Then I was sure she was Boadicea reincarnate, whether the old-time
British queen did or did not have blue eyes and brown hair.

"I will not have brave men brought back here on my account! Kagig
must be a patriot! He needs all his men! I don't blame him for
making a hostage of Lord Montdidier! I would do the same myself!"

Will had evidently given her a pretty complete synopsis of our
adventure while I was outside talking with Arabaiji. It is always
a mystery to the British that Americans should hold themselves a
race apart and rally to each other as if the rest of the Anglo-Saxon
race were foreigners, but those two had obeyed the racial rule.
They understood each other--swiftly--a bar and a half ahead of
the tune.

"This old castle is no good!" she went on, not raising her voice
very high, but making it ring with the wholesomeness of youth, and
youth's intolerance of limits. "The Turks could come to this place
and burn it within a day if they chose!"

"The Turks won't trouble. They'll send their friends the Kurds instead,"
Fred assured her.

"Ah-h-h-gh !" growled the Armenians, but she waved them back to silence.

"How much food have you? Almost none! How much ammunition?"

"Ah-h-h-h!" they chorused in a very different tone of voice.

"D'you mean you've got cartridges here?" Fred demanded.