Evening was rapidly settling over the mountains now and having shed all his kit except his pistol and glasses he felt very much more at ease. From the shadow of the cave-mouth he explored the whole terrain with great care, methodically sweeping the mauve contours of the hills. There was no sign of movement, save where the wind ruffled the tree-tops on the crest opposite. He sat quietly on a stone and drank in that quietness, punctuated only by the distant whistle of a train in the stone cuttings above the Ibar river, or the shuffle of maize stalks in the fields below him. The babble of the Studenitsa was silenced by the moss-lined pools into which it curled, and here Methuen saw the fish rising languidly to the flies which dotted the surface.
It was more than human nature could stand, this evidence of the evening rise and, hastening back to the cave he unearthed his trout-rod and set off down the slope, solacing his conscience with a lie: “I know it’s too dangerous to fish to-night,” he said, “but it would be a good idea to assemble my rod and hide it in a convenient place by the river, ready for emergencies.” His conscience was not taken in; and indeed when he arrived at the nearest pool he discovered a spot so well hidden from view on every side that he could not resist making what he described to himself as “just a practice cast or two”.
In a matter of moments he had a glittering gasping trout beating its life out in the grass upon which he sat, and he was just stuffing it into the pocket of his duffle coat when a rustle in the bushes behind him, but some way up the hill, startled him. He pushed the rod into the bushes and lay for a while behind a bush, nursing his pistol and waiting for developments. But none came, and after a quarter of an hour he eased his cramped knees by crawling swiftly and quietly back to the great tree, feeling the trout wriggling in his pocket all the way.
The snake had retired to bed, and the yellow beam of his torch revealed no sign of it in the cave. He dumped his trout and returned to the entrance with his glasses, deciding to have one final look round before the rapidly approaching darkness made visibility impossible. Bats had begun to nicker against the sky, and from the north came the plaintive whoop of an owl. He sat drinking in the silence and full of that delightful repose which comes only to the camper who knows that he has food, fuel and shelter against the approaching night.
Here and there now came the nocturnal stirrings of animals preparing for the night. A large grey wolf came down to the water to drink and, having lifted its muzzle to sniff the air, looked once or twice in his direction with a distinct anxiety before it turned back out of sight into the dense shrub. A water-rat plopped, and a late-scampering lizard skidded among the rocks.
Methuen suddenly realized that he was tired, and yawning, made his way back to the cave, drawing a screen of branches across the mouth of it. The main chamber where he was to sleep was at right angles to the entrance so he had no fear that the light of his fire might be observed; while from what he remembered of the rock-chimney, the smoke, which emerged thirty yards higher up the hill where the air-currents were stronger, dispersed at the point of issue.
He had brought a diminutive nest of billies with him which included a small spoked grid upon which he prepared his trout after having let the fire burn up into a heap of soft grey embers; he basted it with some fat scraped from a tin of bully beef and peppered it lightly with some cummin which he had noticed growing near a cottage on his way across the hill. It tasted delicious, and he ate it with his fingers, wiping them on the duffle coat, and having eaten, took a nip at his whisky flask before settling himself finally for the night on the stone pedestal. It was only half-past six, and as yet not completely dark, but as he had work to do tomorrow he felt that a good night’s sleep was the best insurance against fatigue. Despite his boasting about being in perfect condition the climb up the mountain had tired him and he took the precaution to open the little carton of talc and empty it liberally into his socks. From long experience he had learned that a blistered heel could be as dangerous to him as anything could be, and he took the precaution of massaging his feet once he had divested them of the boots which Boris had ordered for him. It was an old walker’s trick inherited from the first war, when those unlucky enough to get trench feet were penalized for it.
The bed of soft dark bracken upon which his light sleeping-bag had been unrolled was sweet-smelling and comfortable, though he knew from experience that it must be changed every second day or else it collected fleas — from where he had never managed to discover. He settled himself to doze after having set out his torch and pistol within easy reach of his hand. The massive walls of the cave blotted out all the sounds of the outer world and in the silence he felt his mind slowly clearing as it returned to the incidents of the past few days — so perplexingly rich in the promise of solutions which fate had withheld.
The torturing thought of Vida’s death returned once more to worry him; and then — those strange oracular messages which were being passed over the radio every few days to the little groups of émigré royalists in Paris and London — what did they mean? He had brought a carbon copy of the messages with him and pondering thus he was tempted to light the single candle in his kit and read them once more before he fell asleep; but he desisted and allowed himself to float downwards along the shallow river of memory to where sleep lay waiting for him like some shadowed pool.
The dial of his watch showed him that it was a quarter to four when next he woke, and he sat up with a start. Some half-irrational prompting seemed to tell him that it was the noise of footsteps which had shaken him into wakefulness. He grabbed his pistol, comforted by the cool feel of the butt, and waited. Nothing. The deep silence filled every corner of the cave, save where a single mosquito droned in the darkness. He was about to lie back again when he heard it — the clumsy scratch of boots on the bank below the cave. It was as if someone had slipped and fallen. He waited now with every muscle tense but nothing further followed so after a pause he slipped on his boots, and taking his torch in his hand went softly to the entrance where he peered through the screen of branches at a fragment of night-sky still full of fading stars.
There was nothing to be seen, and after a further long silence Methuen set aside the branches as quietly as he could and crawled out on to the rock where the great tree cast its black cricle of shadow. The hillside was still sleeping innocently under a sky of the palest lavender. He looked anxiously about him but could find nothing which might give him a clue as to the nature of his visitor — if such he was. From somewhere over the hill a cock crowed and its clarion was answered hoarsely from the direction of the monastery. A faint distant rumble proclaimed a train. But all around him the forest scrub and river was utterly silent.