One of the hooves of the white goat struck him on the ankle as her limbs worked convulsively.  His hand went into his pocket and closed around the weapon.  He would need to be quick and sure, to have a steady hand, to make a swift movement.  He allowed himself some moments to decide.  Then the blade of the knife shot back with a snap.

The sound seemed to reach the white goat in all its grim significance.  She struggled to her feet, moaning more loudly.  The Herd began to breathe hard.  He was afraid she would cry out even as she had cried out as she lay in the pool before the stable door.  The terror of the things that made up that cry broke in upon the Herd.  He shook with fear of it.  Then he stooped swiftly, his fingers nervously feeling over the delicate course of the throat of the white goat.  His hands moved a little backwards and forwards in the darkness.  He felt the hot stream on his hands, then the animal fell without a sound, her horns striking against the wall.  He stood over her for a moment and was conscious that his hands were wet.  Then he remembered with a shudder that the whole tragedy of the night had been one of rains and pools and water and clinging damp things, of puddles and sweats and blood.  Even now the knife he held in his fingers was dripping.  He let it fall.  It fell with a queer thud, sounding of flesh, of a dead body.  It had fallen on the dead body of the white goat.  He turned with a groan and made his way uncertainly for the stable door.

At the door he stood, thoughts crowding in upon him, questions beating upon his brain and giving no time for answer.  Around him was darkness, mystery, Death.  What right had he to thrust his hand blindly into the heart of this mystery?  Who had given him the power to hasten the end, to summon Death before its time?  Had not Nature her own way for counting out the hours and the minutes?  Had not she, or some other power, appointed an hour for the white goat to die?  She would live, even in agony, until they could bear her up no longer; and having died Nature would pass her through whatever channel her laws had ordained.  Had not the white goat made her last protest against his interference when she had risen to her feet in her death agony?  And if the white goat, dumb beast that she was, had suffered wrong at the hands of man, then there was, the Herd now knew, a Power deliberate and inexorable, scrupulous in its delicate adjustment of right and wrong, that would balance the account at the appointed audit.

He had an inarticulate understanding of these things as he moved from the stable door.  He tripped over a barrow unseen in the darkness and fell forward on his face into the field.  As he lay there he heard the thudding of hooves on the ground.  He rose, dizzy and unnerved, to see the dim shapes of some cattle that had gathered down about the place from the upland.  He felt the rain beating upon his face, the clothes hung dank and clammy to his