What to do next?  They had not yet discovered the dead man; but it seemed to him that they would do so in another minute or two.  He tried to think logically, but could not.  It seemed now necessary to get clear away before the body was seen—­get as far off as possible.  Vaguely it occurred to him that he should wait here till night, and it was still only dusk.  But then he had a clear vision of the wood at night—­lanterns moving in every direction, men’s voices, a cordon of men all round the wood.  Yes, that would be the state of affairs when they had found the body and were beginning to look for the murderer.  This wood was a death-trap.  He forgot the pain in his feet, and began to run with the long trotting stride of a hunted stag, careless now of the crash of the bushes and fern as he swung through them.

He paused crouching on the edge of the wood, then came out over the bank, across a road, and into the fields.  With arched back he went along the deep ditch of the first field, through a gap, and into the ditch of the next field.  To his right lay Vine-Pits Farm; to his left lay the Cross Roads, the Barradine Arms, the clustered cottages.  He ran on, in ditch after ditch, under hedges and banks, swinging left-handed in a wide detour till he came to the last of the fields and the highroad to Old Manninglea.

But he had to wait here.  He saw laborers on the road, and waited till they were gone.  Then he crept through the gap where the ditch went under the road culvert, crossed this second road, and ran stooping on the open heath.

The sky was red, with terrible clouds; and a wind followed him, keeping his spine cold, although all the rest of him was burning.  When he looked back he fancied that he saw men moving, and that he heard distant shoutings from Beacon Hill.  Rain fell—­not much of it, just showers, wetting his hands, and mingling with the perspiration in front, but making him colder behind; and he muttered to cheer himself.  “That’s luck.  That’ll wash away the blood.  Yes, that’s luck.  Yes, I must take it for a good sign—­bit o’ luck.”

He walked and ran for miles—­over the bare downs, through the fertile valleys, and alongside the other railway line; and late that night he got into a feeding train for Salisbury, where, he was told, he would catch a West of England express for London.

There was delay at Salisbury, and he ate some food and drank some brandy.

Then at last he found himself in the London train, in an empty compartment of a corridor coach.  He sat with folded arms, his hat pulled low on his forehead, his eyes peering suspiciously out of the window, or at the door of the corridor.  Whenever anybody went by in the corridor, he stooped his head lower and pretended to be asleep.

There were strange people in this train—­soldiers and sailors from Devonport; some foreigners too, or people dressed up to look like foreigners; numbers of men also who kept their heads down as he was doing, as if for some jolly good private reason.  Who the hell were they really?  Detectives?