Chapter VI: Part 6

Away from the river the ground was desert-like and hard, growing scrub, mezquite, cactus and prickly pear in the spaces clear of rock. He picked up the trail for Anselmo, and went on at a good pace till he came out into the sage in the open country. He had often heard his father speak of the Santa Barbara landscape, now he saw it in its sweep, with the mountains near at his left, Gaspar thrusting out in front of them, above a rolling plain over which the wind exulted. Santa Barbara made a smudge against the paleness of the lower sky far behind him to his right. In front was this infinity of swaying sage, which ran on into grass for hours and hours of going. The forest lay dark to the left, all over the foothills of the Sierras; but one could not look at the darkness with all that light to choose. Straight in front of him, how far away he could not tell, in that clear light, which had so often deceived him already, was a round hill topped by a tower. It seemed to be not much more than a mile away in that clearness. The tower was foursquare and tall. One of its angles was topped by the figure of an angel clasping a banner.

“That is it,” Hi said, “there it is. That is Anselmo tower; the village must be beyond the hill; I shall be at the Elenas in half an hour. Oh, cheers; come on, now, for the last lap.”

He was so much cheered by the sight of his landmark that he began to run towards it. Soon he drew clear of a patch of scrub into sight of the great south road from Santa Barbara to Meruel. It went straight from the city across his path through a copse or woodland half a mile in front of him. On the road, coming from the city towards this wood, were four ox-waggons each with teams of eight oxen. He could see the slow, stately lurch of each swaying ox and hear the songs and cries of the negro teamsters. They were going with heavy loads. The whips cracked like rifle shots; the soft tenor voices adjured the oxen to pull in the names of countless saints. Hi saw a waggon enter the cover of the copse, then a second, then a third, then the last, but as he went on he did not see them emerge on the other side. “They can’t have stopped for siesta at this time,” he thought. “I suppose they are taking a halt.”

He went on towards the copse or little wood, watching idly, as one will, for the teams to emerge on the other side. They did not appear, so that he thought suddenly, “I know what it is; there is a turning in the wood towards Anselmo. They have turned off to Anselmo, and so of course the wood hides them. Yet that can’t be, either; for they aren’t singing nor cracking their whips. I suppose they have pulled up for maté or a cigarette.”

It took him longer than he had expected to reach the copse. When he was close to its edge, he heard from within it a sudden scream of pain followed by the laughter of men.

“What on earth is that?” he thought.

He broke into the covert, past a water; he heard voices and horses, and smelt woodsmoke and tobacco; soon he came out into the open upon a curious scene.

For three hundred years, carters and horsemen using that road had turned into that copse to camp or siesta. A wide space on both sides of the road had been browsed and trampled clear; the cleared ground was black with old camp-fire marks. In the road, in the midst of this cleared and trampled space, the four teams of oxen stood with straying bent heads in front of their waggons. All about them was a troop of Pituba lancers, perhaps fifty strong, who had been halted there boiling maté at little reed fires when the waggons had come in upon them. Now the lancers were standing guard over the teamsters, who were being questioned by their captain.

Hi recognised the captain at once. He was the little, short, fierce, bullet-headed snappy man who had forbidden him to land at La Boca. His yellow eyes were still bloodshot with rage. He was barking at one of the teamsters, who had perhaps made some rash or unfortunate reply. After he had sworn at this man, he gave an order to some of his men, who threw the teamster to the ground and bent his head down to his knees. Two Indians then pressed a piece of wood across the back of his neck and lashed it there with strips of hide. Hi knew at once that they were going to make the man what is called a broody hen; his father had told him of this torture. But before the order could be given to complete the trussing of the victim, the officer looked up, and recognised Hi.

“Ah,” he said, “the Inglays from La Boca; the Inglays with the too much talk.”

“Si,” Hi said.

“Then you did not land at Carpinche as I bade?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Yes,” the officer said. “But what does Mr. Inglays do here, on the Meruel Road, after being told to stay in Carpinche?”

“I’m going to Anselmo.”

“To Anselmo? And where is your permit to go to Anselmo?”

“Surely I do not need a permit. I am English.”

“So? He does not need a permit: he is Inglays. To whom is the Inglays going in Anselmo?”

“I’m not going to anybody. I want to see that angel on the tower.”

“Ah, to see the angel on the tower? A holy Inglays. You will come to Ribote, where your angel of the tower shall be a little searched into. You are under arrest.”

“I’m English,” Hi said. “I have not broken any of your laws. You had better let me go.”

“It is for me to judge whether to let you go,” the officer said, “and whether you have broken the laws. You are walking without a permit on a forbidden road. You will come with me to Ribote.”

“But I can prove that I am doing no harm,” Hi said.

“If you can prove it, you can prove it at Ribote,” the officer answered. “But to Ribote you will certainly come.”

He turned his back upon Hi. He left him in charge of two troopers, while he strolled away to drink his maté. When he had finished his maté, he gave orders that Hi should mount a spare horse. When the troop had formed up, with Hi in the midst of them, they set off at a quick pace along the great road to the south. It was half-past five, as Hi judged, when they set out. The mountains were stretching their shadows like fingers along the plain. Glancing back, he saw the angel of the tower of Anselmo growing smaller and smaller. “We are miles from Anselmo now,” he thought. “It will be midnight now before I can get there.” He had no fears for himself. “They won’t really dare to harm me,” he thought, but he did bother acutely about the delay of the message. “Here’s the whole day gone,” he thought, “and I haven’t started yet and these beasts may jail me for a week.”

He was going, as far as he could judge, south or south with a little east in it. Presently they were riding in the dark, except for a flaring lower sky behind them and the young moon westering over the plain. “This is ten miles,” he thought, “or fifteen miles from Anselmo. I am no nearer than I was in Santa Barbara.”

At about seven or later he saw lights in front of him running up a slope. They came into a town of some size built on the side of a hill, which was crowned with pine trees. “Here is Ribote,” he thought. The town, though it was mainly a collection of wooden houses, was lit with electric light. Near the entrance of the town there was a big enclosure containing a mansion. The troop rode past this, up the hill to an important stone building, which looked like a large public-house partially converted into a Greek temple. As it had a flagstaff with two small guns in front of it, Hi judged it to be the city hall. The troop halted outside this hall. The officer with about a dozen men dismounted, drew their revolvers and entered. Perhaps thirty seconds later there came a cry from within and shots were fired. A few minutes later, three men, the better sort of citizen, were brought out from the hall. As the officer brought these men into the open, he caught sight of Hi, whom he seemed to have forgotten.

“Here is this Inglays again,” he said. “You shall rest from your horse ride.”

He said something to a native in a ragged blue uniform, who looked like a sweeper or a porter of the building.

“Yes, it is so,” he said. “You shall rest awhile to consider the angel on the tower and other matters. You shall have your hands free, so that you can catch your lice. You will find some brother Inglays where you are going.”

Hi realised that he was going to be jailed.

“Sir,” Hi said, “will you please let me go? I am not a subject of this State.”

“Sir, we will please let him go,” the officer said. “He is not a subject of this State.”

The man in the blue rags led the way into the house. The officer ordered the Indians to take Hi in after him. Hi was thrust along a hall into a corridor, then across a yard, paved with concrete, to a low building or shed, where the ragged man unlocked a door. When the door was opened, Hi was flung through it. He went staggering for a couple of steps, stumbled over a body which grunted, staggered on and trod upon a second body, which roused up, cursed in English and subsided.

The door clicked to and the lock turned. The key was withdrawn and the footsteps of the jailer passed away across the yard. A door closed behind them. It seemed to Hi to shut him into an “everlasting prison, remediless.” He apologised to the two bodies, on which he had trodden, but had no answer, except drunken muttering.

“I am jailed,” he thought, “locked up in a jail and can’t get out. And I can’t tell when I shall get out. I may be here for days.”

After a little time the room seemed less dark. He began to have glimmerings of its shape. There was a grated opening high up which let in air. A little grating in the door let him peer into the yard. It was a biggish, long prison room about twenty-four feet by eight. There were three people in it, a dead drunk man, a less drunk man and himself. The dead drunk man was out of all knowledge of the world. The second, from words uttered when trodden on, Hi judged to be a deserter from the Navy.

Peering through the grating, he could see little beyond except the four concreted sides of the yard sloping to a central drain. An evergreen stood in a tub at each corner of the yard. The slopes of the pent-houses surrounding the yard kept him from sight of the heavens, but a glimmer in the water of the drain showed that the stars were shining. He shook at the door, which rattled a little. It was an iron slab. He was a prisoner. “And Carlotta is a prisoner,” he thought. “And how on earth is Don Manuel to be warned?” He saw no way. “They’ve diddled us between them,” he thought.

While he stood at the little grating, rattling at the door, a great tumult broke out at the lower end of the town where Hi had seen the mansion. After twenty minutes of this he noticed that the pent-house on his right began to take colour. A glow came upon the tiles. The racket continued for half an hour. “They’re having a good old racket of destruction,” he thought. When he looked again through the grating, he noticed that the glare upon the tiles of the pent-house had changed to a glittering intermittence. “I believe they’re burning the town,” he thought. “If they are, we shall be burned like rats in a trap.”

“What say?” a voice asked.

Hi looked round startled. He saw the second of the two drunkards sitting up and looking at him. He was a littleish man with a flushed hatchet face which shone in the light.

“The town’s on fire,” Hi said; “we may be burnt if they don’t let us out.”

“What say?”

“The town’s on fire: we may be burnt.”

“’Ere, let me come on deck.”

He came on deck, a little unsteady on his legs and smelling very strong of aniseed. “Damn to hell,” he said, when he had come on deck and looked through the grating.

“A bit of fair old, rare old,” he said.

He turned on Hi suddenly to ask:

“What you in for, mate?”

“Nothing. They shoved me in.”

“That’s me, to rights,” he answered. “Nothing: same ’ere. Burning’s pineful, too. Let’s ’ave a look at that door. Say, mate, got a bit of wire?”

“No.” Hi said, “I haven’t.”

The man took hold of the door, struck a match and examined the lock. He lit a cigarette before the match burned out. He had a packet of cigarettes. Hi thought him rather scurvy not to offer him one.

“You’ve not got a bit of wire?” the man said.

Hi said he hadn’t.

“What are you doing here?” the man said.

“Come to learn sugar-planting,” Hi said. “What are you doing?”

“None of your damned business,” the man said. “If I’d got a bit of wire,” he said, “I’d soon have this door open. But you haven’t got a bit of wire?”

“No.”

“That’s a proper barracker. Coo lummy, she ain’t half caught fire. The skylight’s no cop, neither. It’s a bit of all Sir Garnet, if you ask me. You ain’t got a bit of wire?”

“No.”

Here the other drunkard gurgled in his sleep.

“Cor blimey,” the little man said, “what was that?”

“The other man.”

“What other man? I didn’t know there was another bloke; that’s straight. Lummy, ’e’s been in luck. ’E’s enjoyed ’is lunch. I’ll ’ave a look, see, if ’e’s got a bit of wire.”

He was down on his knees on the instant, rummaging in the drunkard’s clothes; for more than wire, Hi thought. He sucked his cigarette to a glow till his face shewed sharp as a wolf’s over the body.

“Not a bleeding bit,” he said at last. “The grating’s out of reach too, unless I stood on your back.”

“Come on,” Hi said. “Stand on it, and try.”

“Right,” the man said. “Tuck in your tuppeny.”

Hi tucked in his tuppeny beneath the window, the little man made a run and leap and fell over.

“Mizzled the bleeding dick,” he said. “I’ll do it next time.”

The next time he did do it; he leaped on to Hi’s back and poised there; he was a horrid weight, but Hi was struck by the ease and certainty of the jump, and also by the silence of his tread: he was wearing old white deck shoes with rubber soles. He felt the man try the gratings by heaving all his weight on them.

“Not a give in the whole bleeding barrow,” the man said, leaping lightly down. “Now if old Alf was along, what got out of Princetown, it would be all right, wouldn’t it? You ain’t got a bit of wire?”

“No.”

“’Alf a mo’; go easy,” the man said. “You ain’t seen my cap since you come in?”

“No.”

“It ought to be somewheres, unless they pincht it. It’s a fair barracker when they pinch kit as well as quod a bloke. You ain’t got a cap: did they pinch yours?”

“No: I had none.”

“Cor blimey, I’d a sweet jag; coo. This sweet shumpine, the sime the toffs; coo. But you feel it in the sweetbreads; that’s where it is; next day’s the day; that’s straight. Say, mate, would you mind looking for me cap. This grilling’s a steak’s game.”

They groped on the floor for the cap; the glare without increased so that they could see a little.

“We’ll be as nice as mother makes it, no bleeding error,” the man said. “If we don’t get out of here, we’ll be bleeding pancakes; that’s straight. Cor blimey, I seen men burned. Coo, kid; it’s a barracker, being burned; a fair barracker. You can always tell when a man’s dead, when you see him being burned; yes, you can, because. . . . Cor blimey, here’s me cap. Nar then.”

He struck another match, lit another cigarette, and rummaged swiftly at his cap in the glow at the door grating.

“Got a bit ’a wire,” he said. “Nar then, to be or not to be.”

He had taken the piece of wire which made the frame for the top of his cheese-cutter cap. With this, when he had bent it in a certain way, he began to fish within the lock, using a niceness of touch which Hi had not expected from a drunkard. He took some little time. The lock rattled and clicked under his fishing: often he swore a little and readjusted his wire. Once he stopped to look at the glare upon the tiles.

“It won’t ’alf be a bit of real life,” he said, “if the fire reaches Matiro’s. ’E’s got seventy tons of blasting powder under where ’e keeps ’is chickens. Cor, mate, that’ll mike them think the bleeding post’s come: seventy ton. Now, you bleeder, I’ve got you.”

Very delicately, he brought pressure to bear on the tough twisted wire: the lock turned: the door opened.

“There’s the bleeding door,” the man said. “We’d best hop it, mate. What’s the way out is the barracker for me.”

“Across the yard and then through the house,” Hi said.

They set out across the yard; some rats in the drain sat up to look at them. Hi saw their eyes glisten. All was still in the municipio. The door into the building was shut but not locked; Hi opened it and peered into a dark passage droning with mosquitoes.

“It’s through here, then to the right,” Hi whispered.

“Lummy,” the man said, “I ain’t half got the sours in my sweetbreads.”

“We must get the other man out,” Hi whispered.

“What other man?”

“The drunk man.”

“Garn.”

“We can’t leave him to be burned.”

“Burned. Blimey, you can see the fire ain’t anyways near. Besides, ’e’s bin lunching; ’e’s necked all what come in the waggon.”

“Well, I’ll get him out of the cell anyway. Will you give me a hand?”

“No bleeding fear.” The man passed into the passage and closed the door noiselessly behind him. Hi stole back to the cell to rouse the drunkard. It was strange how differently the glare of the fire seemed from the yard. It was not near at hand, but at the far end of the town. All the same, it was burning fiercely and perhaps drawing near to Matiro’s. Hi shook the drunkard’s arm.

IX

“Come along,” Hi said, “wake up. Come on out of this.”

“What’s that?” the man said.

“Wake up, man,” Hi said, “we’ve got the door open; we can get away.”

The man sat up, pulled out a sheath-knife, spat, and said:

“I’ll cut your guts out.”

“Never mind my guts,” Hi said, “they’ll keep; but we may be spotted, if we don’t hurry.”

“Garrrr,” the man screamed, “Garrrr and guts. See? Garrrr and guts. Harrar.” He rose upon his feet, with a brandish of his knife. “Come on the lot of you,” he yelled, “you don’t daunt me. I’m Henery Peach Kezia and my blood’s vitriol. I’ll seal you for your tombstone. Harrar you planets, I’ll put some of your lights out, once I get a hold of you.” Here he lifted up his voice into a yell.

“Ayayayayay,” he yelled, “I’m the frog who would a-wooing go. See me hop.”

“Hop out of the door,” Hi said. He held the door so that the frog might hop. He was frightened not only of the madman, but of his noise, which might bring the guards.

“Where’s the door?” the man asked.

“Here.”

“Where’s here?” the man asked. “How am I to know where _here_ is?”

“Are you blind?” Hi asked. “I didn’t know you were blind.”

“I been blind since I was a poor little orphan child,” the man said. “I only smell things. There’s a smell of roses here, or maybe it’s lavender. You guide me to the door, my dear young Bible friend. Just reach me your hand and the blessings of the poor blind man will follow you. Oh, Heaven bless you, my sweet young gentleman angel, Heaven will bless you for this.”

Hi had taken the man by the left arm, while he kept the door open with his body. The man came unsteadily through the opening into the yard.

“There,” he said, “there.” He drew a deep breath, suddenly wheeled upon Hi, stabbed at him with his knife, and screamed:

“And now I’ll cut your guts out, like I said.”

Hi had half expected something of the kind. By a twist of his body he shook himself clear, so that the door, at once swinging-to, struck Henery Peach Kezia and made him miss his stab.

“Don’t you think to dodge me like that, when my blood’s up,” Kezia said, “you young swine. I’ll cut you double for that. I’ll cut you crossways, so’s your own mother will deny you.” He began to laugh with a deep down, joyless chuckle, which made Hi’s blood run cold. He was not very steady on his feet, but he had a horrid danger about him, because of his sideways lurches. Hi dodged him in his rush, but not by much, for they were on the concrete slopes of the yard and Hi wore English walking-shoes, the man stockings. It was as bright as bright moonlight from the fire.

“Now, then,” Kezia said. “Now we’ll see. Some would have took pity on you; but not me. Do you see jouncer? This knife’s jouncer. And as soon as I’ve breathed on the blade he’s going into you.”

He panted on to the blade like a hound getting breath, then he made a sudden dart, missed by about a foot, and then followed with dreadful speed and certainty round and round the yard. The fire, wherever it was, burned up with a brighter blaze to light him. Hi aimed to reach the door into the municipal building, but the man was too close behind him for him to try to open it. He slipped on the concrete, caught one of the pillars which held the pent-house roof, and swung round it with such force that he struck Kezia from behind. The rush and excitement seemed to steady Kezia.

“Ha,” he said, “ain’t this fun? Ain’t this nice hide and seek? And I’ll bleed you into veal in the drain; white meat; eightpence a pound, prime cuts.”

Here there came a crash. Perhaps the brightness of the fire had been fed for the past twenty minutes by the timbers and rafters of the roof. These now suddenly gave way and launched the blaze into the pit of the wreck; the glare of the burning died at once from about them. Hi was in the dark, poised behind a pillar, trying to see the drunkard, who was near the desired door. There was silence for about thirty seconds, each was trying to see the other; at last the drunkard spoke.

“Say, brother,” he said, “will you shake hands and let’s be friends?”

“I can’t shake hands,” Hi said, “when you’ve got a knife in your hand.”

“The knife’s nothing. I took the knife out to cut you a nice nosegay from all these pretty little bloody roses.”

“That was kind of you,” Hi said.

“I love you,” the man said; “you are like a lovely little angel.”

“I am, rather,” Hi said. The darkness of the man seemed to edge a shade nearer.

“I love angels,” the man said.

“That’s right,” Hi said.

“I always loved angels,” the man said, “since a boy.”

“Stick to them,” Hi said; “you can’t do better.”

“You blasted young swine,” the man screamed, making a rush. “I’ll cut your gall and your milt and your pancridge.”

Hi had expected the rush; he slipped to the left as it surged out at him. The man had expected this movement; he slashed out sideways with his knife, but missed. He was after Hi on the instant, roaring, as he rushed, his war cry of “Harrar.” Hi twisted sharp to his right; the man followed, he seemed horribly near. Hi heard a splash, followed by an oath, and a fall; the man had put a foot into the drain and fallen.

Hi fled to the door into the hall, where he paused; the man had not risen; he was lying in a heap in the well or drain, muttering oaths. The fall may have hurt him: it had certainly knocked the fight out of him.

“Will you come and give me a hand up?” he said.

“No.”

“Oh, Lord, my leg’s broke, man; I can’t hurt you.”

“Rats.”

“God, man; I’d not leave you, if you’d got a broken leg.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“The bone’s coming through the calf of me leg; I’m just bleeding away.”

Hi did not answer this; the man went on:

“It’s pretty poor goods,” he said, “when an Englishman will leave another Englishman to rot in agony. Oh, the torment, it’s awful. I feel it corrupting the blood.”

Hi was touched by the man’s moans, but did not answer. The man groaned some more.

“Young fellow,” he said, “if I die, and I am dying, you’ll take my love to my poor mother? Mrs. Jones, her name is. She lives at No. 27, Cowpop Street, Sale, Cheshire. It’s the only house in the street with a brass knocker. Say my last thought was of her. And I want you to sing “Rock of Ages” over my tomb. It’s cruel to die in a foreign land, but I’d rest better after “Rock of Ages”. Won’t you come and just hold my head up; I can’t breathe; there’s darkness coming. Lift me; won’t you lift me?”

“No, I won’t,” Hi said.

“You young swine,” the man said; “it’s lucky for you you didn’t, for if you had, I’d have settled you.”

Hi went through the door and bolted it behind him. He tiptoed swiftly along the passage to the corridor down which the Indians had dragged him. The corridor stretched right and left along the length of the house. Hi could make out a staircase, the blackness of doors, and light in one place from a half-opened door. Hi listened.

All was silent at first. Then from somewhere upstairs he heard the noise of stealthy footsteps, moving slowly. To his right, from time to time, there was a little light fluttering noise, as though the wind were stirring an ill-fitting shutter or loosened jalousie. The man in the prison yard was quiet. The smell of tobacco smoke shewed that the other prisoner had passed that way.

Hi went quietly to the half-opened door, listened there, heard nothing suspicious, and peeped in.

The room was lit by an oil-lamp which had been turned so low that it stank. He could not see far into the room. From within there came again the fluttering noise, which was now not quite that of a shutter, but liker the yielding of paper under pressure, as though someone were opening a book and pressing the pages down so that it should remain open at the place. It gave Hi the sense that some industrious old man was working there in the half darkness gumming papers together.

He pushed the door very gently till he could see that the room was a kind of board-room, with shuttered windows. The table, from which the chairs had been flung back, was littered with papers. A big picture, partly out of its frame, was hanging askew on the wall to the right. Nobody was to be seen; but the noise of the pressed papers came from somewhere on the floor beyond the table.

Hi thought, “It is rats gnawing papers,” but on coming into the room he saw that it was a dead man beset by myriads of cockroaches. The man’s pockets had been turned inside out.

Hi suddenly whirled about in terror: someone was at his elbow.

He saw at once that he had no need to be terrified; it was the little man who had opened the prison door. He had stolen up in his silent way. He grinned at having scared Hi.

“Didn’t ’ear me, did yer, cocky?” he said. “Seen the stiff? They done him in and gone through him; grizzled party; one of these Digos. We’d better ’op it arter ’ere.”

Hi noticed that the man was carrying a long heavy ebony ruler which had been a part of the office equipment. He had the feeling that this was the man who had turned out the dead man’s pockets.

“Bleedin’ old beano goin’ on down the boulevard,” the man said; “kind of a Brock’s benefit. If they come on ’ere agine, the goin’ won’t ’elp us; we shan’t ’alf ’ave all right.”

He led the way out of the room and so away towards the front door, from which fresh air was blowing into the house. On the top step a great yellow pariah dog stood, longing to enter, but scared by their approach. He snarled and slunk away from them as they came out into the open. Moved by the thought that the dog might eat the body, Hi closed the door behind him.

That part of the town was empty of life, except for the moths about the globe of the electric light. The houses were shuttered and seemed to be deserted; but Hi saw that a great disorder had raged there since he had been thrust into the prison. Household gear of many kinds had been dragged into the street and left. Far away down the hill was the glow of the shell of the mansion, each window red as a furnace mouth. All the inhabitants, as well as the lancers, seemed to be at the fire, except a few who came thence quietly with sidelong glances, having pickings from the wreck under their cloaks.

“I’m goin’ to ’op it arter ’ere,” the man said. “No ’ot potitoes in mine. Coo lummy, what’s that?”

From the back of the city hall, from the direction of the prison yard, there came a sound of song, mixed with the tolling of a cuckoo. Henery Peach Kezia was lapping himself in soft Lydian airs:

O the cuckoo bird sings in the merry May morn.
Singing cuckoo, O cuckoo, how happy am I.
O cuckoo, O cuckoo, O cuckoo.
Cuckoo.

“It’s the drunkard,” Hi said.

“The stiff? You woke him?”

“Yes.”

Hi noticed that the man’s eyes were fixed upon him somewhat strangely.

“Which way you goin’, cocky?” he asked.

“Anselmo,” Hi said. “Do you know it?”

“I know it well,” the man said. “I don’t mind setting you there, or on the way there.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Hi said. “But are you going that way?”

“Never you mind where I’m going,” the man said. “You’re a damn sight too nosy.”

“No more nosy, as you call it, than you,” Hi answered. “I know the way to Anselmo; if it’s out of your own way, I can find it myself. But we’d better not go straight past the fire; we might be recognised.”

“Come along ’ere, cocky,” the man said. “If we go along this road a piece, we can easy cut across later.”

They turned up a road which opened to the north not far from the city hall. The houses near it were small adobe bungalows, with roofs of red tiles. The stars in the heaven shone like lamps.

“I say, look at the stars,” Hi said.

“Are you being pleasant?” the man asked. “You’re doing ‘Oh, the starlight’; but they’re cocky little bleeders, stars.”

They walked on together for a minute, till they were in the midst of a grove, where a night singing bird was making a plaintive, exquisite haunting call. The man paused.

“What was the nime of the plice you was goin’ to?” he asked.

“Anselmo.”

“Anselmo, that was it; Anselmo.” He seemed to think for an instant. “Well, there’s no plice of that nime anywheres abaht ’ere.”

“But you said you knew it,” Hi said.

“What was the nime agine?”

“Anselmo.”

“Oh, Anselmo,” the man said, “the plice you see over there?”

“No; over there,” Hi said, turning to point. Some instinct told him to look out, but it came a fraction of a second too late. He never knew certainly what happened next, because he was knocked unconscious by a blow on the point of his jaw, which ended the world for him for four minutes.

When he came to himself, with a dizzy head full of confusion, he tried to stand, but found that his feet hurt. Groping down to find out why, he found that his shoes were gone. Instead of them, a pair of old white deck shoes, with rubber soles, lay beside him in the track. Then a certain slackness at his waist seemed unaccustomed. He put his hand to his waist and found that his money belt was gone; then he found that his pockets had been searched: he had been robbed. He called aloud at this. Then he looked about for his companion, whom he at once judged to be the thief. There was neither sight nor sound of him. He had vanished into the night where he belonged. There was no sound of anyone running, no noise of steps, nor of bushes being thrust aside. The bird was still making a plaintive call in the tree.

“I can’t think what has happened,” Hi said. He sat down to try to compose himself. When he began to know that he had been knocked out, he wondered, “for how long?” The stars had not changed position much, so far as he could see, and there was still some warmth or so he thought in the toes of the shoes.

“He knocked me out and robbed me,” he thought. “I’d gladly have gone halves with him. I don’t know what the deuce to do now. Well, I must get to Anselmo, that’s the first thing. And it must be nearly midnight by this time and I’m further from Anselmo than I was when I started.”

He put on the deck shoes. There was a meanness in the theft of his shoes which hurt him more even than the loss of his precious pocket-book with the sprig of hermosita. When he had put on the shoes and felt their discomforts, as well as their kind, which was specially loathsome to him, he walked back to the town, he could not afterwards tell why. He had no very clear thought of what he was doing nor of what he ought to do, for the brains were still shaky in his head from the knock upon his jaw.

When he turned into the street in front of the city hall, he saw some of the lancers, followed by a mob, riding uphill towards him. He turned uphill away from them, till he was out of the town, in a rocky path near a pine wood. The lancers paused at the city hall, as though to bivouac. Hi felt a deadly weariness overcoming the need of reaching Anselmo.

“I am done,” he thought. “I have done nothing, but I have been through a good deal to-day. I must rest for a bit before I go on.” He was cold as well as weary, for the cold sea breeze was blowing. “It must be midnight,” he thought. “I will rest for just an hour among those rocks. If I had only not spoken to that officer at La Boca, I would have been fifty miles on beyond Anselmo by this.”

He was so stupid from fatigue and the blow that he paid little heed to his going, as he pushed through the scrub towards what looked like shelter. Suddenly he caught a whiff of scent, a rustle of movement and a gleam of something: he was aware that people were hiding there. A startled somebody, speaking intensely, in a hiss of anxiety, said “Padre? . . . padre mio?”

“I’m not the man,” Hi said.

Immediately somebody surged out of the darkness, flung him down and got him by the throat. He realised at once that he was in the hands of someone much stronger than himself, who could break his neck at will, if he made a noise. Some years before, at the Old Berks Steeplechases, he had seen a welsher caught by the crowd. When overtaken, the man had fallen and lain perfectly still, as though dead; this came back to Hi on the instant as wise.

The man who had grappled him got him well by the throat with one hand, while he reached back for his knife with the other. Hi saw a darkness of face staring into his, and beyond it pine boughs and stars. Other people were there: he smelt the scent of verbena: a woman’s voice gave a caution. A woman seemed to be trying to open a box of matches and to take out a match: her fingers fumbled on the matches and people whispered. A man who came hurriedly from among the rocks struck a match upon his trouser leg, screened and held it down. Hi saw a lot of faces staring with surprise at him. He counted four persons: an old woman with white hair, a girl with great black eyes, a man with a somewhat finicky pale face, like the Aztec in the waxworks (he was the one who held the match), and a swarthy, fierce, very splendid-looking young man who had him by the throat. Hi noticed the muscles in the clear brown flesh of the arms which held him. “Golly,” he thought, “this man could tear a pack of cards across.” At this instant the match went out.

“It’s all right,” Hi said. “I’m English.”

“Inglis,” they repeated. The younger of the two women asked him in halting English: “What you doing here?”

Hi felt inclined to ask them what they were doing there, four civilised people, with jewels and scents, in the wilderness at midnight, garrotting strangers. He said that he was going to Anselmo and that he had been robbed. They seemed to understand a part of what he said, but they were puzzled by it.

The man, who was holding him, allowed him to sit up and said something in apology for having been so rough.

“What are they doing in the city?” the young woman asked.

“They are plundering and robbing, Señorita,” Hi said.

At this instant some horses were heard trotting near to the pine clump. The man, who had held Hi, signed to him to remain still, while he stole away through the scrub to see who came. In a few minutes he returned with the riders of the horses, one of whom carried a lantern. This man was a swarthy, bearded, elderly don, more than sixty years of age, but still lean and alert. His face was both hard and melancholy, with something of watchfulness stamped on it by a life passed upon a frontier. He held up the lantern to examine Hi, while the others repeated to him Hi’s story of Anselmo, which he did not seem altogether to accept. “Allan Winter said there was a feeling against us,” Hi thought. “Now here it is.” He debated whether he should tell them that he was a White, going on a White errand. “It might be all right,” he thought. “But supposing it were all wrong. Supposing these people were really Reds. Then I should be in a fine mess.”

The family drew aside to debate what should be done. Presently the daughter left the group and explained to Hi that they had to ride to safety, that they did not doubt his good faith, but that their lives depended on leaving no witness of their going and that, in short, Hi must come with them.

“We are most sad to ask it,” she said, “but it is for our mother and sister. You see, this is war. They might kill us.”

“We not take you far,” the young man said. “We set you on your journey, when we get to friends.”

There was something good-natured and well-bred about the young man which won Hi, who was, in any case, too utterly weary to protest. He said he understood and would gladly do as they asked. The girl and the young man said that it was very nice of him to take it like that. They mounted him on one of their spare horses, and set off together, through a woodland track, which set, for a while, to the south, and then curved west. Hi watched the direction as well as he could by the stars, so as to keep his bearings clear. About north-north-west was his course, he judged. “Now here I am going south,” he thought. “The Lord alone knows when I shall get to Anselmo.” He fell asleep on his horse and knew nothing more of his journey till he was wakened by the horses stopping.

He saw that they had reached a point in the hill from which, looking down a ravine, they could see far below them the lights of the town and the glowing of the burnt house. The night wind had roused up the flames on the last of the wreck so that it made a beacon still. The riders were staring at this, all strangely moved. The two women were sobbing: the men were muttering curses, or prayers that were of the nature of curses.

“Ah, the accursed, the accursed.”

“For all this they shall pay sevenfold.”

“You saints that bear the sword grant me the sword that I may smite these accursed ones.”

“It is their home,” Hi thought, “where all their past lies burnt. They were chased out of it and then it was fired.”

The father interrupted the scene by saying, “It suffices. To-morrow is a new day: let us get to-morrow.” He took his wife’s rein and led the way on, the others followed him. Hi heard the nice young man say something to him, but he was too heavy with sleep to know what it was or to answer. He fell asleep again upon his horse. The high southern saddle kept him in his seat; sometimes he joggled forwards, sometimes backwards, while the horse went quietly on with the others.

At about two o’clock in the morning they came to a ranch which was guarded by mounted men. Here they all dismounted and went indoors (Hi with them) to what seemed to be a gathering of the clan.

There was a long room, lit by electric light, like all the houses in those hills even at that early age. There was a fire at one end of the room, for the night was cold enough. A maid of enormous strength, with a fine, square, good-humoured face, was making or dispensing maté among the gathering. There were perhaps forty men there, most of them talking at once, yet the room was so big that they did not crowd it.

As the party entered the room, the girl with the verbena scent noticed how weary Hi was.

“You are tired,” she said. “Enrique, this gentleman is weary. Anton, get him a maté.” (Enrique was the Aztec; Anton the nice one.)

“Sit down,” she said, showing a seat which ran round the wall. “Anton will bring you a maté.”

“You sit,” he said. “Let me bring you a maté.” Anton shoved him down on to his seat.

“Our guests do not wait, they are waited on,” he said. “You are not a Red, I am sure, to rob us of the last of all our pleasures.”

“I am a White,” Hi said.

“You are a White?” the girl said. “But we thought all you English were Reds.”

“I’m a heretic, of course,” Hi said, “but a White.”

Anton brought him a maté, which revived him. He saw the Aztec step into the midst of the gathering call for silence, and begin a long harangue, with many gestures. The babble of his voice, the heat of the room and more than twenty-four hours of strain together made him fall asleep with the bombilla in his hand.

This falling asleep may be said to mark the end of the first day of Hi’s going to warn Don Manuel. His going had not prospered, mainly because one of Don Lopez’ chief supporters, the half-breed Don Livio, a man of vengeful temper, had detached some lancers to burn the mansion of the Ribotes, who had had the misfortune to be the lords in the village in which he had passed his youth.

This act of private vengeance brought the lancers across Hi’s path at the wrong time.

While Hi was being checked by event after event, on this first day, Ezekiel Rust was riding to the west with his message. At the very moment, when Hi was falling asleep, Ezekiel Rust was rousing from his rest eighty miles away to begin his second day’s ride.

X

Hi may have slept for half an hour, when he was wakened by the tinkle of his bombilla falling on the floor. He roused up as a big, elderly rogue-bull of a man, with bloodshot eyes and a heavy ruminating mouth, which seemed to be chewing the cud of fifty different plans, came in, to take charge of the gathering. Plainly all there looked up to him as a leader. A flock of talkers surged up to him with a gabble of explanation and persuasion: some of it very hot, Hi thought.

Presently, Hi found this man staring at him, though as yet without comprehension. His eyes were fixed on Hi while his lower lip moved in and out under the strain of thought. After a time, his bull-like brain began to notice that Hi was a stranger in the camp: he turned to a man, indicated Hi by a jerk of the head, and asked, “Who is that?” Then, turning to Hi, whom of course he knew to be English, he jerked with his head, saying, “Come here, you. What are you?”

Anton explained as Hi came forward; Hi heard the words “caballero ingles”: then Anton, after asking his name, introduced him to Don Pablo something of Meruel. Hi was refreshed by his sleep and eager to be doing. He made up his mind that as these were Whites he would tell his tale, so he did. He said that he was going on urgent White business to Don Manuel at Encinitas; he asked for a horse that he might proceed.

When he had said his say, he knew that he had said something wrong. “I believe they are Reds, after all,” he thought. “Now I’ve put my foot in it.” Anton drew him aside a moment and explained: “All the Whites here are anti-clerical, they hate Don Manuel like poison. You have said, ‘I take nice Luteran message to the Pope.’” Anton seemed to think it very funny, but Hi was appalled. “I’ve done for myself now,” he thought, “they’ll probably jail me for a week.”

“Business with Don Manuel at Encinitas?” Don Pablo repeated. “And what business?”

“To tell him that the Reds have put Señorita de Leyva into prison.”

This was news to the assembly, but on the whole pleasant news: the de Leyvas were blamed for most of the troubles which had fallen on the Whites.

“At least,” Don Pablo said, “you cannot reach Don Manuel from here.”

“I don’t want to,” Hi said. “I want to reach Anselmo from here, and from there go on to Don Manuel.”

“Very pretty,” Don Pablo said. “There are telegraphs in Anselmo. You could warn Santa Barbara of all that has been said here.”

“No, sir,” Hi said, “unfortunately, I know no Spanish, and have not understood what has been said here: besides, I am not a spy.”

“You are the first to mention the word,” Don Pablo answered. “You are here, we are here, the trouble exists, the telegraph exists, Santa Barbara exists. I consider the situation.”

“Yes, sir,” Hi said, “but I have been only four nights in this land, I know nothing of your politics.”

“How comes it then,” Don Pablo interrupted, “that you go at all upon this errand? Why are you sent? Who sent you?”

“I must not tell you that, sir,” Hi answered, “but I was sent because the need was great, and because an Englishman will not be suspected by the Reds.”

“Very true,” Don Pablo answered, “but he may be suspected by the Whites. See you,” he added, turning to address the assembly in Spanish, “this boy may justly be suspected by us, when he comes from we know not where and says that he wishes to reach Anselmo.”

As most of those there were like water, ready to flow in any direction opened to it, as long as it were downhill, this turned the company against Hi. They agreed that he might justly be suspected. Why should he be there, they asked, if he wished to reach Anselmo? This was now war; Anselmo was a place of the Reds undoubtedly; this was an English boy; that he should be sent on a message was a farce. Undoubtedly he was a spy or might be used as a spy. Hi did not know their words, but their meanings were plain.

“You may be this or you may be that,” Don Pablo said, in English, “but you cannot go to Anselmo.”

“But, sir, I must go.”

“What say you?”

“Sir, I must go.”

Don Pablo pretended to be deaf, he held one of his ears with his hand, so as to catch the sound: the company tittered.

“What say you?”

“Sir, I must go to Anselmo.”

“Ah,” Don Pablo said with a smile, turning to the men, “He says that he must go to Anselmo. _Must go_; this very important English word. No, sir,” he said, turning to Hi, “you may go to your Reds in Carpinteria, or you may go home to your English in England; no one shall stop you; it is a healthy walk, for you English are accustomed to walk; but you shall not go to Anselmo. You shall not go to Anselmo, because it is a special place, which I am determined that you shall not see.”

His face, as he spoke, became gorged with blood like the wattles of a turkey cock. Having settled Hi, as he judged, he turned to the assembled men and made them a long harangue in Spanish. Long afterwards Hi learned that the purpose of the meeting was to keep the Pituba raiders out of that part of Meruel. The men there were Whites, but anti-clerical and, on the whole, in favour of Lopez, because he was a Meruel man. Pablo’s purpose, at that moment, was to get the party to ride to a well-known ranch to get from it the reinforcement of its company.

All there seemed pleased at his suggestion, except those whose mansion had been burned in Ribote. These retired in a group in some indignation when the others left the room. Hi was left alone in the great room, save for the broad, good-humoured maid, who was gathering up the bombillas. She was a friendly soul; she made remarks in Spanish to Hi, so that he might feel at ease.

“Many bombillas.”

“Si,” Hi answered.

“Better many guests than many locusts.”

This was beyond Hi, who grinned. After a little time, she added, with a sigh:

“There are more guests than lovers.”

Hi did not know what she said, but he answered, in English, “Such is life.”

After some twenty minutes of talking outside the house the assembled men mounted their horses, which had been kicking and snapping at each other, from anger at the cold, through all the hours of the discussion. Even when they had mounted they made no effort to start. They continued to discuss till it was broad daylight, when they all set off together.

Anton entered with his sister. He came up to Hi to apologise for Don Pablo.

“It is absurd,” he said, “that that man should have stopped your going to Anselmo. There is no reason why you shouldn’t go to Anselmo. Of course you may go there.”

“I have no horse,” Hi said. “Would you lend me a horse so that I could go there?”

“Do you know the way?” the girl asked.

“No.”