u I don't know, but for
myself, I know quite well; I shall be killed."

"You'll be all right," said Bert, after a queer pause.

"No!" said Kurt, "I'm going to be killed. I didn't know it before, but
this morning, at dawn, I knew it--as though I'd been told."

"'Ow?"

"I tell you I know."

"But 'ow COULD you know?"

"I know."

"Like being told?"

"Like being certain.

"I know," he repeated, and for a time they walked in silence towards the
waterfall.

Kurt, wrapped in his thoughts, walked heedlessly, and at last broke out
again. "I've always felt young before, Smallways, but this morning
I feel old--old. So old! Nearer to death than old men feel. And I've
always thought life was a lark. It isn't.... This sort of thing has
always been happening, I suppose--these things, wars and earthquakes,
that sweep across all the decency of life. It's just as though I had
woke up to it all for the first time. Every night since we were at New
York I've dreamt of it.... And it's always been so--it's the way of
life. People are torn away from the people they care for; homes are
smashed, creatures full of life, and memories, and little peculiar gifts
are scalded and smashed, and torn to pieces, and starved, and spoilt.
London! Berlin! San Francisco! Think of all the human histories we ended
in New York!... And the others go on again as though such things weren't
possible. As I went on! Like animals! Just like animals."

He said nothing for a long time, and then he dropped out, "The Prince is
a lunatic!"

They came to a place where they had to climb, and then to a long peat
level beside a rivulet. There a quantity of delicate little pink flowers
caught Bert's eye. "Gaw!" he said, and stooped to pick one. "In a place
like this."

Kurt stopped and half turned. His face winced.

"I never see such a flower," said Bert. "It's so delicate."

"Pick some more if you want to," said Kurt.

Bert did so, while Kurt stood and watched him.

"Funny 'ow one always wants to pick flowers," said Bert.

Kurt had nothing to add to that.

They went on again, without talking, for a long time.

At last they came to a rocky hummock, from which the view of the
waterfall opened out. There Kurt stopped and seated himself on a rock.

"That's as much as I wanted to see," he explained. "It isn't very like,
but it's like enough."

"Like what?"

"Another waterfall I knew."

He asked a question abruptly. "Got a girl, Smallways?"

"Funny t