The icy sweat which had been dripping down my ribs and over my too imaginative liver was under control. I was a trifle more confident. This man, as I suspected, was not a gambler; otherwise he would have brought his hand up and across the saddle. He had the experience to know it was not so easy as for the cowhands of fiction. At the appearance of the pistol, the target would start, the horse between the target’s legs following the movement of alarm enough to throw off the aim. I myself could have taken the risk. I would have waited for horse and man to steady and still been sure of killing even if the range had opened to ten yards.

That one advantage — though largely imaginary — cheered me a little. And now came another. The man was losing that patience of which he had boasted.

“A wonderful spot for a gallop,” he invited.

It was. Nur Jehan was most unlikely to hold off the challenge of that powerful mare. From my companion’s point of view nothing could stop him overhauling his victim close enough to touch the unsuspecting back with the barrel. But I was not unsuspecting, and he had given me a slim chance. I had to take it, and hope for an opportunity to change direction — down to the farms and human eyes.

I had allowed Nur Jehan a few healthy gallops, but never before had I ridden him flat out. My little Persian Arab was off like a greyhound from a trap, a start with which the heavier mare could not compete at all. My low voice and knees must have communicated to him an urgency which demanded response.

After a hundred yards I looked round. The mare was coming up on my left and ten to twenty paces behind. Nur Jehan seemed to be holding his own, though how much of it he had gained at the start I could not tell. Three hundred yards. Nearly four hundred yards. And then a stone wall, new and without a gap, which meant that I must pull him up.

But away to the right were the chimneys of a cottage and safety. Could Nur Jehan jump? What could he jump? At least he had managed to get over the untidy hedges of Gillon’s glebe meadow. But if he hit a Cots-wold wall it was the end of the pair of us. A pistol shot wouldn’t be necessary. A stone while I was lying on the ground would do the job neatly and leave no evidence of murder.

I did not dare to steady the stallion. I made my intention plain and sat still. Nur Jehan, wildly excited, took off a couple of yards too soon. There was only the faintest click as a hind shoe touched the wall, and he was away again in his stride.

I swung off to the right into a wide grass track leading downhill between wire fences. Once there I could dictate the closeness and position of my companion. I looked over my shoulder in time to see him check the mare and jump compactly. Then he broke into an easy canter as if waiting for me to come back and join him.

I pulled up Nur Jehan and also waited. I was safe. A farmer and some white-coated vet or inspector were examining bullocks in the next field. The upper windows of the cottage which had showed only a tall chimney were in full view. I leaned forward to pat Nur Jehan’s neck, and under cover of the movement extracted the Mauser from its awkward holster and tucked it inside my shirt with the barrel down the waistband of my breeches. It was very uncomfortable and hindered riding at any pace but a walk. I felt confident, however, that from then on if the tiger drew any kind of lethal weapon he would still have his paw in plaster when he came up for trial.

As I showed no sign of moving from where I was, he joined me.

“A remarkable burst of speed for an untrained Arab,” he said genially. “I thought you were down at that wall. But, my dear sir, what a risk to take!”

“He was bolting,” I replied. “He might have charged right into it.”

That earned me a slow, penetrating look, but I had the answer ready to avert suspicion.

“I have no curb, you see,” I explained. “He is not accustomed to it. But of course we should not have allowed you to tempt us.”

I asked him to come down and have a drink with me. Now that I was momentarily safe, contact had to be maintained. I might be able to maneuver him into making an attack before witnesses, or I might discover his identity and regain the initiative.

We walked our horses down to the village below. The only evidence of its existence was a carpet of great tree-tops, the roof of a Jacobean manor and the church tower which I had pointed out to Benita in, as it now seemed, some former life. My companion chatted easily and amicably. He was a superb actor. I should have been left unaccountably dead upon the empty turf above us if I had not been able to take that long look through the hedge on the road from Stoke to Hernsholt and watch his face when it had been undisguisedly intent upon revenge.

The village street was fairly deserted. It was broad enough to hold a small country market and gently curving, with perhaps thirty houses on one side, divided by the inn, and twenty on the other, divided by the church. All were of stone and none — except for a village school in false Gothic — was later than the eighteenth century. The low sun brought out the gold of the Cotswold masonry and tiles.

“They are the most beautiful villages in Europe,” said my companion.

I answered at once that they were, and was surprised that my reply had not been in the least conventional. The Tyrol? Spain? Alsace? Would I have agreed unhesitatingly the day before, or was this the influence of Benita? I confirmed that the essential button of my shirt was undone and the butt of the Mauser free. It would be disgraceful to die just when my eyes had become English.

A short lane led us along the side of the inn to its yard.

There was a garage but no stable. We hitched our horses to the railings and went into the yard, where the flagstones had been roughly diversified by a few rock plants and stone troughs. There were two iron chairs and a rustic table for any customers who preferred to drink in the open.

My companion walked straight to the table and sat down. I remained standing and asked him what he would take.

“It doesn’t matter,” he answered, and then, as if aware of the oddness of his reply, added with more animation:

“Whisky. Scotch, if you will be so good.”

I had to turn my back on him in order to enter the garden door of the pub. I didn’t like it, but hoped the windows which overlooked us would keep him out of temptation. When I returned from the bar with a tray, both hands occupied, I carefully observed the position of the other pair of hands. They were both on the table and looked a little unnatural. Left alone to do some thinking, he may have come to the conclusion that I did not accept strangers so trustfully as it appeared. That jumping of the wall, that bearing to the right and safety, could well have been deliberate.

With the drinks on the table, I pretended to drop my matches and stooped to pick them up. The Mauser was now on my lap. I was sitting opposite to him and it could not be seen. My coat hid it from the bar window. I drank half my whisky and noticed that my fellow horseman merely touched the glass to his lips.

“Your name is von Dennim, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Dennim. I have dropped the von.”

“Yes, I can understand it. When you have finished your drink may I ride back with you to the top of the hill?”

I asked him if that was his way home. He replied, still quite pleasantly, that it was not, but that he wished for more of my company. He stressed the word “wish.” If I were thinking of escape, I should recognize it as an order. If I were still unsuspicious, there was nothing to frighten me in the slight arrogance of tone.

This was the end. The tiger had committed himself. I could act.

“Lower your head to pick up, for example, your handkerchief,” I told him, “and you will observe that I too have you covered. My legs are crossed and I am sitting sideways. From under the table you can only give me a painful wound. If I see the slightest sign of your raising that pistol above it, I will kill you. Is that clear?”