"We must now follow the stream up," said Michali. "We shall surely find somebody. In Greece, where there is water, men are not far away."
"But we are not in Greece," objected Lindbohm. The Cretan's eyes blazed.
"Do not say that when you are among my countrymen—it would not be safe."
Lindbohm seized him by the hand.
"I beg your pardon," he cried. "You are right. We are in the very heart of Greece, and we are here to shoot down anybody who says the contrary."
For some distance up the ravine the path was over fine sand and easy. Then they came to a long stretch tumbled full of round, smooth bowlders. Twice they were obliged to climb steep rocks that extended from one wall to the other like the face of a dam. They pulled themselves up the end of these by means of the vines growing in the ravine, whose sides still rose sheer above them to such a height that they seemed almost to meet at the top. Finally, when Michali had clambered before the others to the top of a rocky dam, higher and steeper than usual, he gave a loud shout of joy and pointed dramatically upstream. Lindbohm followed agilely, and Curtis with more difficulty. There, perhaps a mile away, was a white village, sitting in an amphitheater, like an audience of an ancient stadium. Behind and at either side, patches of terraced vineyards lay smiling in the sun, and a flock of goats was grazing on a mountain side, at the edge of a pine forest. The mountain stream, broken into half a dozen rivulets, wandered through the streets, and then slid and leaped, like a bevy of children, down a tremendous, steeply slanting ledge, on the edge of which the hither houses perilously stood.
"How do you know it's not Turkish?" asked Lindbohm.
"There are no minarets," replied Michali.
"Why, of course! Any one can tell a Greek from a Turkish village as soon as he sees it. Come on, then!"
Michali and the Lieutenant sprang gayly forward, but soon they stopped and looked around.