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quid. What are you on about, Lung? I’ve taken horses through worse than that. Theo, you nip across them stones and get ready to hold them. I’ll ride Sir Nigel through and lead the others, one at a time. I’ll take Albert first and get him done with. Right?’
    She managed it, though twice she nearly lost her seat when a horse missed its footing in the tearing waters. Lung crossed last of all, teetering on each stone as he nerved himself for the next leap.
    ‘Don’t you look so smug, young man,’ muttered Mrs Jones as she and Theodore stood watching him. ‘It takes a lot more nerve to do things what you don’t fancy than it does with things what you do. You could start taking Bessie up that path now.’
    The climb was easier than the descent had been; the path was better and in any case the horses found it more natural to pick their way uphill. Theodore had time to look about. Further down the ravine, held by the river against a jut of rock, was a bundle of green-blue cloth half-hidden by foam. Mrs Teng had an overshirt of just that colour. Theodore peered at it until he realized that he would rather not know for sure whether it was Mrs Teng’s body or just some bundle dropped in flight, and as he looked away his eye was caught by a movement on the further cliff. Three men were beginning to scramble down the path on the further cliff.
    ‘Look! Ma’am!’ he shouted, throwing out an arm to point.
    Mrs Jones glanced across the gap and nodded. She slid her gun from where it was slung across Albert’s back and gave the animal a slap on the rump to send him on up the path. Her own horse halted and waited while she steadied herself against the rock wall and raised the rifle to her shoulder. A shot snapped out almost instantly, and then another. Theodore hurried on, watching the pursuers over his shoulder. They had hesitated at the first shot, and at the second the leading man flinched back; all three paused, staring across the ravine. Another shot, and the leading man leaped and staggered, stood for an instant staring at his fore-arm, and then all three were scrambling back up the path. They reached the top and disappeared into the wood just before Theodore himself came out into the open. He handed Bessie’s halter to Lung and turned to catch the unpredictable Albert the moment he reached open ground.
    ‘Well done, young man,’ panted Mrs Jones as she came over the top.
    ‘Did you hit him?’ said Theodore, forgetting to speak with an accent.
    ‘Not bloody likely,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I was aiming at the rock a foot past him. A splinter must of caught him. He didn’t half jump, did he?’
    On the ridge to the west of the terraces stood a grove of wild fig-trees which Father would not let be cleared because of the parable Christ spoke in
Luke
21, xxix. From here one could see the whole slope of the Settlement on one side, and then the orchard, and then on the other side of the ridge the ravine and the ruined shrine where the old path rose. Close against the grove the tethered ponies champed at feed-bags. Lung, with the rifle under his arm, stood sentry just beyond the sky-line in case the porters recovered their courage and crossed the ravine. Theodore waited with the ponies and watched Mrs Jones riding among the smouldering huts.
    The rain had stopped and the cloud-layer was rising and thinning. Soon it would vanish and the day would half-clear to the steamy brilliance usual at this season. The smoke from the huts, which had dwindled to nothing under the steady rain, revived and slanted up in wispy parallels. Mrs Jones rode very straight-backed, glancing from side to side like a sightseer, but with a shot-gun ready across her knees. She moved at a steady pace between the huts, pausing only by the wreck of the church, where she reined to a standstill and gazed for some time before starting back up the slope.
    ‘Well, that’s not much cop,’ she said in a sombre voice, then gave a deep sigh and swung