Then reaction set in upon Jan. His burned face and hands stung as though still fire was upon him. He was still gasping, choking from the fumes of his smoldering clothes. His eyes, with lashes singed, smarted, watering so that all the vague night-scene was a swaying blur.... He found himself sitting down on the rocks....
And then suddenly he remembered me. Where had I gone? What had happened?...
Vaguely Jan recalled that I had left him and gone across the gully.... Where was I now?... Then he seemed dimly to recall that he had heard my shot....
In the dimness suddenly it seemed to Jan that he saw me, far up the gully to the right, up on the cliff-top. For just a moment he was sure that it was the shape of me, silhouetted against the sky.... The sight gave him strength. Still staggering, he ran wildly forward.... A quarter of a mile; certainly it seemed that far. He had crossed the gully by now. The figure up above had vanished.... Queer. What was I doing up there? Chasing the savage?...
Jan climbed the little cliff, which was ragged, and lower here than elsewhere. It led him to the undulating, upper plateau, crag-strewn, dim under a leaden sky. But there was enough light so that he could see the distant figure. It was only two or three hundred yards away, plodding on, apparently not looking back....
Jan ran after it. And then he was calling:
"Bob! You Bob—"
The figure turned. Started suddenly back, and called:
"Is that you? Jan?"
It was Torrence! He came back at a lumbering run now—Torrence, bare-headed, gun in hand. But he obviously hadn't had any encounter. His jacket was buttoned across his shirt; he looked just as he had when Jan had last seen him, out there at the bow of the wrecked spaceship when Jan had gone inside to join me.