Kyrlos insisted on going down, too, to see the camels, for he was always keen on new things. So in the end we all went down, taking men with us to carry the grain and forage for the camels, and to help the guard with their kit. It was quicker now since we were lowered down instead of having to climb, and in next to no time we were across the arch and well on our way down the slope. I introduced Payindah to Kyrlos, and explained that he had been the other actor in getting Aryenis out of the Gates of Death, whereupon Payindah got thanked just as I had been. “Who is the sahib and what is his talk?” asked Payindah. I explained that he was Aryenis’s father and a great noble in the land, and then, for lack of better explanation, went on that he was of the people of Sikandar Balkarnayn (Alexander the Great), and that was the speech he used. “Wah,” said Payindah. “Then we be in some sort of the same blood, since we also are of Sikandar’s stock.” As a matter of fact there was little difference, save for his darker wheat colour and his black bobbed locks, between Payindah, with his Greek features and his Greek form (we used to remark when he was wrestling in the regiment that he might have stood for a Greek statue), his green-grey eyes, and his red low-cut skull-cap, similar in shape to the steel caps worn by Kyrlos’s following, and the white-skinned men collected on the arch. “Was this man also in the wars Aryenis says you come from?” asked Kyrlos. “He looks like a fighter, and I see that he carries the noise weapon even as you.” “In that and other wars. A brave man even among brave men. He asked who you were and what was your speech, and when I told him that it was the speech of Alexander, he claimed kinship with your people.” “Is he also of Greece? His colour is somewhat dark. Are there men of different colours in your land?” “No. He is from a country far from mine, but one which is ruled by my folk, wherein I served as a soldier. Alexander of Macedon held his country two thousand years and more ago, and the folk still talk of it.” “I have read of him in the old books. A valiant man.” There was much astonishment when we got to the camp and they saw the camels, while Sadiq and Firoz were equally astonished to see them. Kyrlos in particular spent a long time studying the camels, much as you or I might hang around a live mastodon if one chanced to be discovered. The men, who had probably never even heard of such beasts, were full of amazement, and kept on going round and round them chattering, pointing out what struck them as peculiar features of the weird creatures, I suppose.