Pan Part 28

And he turned away again. My answer had so effectively put him in his place that he actually seemed cowed: he even hung his head as he walked off.

After a while I shot a pigeon, and loaded again. While I was doing so, I caught sight of Glahn standing half hidden behind a tree, watching me to see if I really loaded. A little later he started singing a hymn--and a wedding hymn into the bargain. Singing wedding hymns, and putting on his best clothes, I thought to myself--that's his way of being extra fascinating to-day. Even before he had finished the hymn he began walking softly in front of me, hanging his head, and still singing as he walked. He was keeping right in front of the muzzle of my gun again, as if thinking to himself: Now it is coming, and that is why I am singing this wedding hymn! But it did not come yet, and when he had finished his singing he had to look back at me.

"We shan't get much to-day anyhow, by the look of it," he said, with a smile, as if excusing himself, and asking pardon of me for singing while we were out after game. But even at that moment his smile was beautiful.

It was as if he were weeping inwardly, and his lips trembled, too, for all that he boasted of being able to smile at such a solemn moment.

I was no woman, and he saw well enough that he made no impression on me.

He grew impatient, his face paled, he circled round me with hasty steps, showing up now to the left, now to the right of me, and stopping every now and then to wait for me to come up.

About five, I heard a shot all of a sudden, and a bullet sang past my left ear. I looked up. There was Glahn standing motionless a few paces off, staring at me; his smoking rifle lay along his arm. Had he tried to shoot me? I said:

"You missed that time. You've been shooting badly of late."

But he had not been shooting badly. He never missed. He had only been trying to irritate me.

"Then take your revenge, d.a.m.n you!" he shouted back.

"All in good time," I said, clenching my teeth.

We stood there looking at each other. And suddenly Glahn shrugged his shoulders and called out "Coward" to me. And why should he call me a coward? I threw my rifle to my shoulder--aimed full in his face--fired.

As a man soweth...

Now, there is no need, I insist, for the Glahns to make further inquiry about this man. It annoys me to be constantly seeing their advertis.e.m.e.nts offering such and such reward for information about a dead man. Thomas Glahn was killed by accident--shot by accident when out on a hunting trip in India. The court entered his name, with the particulars of his end, in a register with pierced and threaded leaves. And in that register it says that he is dead--_dead_, I tell you--and what is more, that he was killed by accident.

THE END