the thigh, and I went tumbling across the path and fell hard.
I rolled into a sitting position and looked with horror at the reed shaft of the arrow that protruded from my leg. Then I looked back at our pursuers. The bearded chieftain in the striped robe led them, and he had outdistanced his own men by a hundred paces. He was coming up the track in a series of great elastic bounds, covering the ground as swiftly as one of the ibex rams that he resembled in so many other ways.
'Taita!' Tanus called back at me. 'Are you all right?' He had paused on the brow of the slope, and was looking back anxiously. Memnon had crossed over and was out of sight.
'I am arrowed!' I yelled back. 'Go on and leave me. I cannot follow.'
Without a moment's hesitation, Tanus turned back, and came leaping down towards where I lay. The Ethiopian chieftain saw him coming and bellowed a challenge. He . drew the glittering blue sword and brandished it as he came on up the hillside.
Tanus reached the spot where I sat, and tried to lift me to my feet. 'It's no use. I am hard hit. Save yourself,' I told him, but the Ethiopian was almost upon us. Tanus dropped my arm, and drew his own sword.
The two of them came together, going for each other in a murderous rush. I was not in any doubt as to the outcome of this duel, for Tanus was the strongest and most skilled swordsman in all Egypt. When he killed the Ethiopian, we would all be doomed, for we could expect no mercy from his henchmen.
The Ethiopian swung first with a full-blooded overhand cut at Tanus' head. It was an imprudent stroke to aim at a swordsman of his opponent's calibre. I knew that Tanus' response would be a parry in the line of the head and a natural riposte, with all the momentum of his shoulder behind it, that would drive the point through the chieftain's beard and into his throat. It was one of Tanus' favourite strokes.
The two blades met, but there was no ringing clash. The blue blade hacked clean through Tanus' yellow bronze, as though it were a wand of green willow. Tanus was left with the hilt in his hand and a finger's-length remaining from that once long and deadly bronze blade.
Tanus was stunned by the ease with which the Ethiopian had disarmed him, and he was slow to defend himself from the next stroke that followed like a thunderbolt. He leaped backwards just in time, but the blue point opened a long, shallow cut across the bulging muscles of his naked chest, and the blood came swiftly.
'Run, Tanus!' I screamed. 'Or he will kill us both.'
The Ethiopian went for him again, but I was lying in the middle of the narrow path. He was forced to leap over me to get at Tanus. I seized him around the knees with both arms, and brought him down on top of me in a snarling, thrashing heap.
The Ethiopian was trying to drive the point of the blue sword into my belly, as I lay under him, and I twisted so violently aside that both of us rolled off the path and began to slide away down the steep slope of loose scree. As we rolled more swiftly, gathering momentum, I had one last glimpse of Tanus peering down over the edge of the path, and I screamed in a despairing wail, 'Run! Take care of Memnon!'
The shale and loose scree were as treacherous as swamp quicksands, and gave no anchor or purchase. The Ethiopian and I were flung apart, but both of us were carried to the edge of the torrent. I was battered and hammered to the edge of consciousness, and lay there groaning until rough hands dragged me to my feet, and blows and harsh curses rained upon my head.
The chieftain stopped them from killing me and throwing my body into the river. He was covered with dust, as I was, and his robe was torn and filthy from the fall, but the blue sword was still gripped in his right fist and he snarled at his men. They began to drag me away towards the encampment, but I looked around me desperately and saw my medicine chest amongst the rocks. The leather harness had snapped, and it had come off my back.
'Bring that,' I ordered my captors with as much force and dignity as I could muster, and pointed to the chest. They laughed at my insolence, but the chieftain sent one of his men to retrieve it.
Two men were obliged to support me, for the shaft in my thigh was beginning to cause me crippling pain. Every pace back to the camp was agony, and when they reached it, they threw me roughly to the ground in the open space in the centre of the ring of tents.
Then they argued long and fiercely. It was obvious that they were puzzling over my origins and my motives, and trying to decide what they should do with me. Every once in a while, one of them would stand over me and kick me in the ribs, while he shouted questions at me. I lay as quietly as I could, so as not to provoke further violence.
There was a distraction when the party that had pursued Tanus and Memnon returned empty-handed. There was more shouting and arm-waving as bitter recriminations and insults were exchanged. I was cheered by the thought that the two of them had got clean away.
After a while my captors remembered me, and they came back to vent their frustration on me with more kicks and blows. In the end their chieftain called them off, and ordered them not to torment me further. After that, most of them lost interest in me and wandered away. I was left lying on the bare ground, covered with dirt and bruises, with the arrow still lodged in my flesh.
The Ethiopian chieftain resumed his seat in front of the largest tent, which was clearly his own, and while he stropped the edge of his sword, he regarded me with a steady but inscrutable expression. Occasionally he exchanged a few low words with one of his men, but it seemed that my immediate danger was past.
I judged my moment carefully, and then addressed him directly. I pointed to my medicine chest, which had been thrown against one of the tents, and I made my voice mild and placatory. 'I need my chest. I must tend this wound.'
Although the chieftain did not understand the words, he understood my gestures. He ordered one of his men to bring the chest across to him. He made them set it down in front of him and opened the lid. He unpacked the chest methodically, examining each separate item. Anything that particularly caught his attention he held up, and asked a question to which I tried to give an answer with signs.
He seemed satisfied that, apart from my scalpels, the chest contained no dangerous weapon. I am not sure if he realized at this stage that these were medical items. However, with signs I showed him what I needed to do, pointing to my leg and making a pantomime of pulling the arrow. He stood over me with the sword in his hand, and made it clear that he would lop off my head at the first sign of treachery, but he allowed me to use my instruments.
The arrow had entered at an angle and position which made it awkward for me to reach. In addition to this,
