I took it down and inspected it. Like everything else which belonged to Cunobel, the Mauser was in bright naval condition.

“It can jam,” I said, caressing it, “and it drills instead of knocking down, but I have a feeling I am more confident over sights than he is.”

I sounded to myself unreal, as if I were diffidently recommending some favorite bar which I had known in youth.

“What? That one?” the admiral asked, surprised. “I got it off a submarine commander in the first war. Don’t suppose it’s ever been used!”

“But have you any ammo? Ill want at least twenty rounds before I can be sure how she throws.”

“Well, they can’t trace the number,” he grumbled with some satisfaction, “if —er —well, if it was found lying about. I think I might risk it. It would be useful on rabbits, eh? I can’t afford a good .22 rifle with my pension, eh? I’ll go up to London tomorrow and get you a couple of boxes from old friends at the Admiralty. When will you start?”

“Pamellor’s letter should be in Paris tomorrow. I don’t think our friend will be content with the usual speed of French official communications. He will know the answer—probably verbally —in three or four days more. His next move is to close in boldly. You may find him calling on you to propose a prize for the best French essay in the grammar school.”

“Damn his impudence!” the admiral exclaimed. “But he doesn’t need to. We know the fellow is well up in the horsy world. He can find out that Mr. Dennim is exercising the Arab stallion without coming nearer than a Bath hotel. He’ll be after you at once.”

I did not think so. It would take him time to choose and prepare a base, though he must have one or two possibles lined up already.

“I hope he chooses Gorble again,” I said, “because then I’ve got him. I reckon that if I start at the beginning of next week I should be in close contact by the end of it.”

  The Long Night

The Arab stallion and his rider showed themselves again and again on the bare skyline above the plain of the Severn. The villages where I bought forage and supplies could give news of us, and the farmers from whom I asked permission to camp. Yet all was peace and sun and waving grass. Fear dwindled to a reasonable caution and could not nag me with an image of those dedicated feet pacing behind. No other horseman was glimpsed for an instant across the long ridges of the Cotswolds.

This was Benita’s England: the line of uplands which formed a pathway from the Atlantic beaches into the heart of the land. Its naked gentleness saddened me, for beauty which is foreign to the spirit and unattainable creates a loneliness. With the Saxons, creeping up their muddy estuaries into the forest, I had easy sympathy. My heredity was theirs; what they thought a site for a settlement would also be my choice. But here was a glory of my adopted land which did not belong to me. My roots searched over the surface of the rock, unable for the moment to penetrate more deeply.

It was perfect country, however, for my purpose, which was to call up the tiger onto ground of my own choosing. I did not expect him in full daylight. An attack would be most difficult to carry through with the clean certainty of success which he preferred. But dusk and a lonely man should tempt him.

Georgina had supplied me with a list of inns and farms where a horse would be welcome for the night. I did not use them. My evening routine was to camp early in woodland by one of the hidden Cotswold streams and then, having picketed Nur Jehan, to watch the approaches from a tree or high ground. If I saw any doubtful traveler, I stalked and investigated him. When I knew that my position had not been reconnoitered before nightfall I could sleep in peace.

Apart from my careful selection of camp sites too secluded to be easily approached in darkness, I did nothing unexpected. My intentions would be plain to any interested person pricking out my northeasterly route upon the inch ordnance map. I was keeping off the metaled roads so far as possible and obviously aiming for the short turf and empty fields around the sources of Churn and Windrush. After that I might turn back to Chipping Marton or go on — as I intended — through Banbury and Brackley to the Long Down and the patch of Midland country already familiar to the tiger.

I sent a postcard every day to comfort Matthew Gil-Ion, who was still uneasy at the thought that Nur Jehan was being treated as a real horse. The stallion was amenable to any plan. He considered me, I think, a fellow male and playmate —a better one than the vicar’s pigs which could never get out of their sty or the village children who ran away or women whose proper place was in the kitchen tent. If I also wished to sit on his back, that was a matter which could easily be arranged to the satisfaction of two gentlemen. Obedience, he had none; good will, plenty. He was accustomed to single rein and unjointed snaffle, and neither his former owner nor the vicar had ever ridden him up to that.

Too many memories of youth crowded in for my safety. Half of me joyously dropped twenty years and concentrated on schooling this sensitive and lovely aristocrat, who was anxious as a boy on a football field to do the right thing if only someone would explain the game. The other half — the old goat which had no use for memories but wanted to live — found Nur Jehan an embarrassment. It was difficult to give enough attention to my own security while trying to make chocolate and cream playfulness understand the language of the legs.

He had to carry a light sleeping bag and ground sheet as well as his own blanket, and until he was in condition I seldom gave him my own weight as well. We mostly marched in the morning and devoted an hour in the afternoon to education. As a packhorse he was reliable. He followed to heel like a well-trained dog, occasionally amusing himself by butting me from behind when I least expected it.

On my way I answered questions freely, saying that I was going through Banbury to Hernsholt where I had a cottage and would stay a few nights. So it was simple to pick up my trail. I was covering only some twenty miles a day; anyone could keep close contact with me by taking an innocent evening’s run in a car and stopping for a drink in villages which I had passed. I reckoned that if the dark rider was again going to make use of Fred Gorble he should already have made his arrangements and left his pugmark in the neighborhood.

On the sixth night I camped between Brackley and Buckingham, and next day rode across country to call on Jim Melton, making a wide circuit round Hernsholt, for I did not wish Ian Parrow to hear of my presence. My respectful affection for him was unchanged, and arguments were to be avoided. I no longer felt the false affinity to Jim as one outcast to another —my lonely sense of being eternally dirtied was much less after the warmth of Chipping Marton and the revelation that Georgina had always known my secret —but as a discreet ally, Jim was a man after my own heart.

Mrs. Melton was at home. So were her two daughters, who ought to have been at school. I gathered that they were under convenient suspicion of developing mumps. Jim had a magnificent crop of early new potatoes and needed the family labor for a couple of days.

Half an hour after my arrival he drove up in the hearse with a load of cut-price sacks and boxes. He was amazed to find Nur Jehan in his kitchen and on excellent terms with everyone — except the jackdaw who was outside and cursing. Mrs. Melton had considered it natural that the stallion should try to follow me into the house, again confirming my suspicion that she was half or altogether a gipsy.

The dark gentleman had not been seen and had made no approach to Fred Gorble. Mrs. Melton was sure of that. Ever since the evening when she had called on Gorble and muddled him with messages from a fictitious and mysterious lady whom the gentleman was supposed to be secretly visiting, she had been accepted as Gorble’s adviser in the whole tricky and possibly profitable business.