d in order to defend the rear of the great procession.
The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved
forward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther
on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like
Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove
off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp.

"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" asked one of the
Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety.

"I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in
his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the
women and the children to the mercy of the enemy."

He was rejoiced that the British had come.

"There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, a light in his
eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months."

He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and
men and women through the mountains into the protection of the British
squadron of troops.

IV

Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the
August day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which
had a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler
than a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the
Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on
the floor of the cart.

The English doctor was out with the cavalry who were holding back and
dispersing the Turkish force.

Then a British officer came and said: "We are moving the camp forward
under the protection of the mountains."

It was late afternoon. The cart moved forward into the gathering
darkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched beside her husband on the floor of the
cart attending to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they
came to the British Camp.

For hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough mountain roads. At
last it stopped, it was so dark they could not see the road. They were
in a gully and could not go forward.

"Where is the British camp?" asked Mrs. Shedd.

"We passed it miles back on the road," was the reply.

It was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the comfort, the
nursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd were all miles away and he
was so ill that it was impossible to drive him back over that rough
mountain track in the inky darkness of the night.

There was nothing to do but just stay where they were, s