The night was still, no voice answering broke its quiet. My heart was dead in me. I went listlessly into the cave for firewood. I began to make a bonfire at the mouth of the cave. I became engrossed in what I was doing, still evading thought. The wood blazed up into a beacon that miles around must see. I piled on more fuel. I exulted to think my enemies would see the blaze. When they came to me, I would be prepared to meet them. I laid the rifle I carried beside the fire while I went into the cave, now brightly illumined, to bring out the other guns. I found only the .22. Duncan’s rifle had disappeared. I searched frantically for it, flinging the bedclothes on the floor, tearing things from their place, to discover it. I could not come on it. As I searched I fancied I heard the sound of a voice above the din of the fire. I rushed outside to listen. I retreated away from the fire, into the darkness, out of range of its sound, to attend for that voice. I heard it a second time, like my own name feebly called. With a glad heart I answered, ‘Terry!’ I plunged down the hill to find her. I was not tired any more. I took her in my arms and carried her up the slope. The fire made so loud a wind of flame that I scarcely heard my own voice murmuring, ‘Terry, Terry, Terry.’

She lay with closed eyes in my arms. Her wan pinched face was streaked with the dirt of bogs, her clothes were sopping wet. I felt no weariness nor pain in my limbs. I could have waited for ever by the fire, gazing at her face, with my arms supporting her. She opened her eyes to look up at me. I took her wet clothes from her and rubbed her chilled limbs with my hands, chafing them until they were warm as mine.

‘You were away a long, long time,’ she whispered once. She was asleep in my arms before ever I got her into the hammock. Once or twice in the night she wakened with a cry of fear and clung to me more tightly. I did not dare move or rise to put out the fire for fear of waking her. I could not sleep, I was too glad to sleep.

I killed a rabbit early this morning. We have a day’s food at least, and a day’s respite before I need go out to kill a stag for meat.

‘We’ve only each other,’ Terry said when she wakened. ‘If anything happens, I hope it’ll be soon, and both of us together.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ I tried to assure her. ‘Nothing.’