The priest stood with his hands clasped in front of him: again death had been postponed. He felt an enormous temptation to throw himself in front of the lieutenant and declare himself – ‘I am the one you want.’ Would they shoot him out of hand? A delusive promise of peace tempted him. Far up in the sky a vulture watched; they must appear from that height as two groups of carnivorous animals who might at any time break into conflict, and it waited there, a tiny black spot, for carrion. Death was not the end of pain – to believe in peace was a kind of heresy.
