Two men were standing at the near side of the Butt Bridge. They had already forestalled him. He listened. He toyed with a last hope. He moved cautiously across the open space, to reach the shelter of the ruins of the Custom House. He reached it. He peered closer at the men. They were still indistinct. After all, they might be robbers, workmen, homeless fellows trying to pass the night, students coming from the brothels and having a last drunken argument on their way home. He crawled nearer. Then his little eyes blinked and narrowed. One of the men crouched against the biting wind. Gypo recognized the crouching figure silhouetted against the sky. It was Mulholland. And the other man, standing stiff, with his hands in his pockets, was Peter Hackett. Gypo’s head became hot and stuffy. His eyes closed, as a sudden pain struck him in the forehead. He had an impulse to rush forward at the two men and strangle them. But he did not move. He was not afraid of the two of them, in spite of their being armed. He did not fear their guns. But they were part of the Organization. The Organization was at the Bridge. It had got there before him. He could not pass. Gallagher’s cold, glassy eyes were on the Bridge. He could not pass. The smell of the mountains left his lungs and his nostrils. The wind still blew about his crouching body. But it had lost its odour. Now it was only sharp and biting, an enemy that drove him backwards, skulking and dumbfounded. Where was it driving him? Where was it driving him? He crouched away before it, without taking counsel with himself, with his head hanging limply on his breast. He crouched across the open space and entered a roadway that led northwards. There was nothing within him with which he could take counsel. Within him he was blank and dark, like a bottomless abyss filled with thick fog. His hulking figure was driven by the wind to some boundless region where there was no shelter. He was driven by the wind to some boundless region where everything was coloured a dim grey, amorphous, terrible. The vision of an abyss, grey, without shape, swayed before his eyes as he strode northwards, moving uncertainly, staggering slightly, without guidance. His footsteps became slower. He came to a halt and looked about him curiously. He was under a railway bridge that crossed the street sideways over his head, encased in a black covering. A little dark laneway opened to his right. He walked three paces up the laneway and leaned his shoulder against the damp wall. There was shelter there. The wind did not come in. Only an odd gust swivelled around the corner and stirred the damp, musty air for a dying moment. It was quiet and dark, like the interior of a cave. He sighed. Gradually he grew composed. He grew calm and very weary. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep for a long, long time. There was no use struggling any farther. He was alone. The darkness of the night enveloped him. “There’s nobody here,” he murmured aloud.