She adds quickly: ‘No, I didn’t mean it, but still…it’s as if something…’

‘Yes, you did mean it!’ he says, blazing. ‘I don’t know what you expect.’

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he begins again when she says nothing, simply goes on standing in front of him in her long gown.

She just looks. What does she want? The question snarls inside him. But she simply stands looking at him searchingly. Searching and disheartened.

What do you expect of me? he thinks, and curses her because she seems so bloodthirsty.

‘It’s easy for you to put on a face like that!’ he says, snarling. ‘You’re safe enough.’

She only looks at him as before. Sadly. He makes no move to approach her. He takes a step backwards and she sees it. He doesn’t want her.

‘Are you going?’ she asks slowly, white from the pressure arching above her.

‘Yes, I am.’

Her hand is ready to hold him, but he evades it and goes. He believes he hears a sob behind him. Too bad. Why did she behave like that? Who could put up with it? What does she want?

He emerges once more into the stream of shining arrows. They seem alive on either side of him. There is nobody in sight, but one has the impression that someone has just been here. The stream of arrows shines golden in the distance, turns the corner, and is extinguished.

Martin follows it without hesitation down to the corner. Let me try it, just a little. It’s so easy this way. It feels safe, following the arrows.

When he reaches the corner the stream is there again, shining as far as the eye can see and turning another corner. ‘Come!’ they beckon, as is their intention.

A man comes out of a shadow as if he were standing on guard. Martin shrinks. He did not want to meet this man in this place. He knows who he is. They just call him Christopher. Why is he standing here?

Martin is forced to stop. Why was I going in this direction ? How damnable everything is! Now it’s too late to get away.

Christopher’s expression is harsh. ‘Are you going down there?’ he asks harshly, standing right in front of Martin as if to bar the way.

‘No!’ says Martin. ‘Of course not!’

‘Then I wouldn’t hang around if I were you.’

Christopher’s tone is frosty.

‘It’s so easy to lose one’s way,’ he concludes, and makes as if to go back towards the darkness again, to his dangerous watch. The shining light here is no light but seething darkness, identifiable by a faint odour. It is a light that makes your eyes smart. Christopher’s eyes are smarting; and now he is returning into the passages to warn others.

Martin is so bewildered by Christopher’s harsh words that he tries to hold him back.

‘Tell me –’ he begins.

Christopher shakes his head.

Martin sees that Christopher’s face is white with strain and tension. They all are. What is Christopher involved with? Martin is afraid of him.