The rain had washed away the scent of his master's feet but he knew they were following Jolly Roger, and that the girl was running to overtake him.

In him was the desire to rush ahead, to travel faster through the night, but Nada's stumbling feet and her panting breath and the strange white pictures he saw of her when the sky split open with fire held him back.

Something told him that Nada must reach Jolly Roger.

And he was afraid she would stop.

He wanted to bark to give her encouragement, as he had often barked in their playful races in the green plain-lands on the farther side of Cragg's Ridge.