As we walked up toward the cave in the woods, I remarked how tall they were--the average height must have been well over five feet, nine inches--and I asked Kyrlos if all his people were as tall, or if these were a picked lot. He looked round at them, and said that they were quite ordinary men. Then he asked me if they were taller than our people, and I had to admit that, if they were average samples, then they were distinctly so. Again we noted the remarkable fairness of their skins and hair, and their blue and grey eyes. Yet these were clearly ordinary serving-men or soldiers, not like the men who had breakfasted with us, who were obviously persons of quality. We followed them down the long dark passage, Stephnos and Forsyth leading, and finally came out in the pillared cave. I could hear the men behind us talking in low tones, and looking from side to side with curious and rather awed glances. On looking out, we saw Payindah and Wrexham sitting on the far side of the arch. Kyrlos looked over and remarked that we must be like birds to climb that without the rope, and asked who was the first to come up. Seeing us in the cave mouth, they crossed the arch. We dropped another rope, and Wrexham, tying it round him, came clambering up the thin projecting seam amid exclamations from the watching men. We introduced him to Kyrlos and Stephnos, and he said a few words in reply to their thanks for helping Aryenis. Then he turned to me. “They _are_ white folk, all right, then.” He was looking round at the men in the cave. “Upstanding-looking fellows, too. Wonder who they are? Not much like what I’ve seen of the modern Greek, by long chalks.” He came back to the point. “What have you arranged?” “My proposal is that we get up all the kit and just leave Sadiq down with the camels. Aryenis’s father is giving us a guard to look after them, and also to see that Sadiq doesn’t try to do a bolt into the blue--not that he’s likely to.” I had asked Kyrlos if there was any likelihood of the Shamans coming round from the gate, and he said he was sure that no one would venture out even so far as the stream outside the _tangi_, let alone following forty waterless miles round the base of the cliffs. No one had ever ventured into the desert, which the people feared very much; in fact, many of the more ignorant folk believed that there were no other living men beyond it, only strange beasts and fearsome spectres. The camels would be quite safe there, but he was sending down four men to stay with them so as to keep our man company, since they could not be brought up. He said that since his men had seen us and knew that Aryenis had been some days in the desert, they would not now be afraid to stop down below. “That’s all right, then,” said Wrexham. “We’d better get down and get the things up as quickly as possible before it gets dark.”