The house, I realise, is not a house, but a facade masking the entrance into a sequence of caves in the upper part of the cliff. I can hear the sound of the sea a long way below, but only distantly because the caves are huge and they are full of people. The congregation—army?—of Nikolaos Megalos is here. This is where the pilgrims were going, and there are two more centipedes making their way across the cavern, pressing their faces to the rock in the formalised rhythm of adulation or pornography. As I enter there is a kind of ripple, and every face turns in my direction like the head of a compass needle. There must be more than a thousand, and even the children are looking, as if I’m an ice cream or a film star. At first there is quiet, and the noise of the water on the rocks pulses around us. Then somewhere a woman begins to murmur and stamp her foot, and then another follows suit, and the men, too, and then the kids. The sound swells around us, bouncing off the rocks and shaping the air into a drum. I cannot hear the words, but I know what’s happening. These people are singing, raising up a chant of gratitude and exhortation. In fact, they are praying.