By the time we had reached the further angle of the building we had risen to the level of its terraces; and as we wheeled into the little fore-court, the general uncanniness of our surroundings received its finishing touch. The gates stood closed before us, and nowhere was there a sign of any living creature--but in every niche and crevice there flickered a tiny fairy lamp! The wandering tourist in County Wicklow who was taken to task by an infuriated landlord for trespassing in the "Devil's Glen," pleaded in extenuation that he "had never expected to meet the proprietor;" but to us at this particular juncture, the apparition of "The Proprietor" would have seemed the most natural event in the world!
Our retinue appeared less affected. Perhaps they were not so impressionable; or more probably they confided in our superior magic, and argued _a La Española_ that we "knew a point more than the Fiend." Our henchman strode boldly to the gates and hammered upon them lustily. For some time he woke only the echoes: and when at length a voice answered, the owner thereof was evidently none too anxious to open. In this land it is rarely an angel that one entertains unaware after dark![44] The magic word _Ingiliz_, however, proved a veritable "Open Sesame." "_Ingiliz!_" repeated the unseen janitor in a tone of delighted amazement. In a minute the gates creaked open; and a couple of priests in dirty white gaberdines with scarlet turbans and sashes, grinning all over their bearded faces, were amiably beckoning us in.
There is indeed good sound policy in the readiness with which the subject races of Turkey are disposed to welcome a European visitor. His presence under their roof will certainly secure them from raiding for that one night at any rate; and the suspicion that they have influential foreign friends will "increase their name" permanently among their truculent neighbours, and serve as a sort of protection for several weeks to come.
A steep and crazy stone staircase turned down just inside the gateway; but our long-suffering mountain-bred beasts tripped down it as neatly as rope-dancers. Through a door on our right, as we passed, we caught a glimpse of the interior of a big vaulted guard room, where a party of Yezidi men and women were grouped around a blazing bonfire. The ruddy glare of the flames and the murky smoke-wreaths eddying overhead, suggested forcibly that these minions of Lucifer were sampling a model Inferno; but we slipped past their Malebolge unobserved. Our conductors led us along the lower terrace, and assigned us lodgings in a tower abutting on the wall of the temple--the chamber (as they informed us) which was always reserved for the use of the High Priest of their sect, Ali Beg himself, whenever he paid one of his periodical visits to his tribal shrine.