This was intriguing, for she had picked the symbol of the goat out of my mind and it didn’t seem to have occurred to her —unless she was being professionally mysterious — that the symbol was myself.
Under the circumstances I simply could not resist asking more.
“What about the goat and the tiger, Mrs. Melton?”
She held my hand for that one, and suddenly turned a little pink as if in genuine anger.
“Tormenting poor dumb animals is a thing I won’t ‘ave, and I won’t look at it,” she said.
I rode off. I did not need Mrs. Melton’s muddle of telepathy and second sight to tell me that the reckoning would be painful for one or both. I had given the tiger time to prepare his plan. I had shown him my routine. I had convinced him that I was unprotected. On my way home the attack would come.
I felt equal to him on the bare tops and more than his equal in the wooded valleys where I hid my camp. I was uneasy, but the sanctuary of trees in the dusk is no less because the unknown may be behind or beneath them. I believe that for the animal always, and for man sometimes, fear is only a vivid awareness of one’s unity with nature.
What I did not like was riding along the verge of the roads when it could not be avoided. A passing car and a burst from a Tommy gun seemed altogether too chancy, gangsterish and out of character, but it was a possibility which I had to consider.
Once we may have been in close contact. Soon after dawn on the third day of my journey back from Brackley I was riding Nur Jehan over the uplands not far from the Rollright Stones. Coming downhill to a desolate crossroad which I had to pass, I saw a gray car drawn up by the side of the road. Nothing else was in sight or likely for another hour to be in sight but the low stone walls marking out two chessboards of grass on each side of a little river. There was no simple reason why a car should be parked at that hour commanding the only two roads by which I could come. A single man was in it, slouched down in the driver’s seat and apparently asleep, but the rising sun was on the windscreen and I could not see his face.
If I hesitated and changed direction I should show prematurely that I was on my guard; if I rode straight ahead I must pass the car at a range of a couple of yards. I compromised by dismounting, unrolling my kit and making a second breakfast. It was a pleasant and natural spot to choose. After half an hour the occupant of the car reversed into the crossroad and drove away. Whether he was awakened by the smell of my coffee or exasperated by my leisurely preparation of it, I never knew.
From here I could have followed the southeastern edge of the Cotswolds and returned Nur Jehan to Chipping Marton in a couple of days. It seemed too soon — a blank ending with all to begin over again and the initiative out of my hands once more. So we traveled west and spent the third night above Broadway.
On the fourth day I followed the watershed to the south, aiming for Roel Gate. This was all open country, silent except for the jingle of Nur Jehan’s bit and the larks which continually sprang up in front of us and hovered singing. On my outward journey I had passed along the edge of it, wishing that I had time to stop and devote a couple of days entirely to the schooling of Nur Jehan. I had arbitrarily set myself Jim Melton’s cottage as a destination and refused to deviate from the stages. But now I had all the time in the world —or as much of it as the tiger was inclined to allow me.
The country seemed short of my own special requirements, which were water for Nur Jehan and close cover for me. So I looked through the list of addresses which Georgina had given me and found a promising spot some three or four miles away, just south of the road from Stow-on-the-Wold to Tewkesbury.
I was welcomed effusively by the hearty lady who owned this immense and probably unproductive farm. Her main interest, to judge by the deep, ripe carpet of dogs around her feet, was the breeding of still more of them. She explained that she was no rider herself — the doggies would be jealous — but that all the pony clubs knew of her lovely barn.
I listened with formal courtesy to a flow of reminiscences larded with the names of distinguished horsewomen—few men —who had stayed at her house or camped at the lovely barn. She insisted on showing me the bedrooms and how comfortable they were. I chose the barn, rather to her surprise. At last I obtained my dismissal and directions to ride up the hill to a clump of trees just over the horizon.
The huge, empty barn stood among a thick windbreak of beeches. It was desolate and austere, I thought, rather than lovely; but it was dry, with the honey smell of centuries of Cotswold hay. The site was perfect in good weather for horse and man. Spring water plashed into a trough. The silent turf stretched away for half a mile to the north and west.
The clump of trees was altogether too easy to find in darkness, and that I was there could be confirmed from a long way off by a good pair of binoculars or even by a discreet use of the telephone. My usual evening reconnaissance would not therefore be of much value. Yet the more I looked at the place, the more I felt this might be the end. The tiger could purr with satisfaction. After a quiet and quick attack he would have all the rest of the night to get clear of the body. But since I was expecting him, the odds were on the defense — so heavily that I reckoned I could deal with him mercifully. And that was still essential. I could not kill him unless he had a gun in his hand. Even so, I hoped to be able to talk before deciding what to do with him.
Nur Jehan thought the place a horse’s paradise. He was coming on fast. In action over open country or on the verge of a road he was now quick to obey and intelligent. His only fault was in quieter movement — out of school, as it were — when he saw no reason why he should be prevented from light entertainment, such as trying to stamp his forelegs on silly chickens, or from stopping to eat whatever took his fancy.
About four in the afternoon I was grooming Nur Jehan, who had at last been taught to change from trot to canter with the off fore leading. The stallion was reproachful, for his mouth hurt — he was so unused to discipline that it would have hurt if he had been bitted with a velvet-covered willow twig —and I was completely absorbed in rewarding him with all the sensual pleasure which currycomb and brush could give.
I looked up suddenly at the sound of hooves, remembering that the Mauser was under my coat ten good yards away, and observed with relief the arrival of Benita. Under the circumstances my welcome showed more than the usual fatherly warmth. It must have sounded enthusiastic.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
“Well, your last postcard said you would pass one side or the other of Stow-on-the-Wold today. So Georgina asked a friend of hers to put me up for a couple of nights and lend me a pony. Daddy was getting anxious.”
I inquired no further. I was well aware of my aunt’s opinion, but I did not agree. I had no intention of letting Benita know what I thought of her and I did my best not to admit it to myself. It was not my business to know which of them had proposed the visit.
“After that it was easy,” Benita went on. “Georgina’s girl friend telephoned all the other horsy people, and we soon heard you were at the barn. Why don’t you stay at the farm and be comfortable?”
“Too many dogs,” I said. “Nur Jehan and I don’t like them.”
It evidently puzzled her that I, who was always looking around and behind me, should choose to sleep in so lonely a spot.
“You are not expecting anybody?” she asked.
That was too close to the bone. Since I detected a faintly jealous note in her voice, I replied with deliberate vulgarity that men of my age generally preferred luxury hotels to haystacks.
“But you,” she said, “would be quite likely to choose a gorse bush. What’s that under your coat?”