The Greeks disappeared over the brow of a small hill; when Sylvia and Michael reached the top they saw that they had entered what looked like a guard-house at the foot of the slope on the farther side. "Perhaps we've crossed the frontier without knowing it," Michael suggested. Sylvia thought it was imprudent to make any attempt to find out for certain; but he was obstinately determined to explore and she had to wait in a torment of anxiety while he worked his way downhill and took the risk of peeping through a loophole at the back of the building. Presently he came back, crawling up the hill on all-fours until he was beside her again. "Most extraordinary thing," he declared. "Our friend Rakoff is in there with two or three Bulgarian officers. The fellows we saw _were_ Greeks--one is an officer, the other is a corporal. The officer is pointing out various spots on a large map. Of course one says 'traitor' at first, but traitors don't go attended by corporals. I can't make it out. However, it's clear that we're still in Bulgaria." "Oh, do let's get on and leave it behind us," Sylvia pleaded, nervously. But Michael argued the advisableness of waiting until the Greeks came out and of using them as guides to their own territory. "But if they're traitors they won't welcome us," she objected. "Oh, they can't be traitors. It must be some military business that they're transacting." In the end they decided to wait; after about an hour the Greeks emerged, passing once more the belt of pines where Sylvia and Michael were waiting in concealment. They allowed the visitors to get a long enough lead, and then followed them, hurrying up inclines while they were covered, and lying down on the summits to watch their guides' direction. They had been moving like this for some time and were waiting above the steep bank of a ravine, the stony bed of which the Greeks were crossing, when suddenly the corporal leaped on the back of the officer, who fell in a heap. The corporal rose, looked down at the prostrate form a moment, then knelt beside him and began to perform some laborious operation, which was invisible to the watchers. At last he stood upright, and with outspread fingers flung a malediction at the body, kicking it contemptuously; then, with a gesture of despair to the sky, he collapsed against a boulder and began to weep loudly.