After a few days in our first clearing, we moved to another, a short distance off, this being considered rather safer. There were a good many houses round about and people passed by a path running within 50 yards of where we lay, so that we had to keep very quiet. After three or four days here we began to get a little impatient, Bihgar Bey being somewhat indefinite; but at last one night, after going off at dark to meet some of the others, he came back and woke us up at midnight and told us to hurry up, as we were off. We hoped we might get right down to the coast and find the boat ready, but this was not to be. After a second meeting under the tree in the maize-field and a farewell to the old Greek, we set off down a lane and past some houses where the inevitable dog was soon aroused. However, no one came out and we got out to a field near the main road, where, after a wait of an hour, we were met by Kiarmil, whom we had not seen since the first day. At this point, the others had also met us and had with them a pony laden with bread and a little cheese, which were to be our rations on the voyage. The party now consisted of twelve of the akhardash and a boy with the pony, the latter not intending to leave the country with us. We learnt that they had had a long fight with the gendarmes the day before, one being killed on each side. Apparently, the gendarmes had rounded them up in a village where they were preparing the food which they had now brought. There were, they said, 80 gendarmes, whereas they had only eight! Anyhow, our guide of a few nights before, a swarthy, powerful looking man, had been killed, but in the end they had succeeded in getting away from the gendarmes or driving them off. The story, naturally, lost nothing in the telling and we never quite knew what to believe. At first, from their accounts, it sounded as if they had deliberately invited a scrap, and it was some time before we found out that they had been almost surrounded. They also brought the news that hundreds of gendarmes were being sent to Sinope from Kastamuni, but as there were never many at Kastamuni we were somewhat sceptical about this also. Crossing the main road, we found we were close to the sea, and a little further on entered a copse where we spent the rest of the night. At dawn we went still further in, and sentries were posted. Meanwhile, the pony boy had gone off on his steed to Sinope to interview the boatman, and we waited till the afternoon, hoping that we might hear the boat was coming to pick us up that night. Our hopes were dashed again when the boy returned with the news that the boat and its proprietor were not in Sinope, but had gone round the coast to the next port to the west.