Then kip turned his head suddenly knowing everything as he heard the sound, certain of it. He had looked back at them and for the first time in his life lied—”It’s all right, it wasn’t a mine. That seemed to come from a cleared area”—prepared to wait till the smell of the cordite reached him. Now, hours later, Kip sits once again in the window alcove. If he could walk the seven yards across the Englishman’s room and touch hanna he would be sane. He had returned from the source of the mine explosion to find Caravaggio asleep on the library sofa with the dog in his arms.