At that moment Rakoff stepped forward into their conversation. "I'm going to ride over to our lines presently," he announced. "You'd better come with me, and you'll not be much more than a few hundred meters from the Greek outposts. The Greek soldiers wear khaki. You won't be called upon to give any explanations." Michael began to thank him, but the Bulgarian waved aside his words. "You are included in the fulfilment of an obligation, _monsieur_, and being still in debt to _mademoiselle_, I should be embarrassed by any expression from her of gratitude. Come, it is time for supper." Throughout the meal, which was eaten in a ruined chapel, Rakoff talked of his rose-gardens, and Sylvia fancied that he was trying to reproduce in her mind her first impression of him in order to make this last meal seem but the real conclusion of their long railway journey together. She wondered if Ziska knew that this was the last meal and if she approved of her leader's action in helping two enemies to escape. However, it was waste of time to speculate about Ziska's feelings: she had no feelings: she was nothing but a finely perfected instrument of destruction; and Sylvia nodded a casual good-night to her when supper was over, turning round to take a final glance at her bending over her rifle in the dim, tumble-down chapel as she might have looked back at some inanimate object which had momentarily caught her attention in a museum. They rode downhill most of the way toward the Bulgarian lines, and about two hours after midnight saw the tents, like mushrooms, under the light of a hazy and decrescent moon. "Here we bid one another farewell," said Rakoff, reining up. In the humid stillness they sat pensive for a little while, listening to the ponies nuzzling for grass, tasting in the night the nearness of the sea, and straining for the shimmer of it upon the southern horizon. "Merci, monsieur. Adieu," Michael said. "_Merci, monsieur, vous avez été plus que gentil pour nous. Adieu_," Sylvia continued. "_Enchanté_," the Bulgarian murmured: Michael and Sylvia dismounted. "Keep well south of those tents and the moon over your right shoulders. You are about three kilometers from the shore. The sentries should be easy enough to avoid. We are not yet at war with Greece." He laughed, and spurred away in the direction of the Bulgarian tents; Michael and Sylvia walked silently toward freedom across a broken country where the dwarfed trees, like the dwarfed Bulgarians themselves, seemed fit only for savage hours and pathetically out of keeping with this tranquil night. They had walked for about half an hour when, from the cover of a belt of squat pines, they saw ahead of them two figures easily recognizable as Greek soldiers. "Shall we hail them?" Sylvia whispered. "No, we'll keep them in view. I'm sure we haven't crossed the frontier yet. We'll slip across in their wake. They'd be worse than useless to us if we're not on the right side of the frontier."