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I said calmly: ‘Bardous, Shaloud is not my “pretty boy”. He is my companion, and a good friend. But what would you gain by killing him and me?’
He grunted, without moving from the position in which he could slaughter Shaloud in an instant. He said: ‘Satisfaction!’ I looked Shaloud in the eyes. I hoped that he understood through my glance that if I gave a signal, he should throw himself aside.
I began to hum in a slow rhythm. As I did this, I raised my hands from the bench a little, up and down, following the rhythm. And, having sat just above one of the two trestles of the bench, by moving my weight imperceptibly I made the other end of it rise and fall a little in the same rhythm.
Bardous stood up, still holding his knife at the throat of Shaloud. ‘What are you doing?’ he said to me sharply. I raised my left arm abruptly. He pointed his knife at me with a threatening gesture. At a sign from my eyes, Shaloud threw himself aside to the ground, and for a brief moment Bardous was confused. In one movement, I drew my knife from my belt and threw it. It struck Bardous in the heart, he staggered, and he fell.
Two days later, I attended his funeral. I thought that there must have been some good in the dead man, though I had only once seen any sign of it. I was the one who had now brought it about that it would never again be seen.
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