Chapter XII: Aryenis’s People

We emerged into a thick wood of hill oak and birch, all in russet glory of autumn foliage. And oh! the joy, after our months of marching through the dead waste places of the earth, to tread once more on a thick carpet of fallen leaves starred with wild flowers, and to breathe the scented air that played on our faces, rough and raw from the hot glare, driving sand, and ice-cold nights of the desert we had traversed.

For twenty minutes we threaded our way through the trees till we came to the fringe of the wood, and were just going to push through the undergrowth into the open beyond when Aryenis stopped us.

“Stay,” she said; “see if any one is there.”

She peeped through the screen of leafage, and then pushed her way cautiously through. Then she turned and beckoned us forward.

We found ourselves in an orchard garden with rows of gnarled and twisted fruit trees, almond and peach for the most part. In the centre was a pergola of old worn stones supporting clusters of vines and a flagged walk bordered with little shrubs. Beyond again were trees cutting off further view. But over them, clear in the sunlight, showed the wonderful mountain we had seen from afar, its great snow-peaks vivid against the blue of the northern sky.

We went down the straight grey path into the trees beyond, and again she checked us while she looked ahead. As she looked, we heard voices, and suddenly Aryenis darted forward, calling out as she went.

We waited a minute or two, and then followed her through the trees, and there in front of us was a little open space of sun-dried grass and a low stone house in the centre. Beyond, more trees, and then fold after fold of hills stretching away toward the great mountain, terraced hills covered with trees and verdure, and nestled here and there little brown villages.

And in the open space ahead Aryenis, in my grey flannel trousers, in the arms of a tall, grey-haired man, clothed in short, fawn-coloured smock and jerkin of bright steel mail with a blue leather belt, from which hung a short straight sword.

Around the two were several men similarly clad, most of them with steel caps on, and farther back by the house some horses, and other men, more roughly clad, with slung quivers and great bows across their backs. All were talking volubly and excitedly.

As we came out they looked toward us, and Aryenis, turning, seized the tall man by both hands and dragged him up to us. She was laughing and crying all at once.

We stopped as they came up, and she pointed me out to the older man, talking excitedly the while in some strange tongue. He listened gravely for a minute, then he stepped forward and laid both hands on my shoulders, speaking very slowly and distinctly in Greek like Aryenis.

“Sir, my daughter and I thank you. You have given her life, and me the light of my life. Such debts are beyond repayment, but what we can we will do.”

Then he half-drew his sword and thrust the hilt into my hands, a gesture which I learnt later implied that he placed himself, his sword, and all his belongings at my disposal for all time.

“Sir,” said I, not to be outdone, “the fortune is mine that I have been able to help your daughter. But my companions have as much hand in the matter as I,” and I pressed Forsyth forward.

The old man laid his hands on the doctor’s shoulders and greeted him, thanking him for what he had done.

In the meantime Aryenis had pulled up another man, a tall straight young fellow with the most pleasing, open, frank face I have ever seen. A typical lad of the type that you would mark down for your regiment if you could get him.

“This is my brother Stephnos, Harilek,” she said.

He held out his sword to me as the elder man had done, and I placed my hand upon the hilt. Then he thrust it back into its sheath and took both my hands.

“Harilek, as my sister calls you, we owe you my sister’s life. All we have is yours.”

Then the other men with them came up and shook our hands. One and all were fair-skinned men of European type, straight features, grey, blue, and hazel eyes, with hair varying from yellow to dark brown. They were for the most part sun-tanned, but with the unmistakably transparent skin that marks the true white races.

Aryenis was holding her father’s arm, her face radiant with joy at the reunion, and talking fast while he stroked her red-gold hair.

Then at last she ceased and turned to us.

“My father came here yesterday to see the forts. There is real war now, which he will tell you about. After we have eaten, we will take men with ropes and bring the others up the cliff. Now I go to find--skirts!” she said, laughing.

She led the way, still holding her father tightly by the hand, and the rest of us followed.

As we reached the house, the men standing by the horses rushed over to us, all trying to grasp Aryenis’s hands. She spoke to them by name, so I gathered that they were men of her own house. There was no mistaking their delight at seeing her, nor her unfeigned joy at being among them again. Kyrlos, as her father was called, spoke to them for a minute or two in their own language, and, though I could not understand what was being said, I guessed that he was talking about Aryenis’s escape. I could see them looking at us with interest.

We entered the house, where news of our coming had evidently preceded us, for there were more servants waiting, and among them some women.

Then, after more greetings, Aryenis disappeared with the women. Kyrlos turned to us and said:

“You must be weary after your climb. If you will follow me, I will show you to the guest-room, where you may wash off the dust of the caves before the midday meal. There are but rough quarters here now since, as perhaps you have heard, there is war in the land. Later on, we shall be able to entertain you better.”

He led us into a side room giving off the main hall, and a minute later two men entered carrying bowls of water and towels.

“If you will put off your heavy clothes here, and leave your gear, presently Stephnos will fetch you to the dining-chamber.”

He looked at our rifles, and then said, pointing:

“These are your weapons, I suppose, though unfamiliar to me. If you wish to leave them here, they will be safe. No man will touch anything.”

I took the opportunity of asking him to have grain and forage brought with us when we went to the caves in the afternoon, and also to let us have a guard of men to stay with the camels. They were rather to help Sadiq and keep him company than for protection, for it was clear now that the Shamans would not follow us.

He said he would gladly arrange everything.

“Now, if you will excuse my leaving you, I will go and see my daughter, whom we all thought dead if, indeed, some worse fate had not befallen her.”

Then he went out.

“Well,” said I, as he went out, “Gobi Greeks are actualities, all right, and here we are. Perfectly good houses, mail shirts, _and_ a war. What are we going to do?”

We took off our bandoliers and unslung our rifles. The kit we had carried up had been taken off us outside, and the men piled it by the beds. Forsyth buried his face and hands in the water, and got off some of the dust we had picked up in the caves.

“Chip in, I think,” said he. “I like the look of these people, and, unless I’m mistaken, they’re a different crowd from your unpleasant friends down by the gate. I only saw one of those by faint moonlight, and he was somewhat the worse for wear, but he didn’t look at all the same as this lot.”

He finished his toilet and smoothed his hair. “Glad I shaved this morning. I notice that most of the younger-looking men here shave.”

He looked at his rifle.

“Are we going to leave them here?” he asked.

“Yes, we may as well. It would look very distrustful if we didn’t, and whoever is unpleasant in this country, these people will see us through for a cert.”

“Thanks to your finding Aryenis. That was the best bit of luck we’ve had.”

“She’s much too nice a girl to have left out in that filthy place,” said I, meaning it very much.

I made myself as presentable as my travel-stained garments would allow, and Forsyth retied the bandage round my face. Then Stephnos came in and talked to us. He said Aryenis was changing into somewhat more feminine garments, so we should have to wait a little. He was brimful of excitement, and evidently itching to hear all that had happened. So, sitting on the low beds, we gave him an account of our adventures since we found his sister in the gate. He listened breathlessly to it all, putting in shrewd questions at intervals. His Greek was just like that of Aryenis, and we had no trouble in talking to him or understanding what he said.

When we had finished, he led us through the hall into a room at the far end where a fire was burning, for the air was very chilly except in the sun. There were two of the men we had met outside standing there, who greeted us as we came in. They were some of Kyrlos’s officers. At the far end servants were arranging a meal on tables ranged round three sides of the room.

A little later Aryenis and her father came in. But quite a different Aryenis.

Her red-gold hair was dressed in a big knot at the back of her head with a clasp at each side. Her dress was of plain white, save for the blue embroidery which ran round the hem of the short skirt and the ends of the short sleeves. Over her shoulder she wore a shawl, doubtless to conceal her bandage, for the dress had a low-cut square neck. It was gathered in at her hips by a belt of fine worked leather, fastened loosely with the ends hanging down in front, and my old tennis-shoes had been replaced by twisted leather sandals of some white hide.

Krylos motioned us to table, and I found myself placed between him and Aryenis. Forsyth was on his other hand, with Stephnos next to him.

“You see, I do _not_ wear trousers in my own country,” confided Aryenis. “Skirts!”

“Nice short ones,” I reminded her. “They are indeed nice, as you said.”

“Compliments again, Harilek! But I won’t quarrel with them this time. They might be sincere now, whereas last time--”

“Whereas last time they were of even greater value really since your clothes were against you.”

“_Your_ clothes,” she reminded me.

Then food was brought in, a stew of mutton, fat-tailed sheep, I think; some hill partridges, and afterwards sweet cakes with an amber-coloured wine. Forsyth and I missed our forks badly, but we managed to get through the meal without disgracing ourselves.

“You’re not coming with us this afternoon through the caves in those clothes, I imagine, Aryenis?” said I.

“Indeed, I am not, Harilek. I’m going to stop in and rejoice my feminine soul in contemplating pleasing garments and getting the desert out of my hair. I very nearly had food brought in to me, but I thought, as it was your first meal in our country, I would come and watch you after seeing you live on Firoz’s food in the desert. What did you call that stuff that pretended to be bread? ‘_Cheptis_,’ or something like that? That’s ungrateful of me, though, considering the trouble Firoz took over me always. But he was not meant to be a cook.”

“I said he was a soldier.”

“Yes; I can imagine him as that. He makes me think of some of my father’s older soldiers. Very gruff and very solid, but very kind withal. But not skilled overmuch in the pleasant things of life.”

“Such as cakes and sweets made with milk out of cans.”

“As you say, Harilek. All the same, you liked the things I made with stuff out of metal boxes, even though the milk tasted funny, not really like milk that grows in proper cows. Well, I’m going to vanish for the afternoon now and get rid of the desert, which seems to have blown right through my skin.”

Then we went out and found a score of men awaiting us outside. Some carried ropes, others sacks of grain and bundles of forage. Four of them were armed: evidently the guard Kyrlos had promised us.

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.”

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.

We explained to Sadiq what he was to do, and introduced him to the men who were to stop with him. He was rather alarmed at first, but, on hearing that none of the local people ever went out into the desert, and that he was as safe there as in his own country, he cheered up, though he said it would be dull with no one to talk to. Considering the very little speech he was able to exchange with Firoz and Payindah, and the fact that he was at best a very taciturn individual, this did not weigh much with us.

We left the tent and the water-tanks down below, but brought up everything else, taking the bundles on camels as far as the cliff foot. Kyrlos and Stephnos rode back on the spare camel, a great experience for them.

We had a little difficulty in getting our things up over the arch, but we managed it all right with the ropes and the extra hands, and the cave party hauled us up without much trouble. But the setting sun made us hurry somewhat, for the arch was no place on which to be overtaken by darkness.

Kyrlos detailed an old and trusted servant to look after the carrying party, and next day ordered a rope-ladder to be securely fixed, so that the guard could get up without assistance if need arose. This servant, who lived on the estate, would visit the cave every day to receive the guard’s report, and would arrange for sending down food, forage, and fuel from time to time.

Then, leaving Payindah and Firoz to follow us, with the others carrying our kit, we returned to the house.