A third person, previously unseen, emerged from the trees. This one was a 
middle-aged man, and he was wearing a
jacket that had a few vaguely official touches such as an armband and an 
insignia on the breast pocket. He walked beneath the dangling woman and busied 
himself for a few moments beneath the overhang, eventually releasing the rope 
and letting her safely to the ground. The woman detached herself from the rope 
and then the harness and fell into a businesslike discussion with this man, who 
poured both of them hot drinks from a thermal flask.