The thought, terrible as it was, would not be stifled. Tom recalled the gradual changes in the German’s manner--the descent from almost excessive cordiality to stiffness, sarcasm, positive rudeness: then the sudden return to geniality, the apparent eagerness to indulge his guest. For the first time he was struck with the peculiar arrangements for the day’s shooting expedition--the sending him on alone, the absence of gunbearers. This train of thought, once started, was carried on remorselessly by Tom’s active imagination. Granted the man’s intention of putting him out of the way, how easily one detail fitted into another! How naturally the Englishman’s disappearance could be explained! It was known to every one on the plantation that he had sometimes gone shooting alone. Reinecke could say, and his statement could be corroborated, that his guest had started alone on this morning, he himself being engaged with correspondence. He had followed later, according to arrangement, but had failed to meet the Englishman at the appointed spot. He had searched for him, and after some days had found the poor fellow’s remains at the bottom of an old, long disused game-pit. How plausible the story would be! Bob, thousands of miles away, would grieve: the story might get into the papers: people would read the paragraph, perhaps sigh, and pass on to a scandal nearer home, or to the latest news of the trouble in Ireland. In a few weeks Tom Willoughby would be only the shadow of a name. Impatient with himself at the length his imagination had carried him, Tom shouted again, fired off another cartridge--the last but one. "I must keep one for emergencies," he thought. He made another attempt to cut holes in the wall, and threw the spike from him in disgust at the second failure. It occurred to him to heap up debris at the foot of the wall, to form a mounting block; but at the stirring of the putrid mass innumerable insects, beetles, reptiles, foul nameless things issued forth, causing him to shudder with loathing, and to shrink at actual pain from their bites and stings. Overcome with nausea, he retreated to a far corner where this creeping population had not been disturbed, and for a time, weary as he was, sickened by his increasing pain, he leant against the wall, rather than sit down again, until sheer fatigue compelled him to make an uneasy seat of his slanted rifle.