‘Lie still!’ I shouted to Terry, throwing myself flat. I commenced to worm a way downhill behind a screen of trees in the direction from which the gun fired. Every thought of danger was out of my head. I recked of nothing save lust to avenge on this skulking murderer the misery we endured, the shame and fear of our flight before his like. I heard the noise of feet like a man running, and leapt to my feet in time to see a figure scurrying through a glade, making for the shelter of trees lower down the hill. My rifle came to my shoulder, it steadied, it followed him, aimed full in the centre of his craven back. He was as good as dead. I saw him in imagination tumbling like a stricken deer. Exultation welled up with rage in me; I delayed shooting to savour and protract the sweetness of revenge. My finger crooked on the trigger, taking the first pull, tightening for the second. When I hear my rifle fire I am always surprised, as if in the last instant my hand acted unawares of my head; I waited for that surprise, as rigid as a rock. I had never felt such burning joy as filled me while I waited for my weak finger to crook and drag him down and avenge all we suffered. He bolted for the trees. He was on the edge of the safety he must not reach, though he might grasp it, when Terry’s hands seized the rifle. Terry’s voice came from the normal world into the dreadful country that I tenanted.

‘Hugh! Hugh! Hugh!’ she shouted, dragging and pulling the rifle towards her. I stared at her for a second as if she was a stranger, and she at me with eyes alight with terror. Her face worked, her mouth made a soundless shape at words.

‘You can’t! you can’t!’ she articulated at last. I let the rifle go and it fell between us in a crevice of rock. I was as weak as if I had come from drowning.

‘Terry!’ I whispered in horror. I sat down on the ground and hid my face in my hands. It was very silent round us.

I heard her say, ‘Hugh—’ and a moment later, ‘Hugh!’ in an urgent voice.

‘He’s down, he’s fallen!’ she exclaimed.

I could not bear to meet her eyes. I lifted the rifle and uncocked it. We walked together to the spot where the man lay on his face sprawling with outstretched arms and one leg doubled under him. I gathered his shot-gun from where he flung it when he fled. It was an old hammer-gun so loose in the lock I heard it clank as I caught hold of it.