QUOTE : uninvited help he might offer would be rejected. He was surprised and delighted when she placed a hand on his shoulder as she climbed the wagon steps. He left her to take off her torn, soiled clothing while he supervised the heating of the water cauldron and the preparation of the copper hip-bath. Zama and the other servants removed the afterchest from her wagon and set up the bath in its place. Then they filled it with steaming water. When all was ready, Jim retired and listened through the canvas tent to her splashes, and winced in sympathy at her small cries and exclamations of pain as the water stung her abrasions and thorn pricks. When at last he judged that she had finished he asked permission to enter her wagon tent. ‘Yes, you may come in, for I am as chastely attired as a nun.’ She was wearing the dressing-robe Sarah Courtney had given her. It reached from her chin to her ankles, and down to her wrists. ‘Is there aught I can do to ease your discomfort?’ he asked. ‘I have rubbed your aunt Yasmini’s sovereign balm and ointment upon my ankle and on most of my other afflictions.’ She lifted the hem of the robe a few inches to show her ankle tightly wrapped in bandages. Dorian