turned and plunged into the darkness.

In the orchard it seemed as if two gigantic animals were engaged in a
mad, floundering encounter, snarling, howling in a whirling chaos of
noise and motion. In the barn the prisoner and his guard faced each
other in silence.

As for the girl at the knot-hole, the sky had fallen at the beginning
of this clamour. She would not have been astonished to see the stars
swinging from their abodes, and the vegetation, the barn, all blow away.
It was the end of everything, the grand universal murder. When two of
the three miraculous soldiers who formed the original feed-box corps
emerged in detail from the hole under the beam, and slid away into the
darkness, she did no more than glance at them.

Suddenly she recollected the head with silver eyes. She started forward
and again applied her eyes to the knot-hole. Even with the din
resounding from the orchard, from up the road and down the road, from
the heavens and from the deep earth, the central fascination was this
mystic head. There, to her, was the dark god of the tragedy.

The prisoner in grey at this moment burst into a laugh that was no more
than a hysterical gurgle. "Well, you can't hold that gun out for ever!
Pretty soon you'll have to lower it."

The sentry's voice sounded slightly muffled, for his cheek was pressed
against the weapon. "I won't be tired for some time yet."

The girl saw the head slowly rise, the eyes fixed upon the sentry's
face. A tall, black figure slunk across the cow-stalls and vanished back