"What we have to stand depends on our footing. The man who grubs in dirty soil mustn’t complain that his hands are black. You came to blows, I suppose, and he went over. Is that what you would say?" "I struck him on the face, and he tried to draw a revolver on me—we were on the plateau, and he went over. If he’s hurt, I’ll pay compensation. What more do you want?" Benny looked at him curiously. Was he lying outright, or merely reciting a defence he had rehearsed in the interval? It was difficult to say. The truth must be told without delay, for the truth alone could move him. "You say the man went over. Did you see him after he fell?" "See him! What do you mean?" "I ask if you saw him after he fell—he might have been injured, you know?" Delayne returned to the table, and took a deep draught from the tumbler there. "You know something," he said, averting his eyes. "Well, I’m not a child; tell me." Benny crossed over, and looked him full in the face. "It’s a pity you didn’t stop," he said quietly—"the man’s dead—!" Delayne began to tremble, a little at first and then as one stricken by an ague. Reaction had come in an instant—the man’s hands were as cold as ice, he could not keep still. "How do you know he’s dead?" "I have seen him, touched him! He’s stone dead at the foot of the clump of pines: that’s what I came here to tell you." Delayne said: "My God!" and sank into the chair. He began to blubber like a child; his whole body twitched in a nervous collapse to be expected of such a temperament. The truth had stricken him; it prevailed above any thought of his own safety, which was left to the man who had come to him with so little ceremony. "You have twenty hours at the best, six at the worst," Benny said, ignoring the outbreak and knowing that it would pass. "If the little Frenchman who saw him fall doesn’t blab, the police may not be here until the morning. You’ll have to answer for this sooner or later, but you’ll answer it better across the frontier. Are you going to start at once, or wait for them to come for you? Take another drop of that whisky, and then tell me. I can give you that long." The man obeyed him like a child. He was already trying to excuse himself, to make a case which might be put to a jury subsequently. "It’s no more than mischance, look at it how you like. He provoked me—I had no intention to kill him. If he’d have gone away, it would have been all right. What business had he to follow me, I ask you, what business had he? Is this a free country? Then why did he spy on me? Let the police answer that: what right had he to spy on me?" Benny became contemptuous now.