Page 136 - the-thirty-nine-steps

him how to place his men, and then I went for a walk, for
I didn’t feel up to any dinner. I went round the deserted
golf-course, and then to a point on the cliffs farther north
beyond the line of the villas.
On the little trim newly-made roads I met people in
flannels coming back from tennis and the beach, and a
coastguard from the wireless station, and donkeys and pier-
rots padding homewards. Out at sea in the blue dusk I saw
lights appear on the ARIADNE and on the destroyer away
to the south, and beyond the Cock sands the bigger lights
of steamers making for the Thames. The whole scene was
so peaceful and ordinary that I got more dashed in spirits
every second. It took all my resolution to stroll towards Tra-
falgar Lodge about half-past nine.
On the way I got a piece of solid comfort from the sight
of a greyhound that was swinging along at a nursemaid’s
heels. He reminded me of a dog I used to have in Rhodesia,
and of the time when I took him hunting with me in the Pali
hills. We were after rhebok, the dun kind, and I recollected
how we had followed one beast, and both he and I had clean
lost it. A greyhound works by sight, and my eyes are good
enough, but that buck simply leaked out of the landscape.
Afterwards I found out how it managed it. Against the grey
rock of the kopjes it showed no more than a crow against a
thundercloud. It didn’t need to run away; all it had to do was
to stand still and melt into the background.
Suddenly as these memories chased across my brain
I thought of my present case and applied the moral. The
Black Stone didn’t need to bolt. They were quietly absorbed

136 The Thirty-Nine Steps