I kicked up desperately with my whole body and we fell under the spring. It poured heavy on my breasts. I cried out at the heaviness and the pain of the gravel cutting, grinding under my back. A kind of growling seemed to pervade the world as I scrambled to my feet, slithering on the incline, and ran for the open. The rain tore the tatters of my shirt from my shoulders. It was quite dark: I realized the tintinnabulating growling was thunder.

Smahil followed me and threw me again to the wet ground. Here it was soft, it seemed paradise to my back. His body was incredibly hard and close, I turned my head from his mouth.

“Cija,” he pleaded, his voice a hoarse sigh.

My arms went around his shoulders, I clung to him. The reaction of my body in the brief escape had been astounding. I had felt weak and trembling, my legs fluid, as if I were only half here, as if a limb had been forced from me. His fingers tore at my belt, at his own. Now I knew my terror was irrevocable, but there was nothing in the world I could do except cling to him.

The thunder and thunderous rain shook the hill, he crushed me beneath him.

At the last instant he forced back my head in order to look at me.

His eyes were not fixed, staring glassily into space as the governor’s had been; Smahil’s eyes sought mine, and his were vivid with life, triumphant, tender, mocking.

CHAPTER SIX

THE BED IN SOUTHERN CITY

Smahil lifted me on to the saddle and solicitously bundled his wet coat round me. He mounted and, cradling me before him, rode down the steep path.

His arms were very tender. We had not spoken a word. I wondered if he were embarrassed. I felt drowsy and innocent. I had one hand on his black lapel, and felt rocked like a child. I knew that I am at least as safe with Smahil as no other woman can ever be.

I looked up at him.

His face, which he had cleansed, seemed to hold an intense gravity. His lips were closed, his flaxen hair, darkened by the teeming rain, was plastered in thick lank strips to his head. He peered down at me. The bulkiness of the coat had slipped a little. He tucked it round me again, his muscles hard and warm through the sodden shirt. I was held closer as he kissed my hair again and again.

“You belong to me at last.”

The bird’s claws rang no longer on the stony path of the hill, but on the roadway.

“This is not the way to H.Q.,” I roused myself presently to murmur.

He laughed contentedly.

“I shall always be sure of you while you are such a child.”