The Interlopers Page #2

"The Interlopers," written by Hector Hugh Munro (also known by his pen name, Saki), is a short story that revolves around two feuding landowners, Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym, who encounter each other in the woods over a disputed piece of land. Their longstanding rivalry takes a dramatic turn when they become trapped under a fallen tree during a storm. Forced to confront their animosity, the two men experience a moment of potential reconciliation. However, the story culminates in a twist that highlights themes of nature, fate, and the futility of human conflict. Through its sharp wit and ironic ending, Saki explores the unpredictability of life and the consequences of entrenched enmity.

• Short story

								

stopper or get any of the liquid down his throat.  But what a Heaven-sent
draught it seemed!  It was an open winter, and little snow had fallen as
yet, hence the captives suffered less from the cold than might have been
the case at that season of the year; nevertheless, the wine was warming
and reviving to the wounded man, and he looked across with something like
a throb of pity to where his enemy lay, just keeping the groans of pain
and weariness from crossing his lips.

"Could you reach this flask if I threw it over to you?" asked Ulrich
suddenly; "there is good wine in it, and one may as well be as
comfortable as one can.  Let us drink, even if to-night one of us dies."

"No, I can scarcely see anything; there is so much blood caked round my
eyes," said Georg, "and in any case I don't drink wine with an enemy."

Ulrich was silent for a few minutes, and lay listening to the weary
screeching of the wind.  An idea was slowly forming and growing in his
brain, an idea that gained strength every time that he looked across at
the man who was fighting so grimly against pain and exhaustion.  In the
pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred
seemed to be dying down.

"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first.
It was a fair compact.  But as for me, I've changed my mind.  If my men
are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you
were my guest.  We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this
stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a
breath of wind.  Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we've
been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the
better of a boundary dispute.  Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the
old quarrel I--I will ask you to be my friend."

Georg Znaeym was silent for so long that Ulrich thought, perhaps, he had
fainted with the pain of his injuries.  Then he spoke slowly and in
jerks.

"How the whole region would stare and gabble if we rode into the market-
square together.  No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von
Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship.  And what peace there
would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud to-night.  And if
we choose to make peace among our people there is none other to
interfere, no interlopers from outside . . . You would come and keep the
Sylvester night beneath my roof, and I would come and feast on some high
day at your castle . . . I would never fire a shot on your land, save
when you invited me as a guest; and you should come and shoot with me
down in the marshes where the wildfowl are.  In all the countryside there
are none that could hinder if we willed to make peace.  I never thought
to have wanted to do other than hate you all my life, but I think I have
changed my mind about things too, this last half-hour.  And you offered
me your wine-flask . . .  Ulrich von Gradwitz, I will be your friend."

For a space both men were silent, turning over in their minds the
wonderful changes that this dramatic reconciliation would bring about.  In
the cold, gloomy forest, with the wind tearing in fitful gusts through
the naked branches and whistling round the tree-trunks, they lay and
waited for the help that would now bring release and succour to both
parties.  And each prayed a private prayer that his men might be the
first to arrive, so that he might be the first to show honourable
attention to the enemy that had become a friend.

Presently, as the wind dropped for a moment, Ulrich broke silence.

"Let's shout for help," he said, "in this lull our voices may
carry a little way."

"They won't carry far through the trees and undergrowth," said Georg,
"but we can try.  Together, then."

The two raised their voices in a prolonged hunting call.

"Together again," said Ulrich a few minutes later, after listening in
vain for an answering halloo.

"I heard nothing but the pestilential wind," said Georg hoarsely.

There was silence again for some minutes, and then Ulrich gave a joyful
cry.

"I can see figures coming through the wood.  They are following in the
way I came down the hillside."

Both men raised their voices in as loud a shout as they could muster.

"They hear us!  They've stopped.  Now they see us.  They're running down
the hill towards us," cried Ulrich.

"How many of them are there?" asked Georg.

"I can't see distinctly," said Ulrich; "nine or ten,"

"Then they are yours," said Georg; "I had only seven out with me."

"They are making all the speed they can, brave lads," said Ulrich gladly.

"Are they your men?" asked Georg.  "Are they your men?" he repeated
impatiently as Ulrich did not answer.

"No," said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man
unstrung with hideous fear.

"Who are they?" asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the
other would gladly not have seen.

"Wolves."
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