I suppose he continued beating the bounds for another quarter of an hour. Meanwhile, knowing that he was engaged outside, I took stock of the barn and freely used my torch in the corners which were out of sight of the doorway. During the afternoon I had merely glanced over the place with a view to making Nur Jehan comfortable, and had not examined it in detail.

In the lefthand wall as I faced the doorway was a long, narrow window, the sill of which was about six feet from the ground. A man entering from outside would make a good deal of noise, but it offered an easy way out from the inside, for there was a pile of loose hay beneath the window. The floor of the barn was fairly clear of obstructions, except for an old chaff-cutter, some bits of iron and balks of timber which had been part of a cart, and a pile of hazel rods close to the door. Against the back wall were three dilapidated stalls for horses or cattle.

At last there was silence under the trees. I lay down a little back from the doorway preparing for the final shot. After a while I heard a horse walking placidly over the turf of the clearing towards me. I suspected that St. Sabas was going to charge the door. It was not a bad idea if he thought that I was outside the barn and he wanted to get in through my covering fire. But I refused to be dazed by haute ecole stuff this time and I was not going to be caught on the ground again.

I stood up to get a level shot, for I could not be seen in the pitch darkness. But there was no change of pace, no sudden rush. Nur Jehan, his lighter color showing just in time through the gray-black of the entrance, walked into the barn, gave me a casual Judas kiss in passing and strolled into one of the stalls to see what, if anything, was in the manger. I prayed that St. Sabas did not know his habits. If he did, Nur Jehan had given away the fact that I was in the barn.

A minute later the mare followed, sidling through the doorway and very nervous. She got mixed up with a pillar and an old cart shaft and let out at the lot with her heels. It was plain that St. Sabas had driven her in to distract my attention —if I were inside —from his own approach. He succeeded in that. The crash made me as jumpy as the mare. I retreated a little from the door so that I could cover the window as well.

Then silence returned, broken only by the munching of the horses who had found something to their taste. Instinct told me that I ought to be really frightened, that the tiger was crouched for the spring. I refused to believe instinct. I could not afford to. Panic was very close. I kept on reminding myself that I must not risk being wounded and helpless. St. Sabas had not the three days which he had spent on the punishment of Dickfuss, but no doubt he would gladly spare an hour.

At last I heard a scuffling on the stone sill of the window on my left. That was more cheerful. If he were climbing in, there had to be a moment when his head and shoulders would be silhouetted against the lighter night sky and it would be his last. My hand was perfectly steady in spite of the uncontrollable beating of the heart.

The scuffle stopped. When it began again it sounded like a slipping boot but was too high up. I moved a step or two back from the window to get a clearer field of fire and met an unexpected barrel hoop under the scattering of hay, which rustled as I gently extricated my foot. Out to my right a torch and a shot flashed, one as fast as the other — and too fast. I fired back to each side of the flash. There was no apparent effect. Six in the Mauser against three in the Colt.

I did not think I had scored. In the close quarters of the barn it was impossible to hear what the bullets had struck. Something long and light fell as I fired. It was one of the long hazel rods. St. Sabas had used it for tickling the window sill. My instinct had been right. He was with me inside the barn.

So this was the position he wanted, where a savage recklessness would count for more than skill and a club be nearly as effective as a firearm. Now that it was too late his tactics made sense. The spectral referee of the two chessboards said nothing, but I was within a move of mate. All that aimless rushing about had been most effective psychological warfare, destroying my nerves until I was ready to seize upon any easy explanation of it.

He had indeed wanted to reach the barn, but not before he had hypnotized me into going inside it. He was not sure, I suppose, that I had really done so until Nur Jehan, fetched by him from the open hill, looked for me and found me. Then the rest of his plan, the closing of the trap, came into operation. He had entered the barn crouched behind the mare’s quarters. I should have remembered the cows and the stream.

My one idea now was to get out. That was partly due to shock at discovering myself so obedient to the enemy, partly to sheer terror because I dared not move so much as a coat sleeve in case he was within a couple of yards of me. I sank down slowly and squatted on my heels, afraid even so that a creak of the knees might give me away.

And then Nur Jehan screamed. It was utterly unnerving. A ghost or the sudden shriek of a mating vixen could not have been more weird and startling. I jumped round to face the horses without any regard at all for noise or cover. What in the devil’s name was this loathsome ruse, and how had he done it? He would draw the line at getting under Nur Jehan’s belly with a knife.

It was not till the stallion’s second scream that I realized what was happening. The mare plunged out through the door, Nur Jehan after her. So that was the cause of his restlessness; and I had no doubt what had broken the inhibiting link between himself and the kindly creatures who played with him and tried to train him. It was the scent of human fear.

I dropped to the ground, streaming sweat. Mrs. Melton’s odd words came back to me: that the same fate was on the horse and the goat in the same place. I was near to tears with the poignancy of it. I wanted to live, as Nur Jehan would, to enjoy that fate.

“A fine foal, von Dennim, I should think. Ah well, in the midst of death we are in life.”

The panting, but still ironical voice came from the far end of the barn on the other side of the door. Under cover of the excitement he had slipped out of my half. The speed of my two shots must have shaken his confidence. It was comforting to know that he hated the threat of such incalculable close quarters as much as I did.

I was sure that this conversational opening meant that he wanted to know whether he had hit or not. It was a good moment to choose. One leaps at a human word when recovering from near hysteria. But I did not reply.

“They’ll be very pleased at Chipping Marton, the vicar and all!” he went on. “What a charmingly passionate child! Even a Gestapo officer will do at her age … Missed again, von Dennim!”

The whine of a ricochet contemptuously emphasized it. I had been fool enough to fire two more shots at a voice certain to be under cover. Four in the Mauser now against three in the Colt.

A needed lesson. I reminded myself how I had made rings round this famous Savarin in the fields of Hernsholt. I must not be bluffed. I must never fire unless sure to hit. I must escape to the trees, and I must use my brains to get there. It was not going to be easy.

His night sight was as good as my own. If either of us attempted to crawl through the area of dark gray on the threshold of the door, he was dead. Within the recesses of the barn no night sight mattered at all. Our world was black.

His preference for the barn suggested that it was not the first time he had fought for his life in darkness. But in the battles of his guerrilla warfare he was festooned with full magazines for whatever weapon he used to spray his enemies. He could not use that technique. Past experience would not help to solve his ammunition problem. So we were equal. A sound had to be very promising indeed before either of us was likely to fire at it.