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."
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.