“As I said, the Shamans are fair swine.
“We found an elderly white-haired gent in charge, who greeted us as we rode in. Stephnos introduced me, and told me he was the chief of those parts. We halted a bit there, and Stephnos handed him over the prisoners, since the raid was in his district.
“The old gent had them marched up to where the bodies were laid out. Then he got hold of six of the oldest men present—sort of jury, I fancy—and they stood in a row behind him. He talked to the prisoners a little—the soldiers had their work cut out keeping the villagers off them—and I think he was questioning them, but they didn’t seem to have much to say.
“When he’d finished, the crowd round were listening very quietly. He turned round after that, and spoke to his six old men, asking them something, and they all nodded in turn.
“Then he turned his hand over—so—and the guard, who’d been standing handy with ropes, ran the prisoners up to the nearest trees without any talkee, talkee. Good quick work. As we rode away, I saw all seven dangling limp against the background of burnt-out houses, with the kites wheeling round them already. I understood then why Stephnos had brought them back. He told me that in this country justice is always carried out on the scene of the crime, if possible, or somewhere near it.
“I asked him if they killed all prisoners. He said no; but this was murder, not war, since they had killed the women and the children. I quite agreed with him. After finding that wretched girl on the road, I’d have stood by and watched even if he’d wanted to boil ’em alive in oil.
“We dropped the fort detachment and one of our men, who was rather bad, at the village—the rest of the badly wounded belonged to the fort people—and came on here as fast as we could go. The horses were a bit done by that time, and we had an hour’s halt on the way.
“It was quite a bright little show one way and another, and young Stephnos has the makings of a very useful soldier. He handled the ambush business a treat, and brought his men in pretty nippy when we rushed them. And that’s our story. What have you been doing? You’ve got no end of a rig-out. And where’s Alec?”
I told him of our adventures, the little matter of the Shaman envoy, and the various things I heard since we parted the previous morning.
“By the way,” I finished, “I’ve met Ziné—the lady of the picture. She’s here now.”