mad when we left the village, but this stopped them talking altogether. I could see them fiddling with their sword-hilts.
“It was full daylight now, and the hills stood out clear ahead in the rising sun, and there in front of us the man on his knees talking to the girl. Then Stephnos, who was off his horse, stepped up to him and said something, signalling to the rest of us to ride on.
“A minute later he came up—his face rather white—and halted us.
“‘There is only one path they can take here through the hills. There is a forest ahead, and I’m going to try and get in front. They cannot move very fast with the women. They’re stronger than we probably, from what we heard, and may hold us off and get away. But if we can get to the pass first we can shoot them down in an ambush, and then they won’t have time to hurt the women.’
“Then he turned off the track and struck across country at a canter. As we went off, the man whose girl had been killed came up and joined us, and I saw that he had a thick lock of her hair knotted about his wrist. He rode without speaking, looking straight ahead. We went hard about six miles through some woods, and came out at the foot of the hills with one of the fort men guiding us.
“There was nothing much moving in the country, and we passed near no villages. We went on up into the hills; they were low ones, covered with scrubby bushes and small thorn-trees, dotted about with bigger trees above.
“At last we came back on to the road, where it ran into a steepish sort of place rather like a cutting with high banks, only natural. The guide ran down on to the road, and I saw he was looking for tracks, but as he found none we knew we were ahead of the enemy.
“Then Stephnos started laying an ambush for them. The horses were led away beyond us into some thick stuff, and tethered to the trees in a dip below us. Then he put out twenty men, some on either side of the road up to where it dipped down again, all of them hidden among the trees and bushes.
“‘Will you and your man stop here? You can kill with your weapons as they come up. But let them get well into the trap. I with the rest will be hidden a little way down the hill, so as to get in behind them.’
“Then he disappeared.