But Mercedes confronted him with her father's fowling-piece in hand. She had slipped it off the window-ledge from under his elbow as he leaned forward.
"Unbar the door!" she commanded.
"Look here, no nonsense!"
"Unbar the door!" She believed him to be a coward, and he was.
"You just wait a bit, my lady!" he threatened, but drew the bolt, nevertheless; when he turned, the muzzle of the fowling-piece still covered him.
She nodded toward the knapsack. "Pick up that, if you will.... Now turn your back—your back to me, if you please—and go."
He hesitated, rebellious: but there was no help for it.
"Go!" she repeated. And he went.
Above the cabin the path ended almost at once in a cul de sac—a wall of frowning cliff. There was no way for him, whether he wished to descend or climb the mountain, but that which led him past the body of the man he had just murdered. He went past it tottering, fumbling with the straps of his knapsack: and Mercedes stood in the moonlit doorway and watched him out of sight.