However, vague as I was on the points of the compass, I started off undaunted, following my nose. But unfortunately I wasn’t quite nimble enough to escape to cover ahead of the enemy’s lively eyes. They let out a chesty whoop at sight of me. And down the hill they galloped faster than ever … seven lumbering, baying, brutish hounds, I bitterly thought to myself, chasing one poor gentle fox.
I was in a path now. But it wasn’t, I quickly concluded, the path leading to the boat. It couldn’t be, I told myself steadily. For it was on the wrong side of the hill to be the right path. Nevertheless, thinks I, it is worth penetrating. So on I went with one good foot and what was left of the other one.
Hot dog! A miracle had happened. I was in the right path, after all. For up ahead of me was the entrance to the hermit’s cave.
The path at this point led along a sort of ledge, with a white sandstone wall on the right, [[213]]into which the mouth of the cave was set. To the left was a drop of possibly twenty feet into a ravine.
Coming to the narrow ledge I slowed down. For I had no wish to lose my footing and end up in the rocky pit of the ravine. A moment later I wished with all my heart that I had gone into the ravine. For what do you know if I didn’t run smack into the killer!
Yes, sir, the warty-nosed piano tuner was in the cave, and when I skidded into the picture, so to speak, he stepped out and nabbed me. I don’t mean that he was rough about it. To the contrary, he was crammed full of oily politeness. But I wasn’t fooled by his smooth manners. For I could see behind his shell of politeness into a twisted mind and a blood-hungry heart.
Boy, was I ever scared! I had frightened Bid Stricker with silly talk about cutting initials on his gizzard. Now I thought to myself, in cold shivers, how about my own gizzard?
“And so,” the killer said softly, smiling into my bulging eyes with a sort of purring-cat expression on his wicked face, “we meet again.”
I didn’t say anything, for, in my scare, I had forgotten how to unhook my tongue.
“I trust,” he added, still purring and feeling [[214]]of me with his mean eyes, “that you remember me.”