Bruce leaned against the rock and struggled to control his breathing.
His throat was clogged with the thick saliva of exhaustion and fear. He
felt tired and helpless, his thumb throbbed painfully and he lifted it
to examine it once more.
Despite the tourniquet it was bleeding slowly, a wine-red drop at a
time.
Bleeding! Bruce swallowed the thick gluey stuff in his throat and looked
back along the way he had come. On the grey rock the bright red splashes
stood out clearly. He had laid a blood spoor for Hendry to follow.
All -right then, perhaps it is best this way. At least I'll be able to
come to grips with him. If I wait behind this shoulder until
he starts to cross the platform, there's a three hundred foot drop on
one side, I may be able to rush him and throw him off.
Bruce leaned against the shoulder of granite, hidden from the platform,
and tuned his ears to catch the first sound of Hendry's approach.
The clouds parted in the eastern sector of the sky and the sun shone
through, slanting across the side of the kopje.
It will be better to die in the sun, thought Bruce, a sacrifice to the
Sun god thrown from the roof of the temple, and he grinned without
mirth, waiting with patience and with pain.
The minutes fell like drops into the pool of time, slowly measuring out
the edition of life that had been allotted to him. The pulse in his ears
counted also, in-id his breath that he drew and held and gently exhaled
-- how many more would there be?
I should pray, he thought, but after this morning when I prayed that it
shouldnot rain, and the rains came and saved me, i will not presume
again to tell the Old Man how to run things.
Perhaps he knows best after all.
Thy will be done, he thought instead, and. suddenly his nerves
jerked tight as a line hit by a marlin. The sound he had heard was that
of cloth brushing against rough rock.
He held his breath and listened, but all he could discern was the pulse
in his ears and the wind in the trees of the forest below. The
wind was a lonely sound.
Thy will be done, he repeated without breathing, and heard Hendry
breathe close behind the shoulder of rock.
He stood away from the wall and waited. Then he saw Hendry's shadow
thrown by the early morning sun along the ledge. A great distorted
shadow on the grey rock.
Thy will be done. And he went round the shoulder fast, his good hand
held like a blade and the weight of his body behind it.
Hendry was three feet away, the rifle at high port across his chest,
standing close in against the cliff, the cup-shaped steel helmet pulled
low over the slitty eyes and little beads of sweat clinging in the
red-gold stubble of his beard. He tried to drop the muzzle of the rifle
but Bruce was too close.
Bruce lunged with stiff fingers at his throat and he felt the crackle
and give of cartilage. Then his weight carried him on and
Hendry sprawled backwards on to the stone platform with Bruce on top of
him.
