‘When I came to look for Colonel Claire,’ said Falls, ‘I stood for a moment in the gap in the fence. As I looked, a man’s figure appeared against the skyline. He carried a torch and I saw him in silhouette. He must have been somewhere near the extinct geyser you passed a moment ago. I was about to hail him when I noticed that he wore an overcoat, and then I knew that it couldn’t be the Colonel so I let him go. I’d looked for Colonel Claire all over the village and I now decided that he must have gone home by way of the reserve and by this time would have got too far for it to be worthwhile calling him back. I stood there idly waiting for the figure of the man in the overcoat to appear again on the skyline, as it was bound to do when he climbed this hillock. I knew that it would be a little time before you left so I paused long enough to take out my pipe and fill it. I remember thinking how ancient the half-seen landscape felt, and how alien. I don’t know if it was long, perhaps it was half a minute, before I realized that the man in the overcoat was taking a long time to reach the hillock. I wondered if he, like myself, stood listening to the working of this hell-brew. Then I heard the scream.’

He paused. Dikon thought: ‘There’s no need for him to continue. I know what he’s going to say.’

‘I ran along this track,’ said Mr Falls, ‘until I reached the top of the hillock. There was nobody there. I ran down the far side and called. There was no answer.’

He paused again, and Dikon said: ‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘The hillock was between us…I turned and looked back and it was then I remembered that the path on the crest of the hillock was broken. I was aware of it all the time, but I had attached no significance to it and had taken the small gap in my stride. I was flashing my torch here and there, you see, and at this moment it happened to catch the raw edge. I returned. As you see, the hillock falls away in a steep bank immediately above the big mud pot. Taupo-tapu, they call it, don’t they? The path runs along the edge of this bank. Look.’

He flashed his torch light, a very powerful beam, on the crest of the hillock. Dikon could see clearly where the gap had eaten into the path. The inside of his mouth was dry. ‘Then…it had happened?’ he said.

‘Of course I looked down. I suppose I expected to see something unspeakable. There was nothing, you understand. Nothing at all.’

‘Yes—but…’