no DAHLAK 



I decided to make for the sea. I reached it on the left, but it 

 too was to be denied me. The rock was not high but it was 

 sharp on all sides. If I jumped there was a feather-bed 

 landing of sea urchins and coral to greet me plus the im- 

 possibility of climbing back up. I was standing meditating 

 upon my bad luck, when all of a sudden, a shark about a 

 yard long, passed under my nose in three feet of water four 

 yards from the edge. Without hesitating I aimed at it 

 sadistically and planted a bullet in its neck. The shark leapt 

 out of the water, turned over on to its belly, bit the air 

 madly, was swept into the current and went down vertically 

 with one last gasp. I too had become a beast. 



I went on. Ridiculously naked as I was, I felt swollen and 

 livid with an unfamiliar ferocity. I was suffering and there- 

 fore entitled — so I believed — to any act of wickedness. I was 

 aware of the greedy joy of knowing that for all the world 

 and beings that lay hidden around, I was the mortal peril, 

 the Enemy, the terrible, sovereign Being. That tarnished rod 

 which I grasped was the destiny of all and sundry in that 

 filthy peninsula. I carried on, sucking my burning lips and 

 going mad with the heat. All at once, I saw the two gazelles 

 in a glade. 



I noted the ground. Between me and them there was a big 

 rock. I could draw up behind this. There was no wind. The 

 animals were quiet. The day was mine. 



I got on all fours. I could not feel the heat any more. I 

 was not thirsty. I could not feel anything at all. My eyes 

 were glued on the two prey. I did not even look where I was 

 putting my knees. I crawled like this for two hundred yards. 

 On reaching the rock I squatted behind it calmly. Now they 

 were mine. I knew that from where I was I could shoot with 

 accuracy. The gazelles had not noticed me and were grazing 

 forty yards away. 



