The Piper on the Mountain

hand, holding it down hard against the stone. The hand’s invisible fellow settled bracingly under his right arm- pit.

“Now! Turn inward towards the slope. Gently! I’ve got your weight.”

The hands holding him felt like the only stable things in the universe. He trusted them, and turned about the pivot of his own anchored arm. He could see nothing but the close, grained surfaces of rock, and the light on the side of him where the fall was; but now it had changed to his right side. When he had blinked away the sweat that stung his eyes, the range of his vision took in also the hand that gripped his own, a muscular, naked forearm, the edge of a wide linen sleeve, and a knee, cased in cream-coloured felt, drawing back slowly to a new position.

“All right?” asked the voice.

“Yes. I’m all right.”

“Keep still, then. I’m going to turn ahead of you. No, keep down!”

The hands withdrew from him. He drew breath cautiously, and through the interstices of his human and commanding terror intimations of reason and will came floating back to him.

“Good! Now follow me closely. I’ll go slowly. Hold by my ankle as you move up after me.”

“I’m all right. I’ll follow.”

But sometimes he accepted the offer, all the same, closing his fingers firmly on the lean ankle above the laced sheepskin shoe, partly for the comfort of another human being’s solidity and nearness, even more with a sort of detached elation, because he had risked his life to draw this man down within his reach, and here he was now in the flesh, under his hand.

The way back seemed longer than the way out. They moved by careful inches, spreading their weight low and delicately, like cats. The sun was burning on the exposed nape of Dominic’s neck, a new and almost grateful discomfort; the stones were warm under his palms, warm and shaking like live flesh, searing his skinned finger-tips. He felt for the places that had held firm under his guide, gripped the heel of the soft shoe, and crawled doggedly on; until suddenly the shoe was drawn out of his grasp, and set its sole to the ground, and there were a few blades of bleached, seeding grass that fluttered beside the arched foot.

Dominic stared at them, and for a moment could not realise what they were doing there. A hand reached down to lift him by the arm. His companion was on his feet, on the pale, terraced hillside at the end of the talus. They were out of it, and they were alive. Dominic put foot to ground eagerly, and the ground held steady under him; now it was his knees that gave way and all but let him fall.

He could hardly stand. But for the arm that encircled him and hoisted him down the slope, he would have had to sit down in the grass and wait helplessly until the shock and reaction passed. Shamed and dismayed, he let himself be hustled into the highest hut, and dumped without ceremony on the camp-bed that stood in one corner of the single room. He sat with his head in his hands, drawing in deep, steadying breaths, his eyes closed.

A hand tapped him smartly on the shoulder, and he opened his eyes to find a glass being dangled in front of him.

“Here, put this down.”

The voice had abandoned its cool, unstartling detachment; it was peremptory, warm and formidably angry.

Dominic took the glass meekly; he didn’t know what was in it, but it was fiery and bitter, and burned into all the corners of him with a salutary shock. Everything shook into place again, sun and shadow and forms and thoughts. He realised for the first time the full implications of what he’d done. Apart from risking his life in that perilous passage, he had presented himself as a sitting duck for anyone who wanted to wipe him out. What could he have done in his own defence, quaking out there on a rolling heap of marbles, without even a hand free to throw stones, much less the possibility of running for cover? If he had miscalculated about this man in front of him, he would have been dead by now, and buried, and probably beyond identification if ever they recovered what was left of him.

But he hadn’t miscalculated. He was here, alive; and this man had brought him here.

He looked up over the empty glass, the drink stinging his throat and eyes, and for the first time gave all his attention to his rescuer. He found himself looking up into a frowning face, broad across eyes and brow, lean of cheek and long of chin, with a scimitar of a nose, and a long, sceptical mouth. Light brown hair arched high at the temples, duplicating the line of his brows; and the deep eyes beneath stared hard at Dominic, and not precisely indulgently, or with any great liking.

“And now perhaps you’ll tell me,” he said grimly, “what the devil you thought you were doing, out there?”

“I was looking for you, Mr. Alda,” said Dominic. “And I’ve found you.”

Chapter 10

THE MAN IN AMBUSH

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There was a moment of silence, blank and profound, while they stared at each other. Anger left the formidable, self-sufficient face, and something of wonder, interest and speculation came into it, but nothing at all of either understanding or disquiet.

“You know my name, it seems. Should I know yours?”

“It’s Dominic Felse. But no, you won’t know it. I’m English.”

“That I’d already gathered,” said Alda drily. “Only an Englishman, and I should guess a Londoner, would go striding out on treacherous places with quite such aplomb. Do you realise now that you did your best to kill yourself? Or are you completely a fool?”

The becherovka had begun to burn in Dominic’s cheeks. “I’m not from London. I’m a countryman, almost a hill-man. I knew what I was doing.” He was angry with himself the minute he’d said it; it sounded like a child’s pique, though he had intended something quite different and very much more respectable. “I’ve climbed quite a bit,” he said, almost apologetically. “I know the sort of places where one shouldn’t go.”

“Then you are completely a fool! Or else,” he said, narrowing his deep-set eyes intently, “you wanted me very badly. Perhaps you’d better tell me why.”

“You are Karol Alda?” He knew it, but he wanted it said.