Chapter XI: The Motor-Cycle

Mr. O'Hagan was surprised at the rapidity with which this offensive movement had been executed. It was a bold stroke on the part of the enemy to make their way across the hills during the hours of darkness, and showed that they had among them a vigorous and enterprising leader. Its effect upon the fortunes of the Mollendists was likely to be serious. The success of their cause depended on the extent to which they could enlist active support among the disaffected. They had many sympathisers in San Rosario and the capital, but the most of these were too timid or too cautious to carry their sympathy into action. A great success would no doubt bring an influx of recruits; but a set-back such as this would not only discourage recruiting, but also dishearten those who had already taken up arms. Defeat breeds desertion.

The outlook was very gloomy. But Mr. O'Hagan was a man whose energies were stimulated by adversity. He had been wont to say that his plantation was too successful: he was growing soft. The present situation was a challenge to the qualities that had lain dormant in him since he hung up his sword at the close of the Chilian war.

Mollendo expected that some of the fugitives from the camp would in course of time make their way to the hut in the hills which Mr. O'Hagan had just left. There he always kept a small supply of provisions. It was therefore decided to return thither. Several mounted men joined them on the march, and within a few hours after reaching the hut the party was augmented by about two score, several of them wounded. These were attended by a medical student who had thrown in his lot with the Mollendists. There was great despondency among the little force. Some were disposed to continue their flight and even to abandon the cause; but Mr. O'Hagan set himself to rally them, appealing to their courage as caballeros and hidalgos, a compliment which especially flattered the mestizos among them.

Mr. O'Hagan was too old a campaigner to run any risks with a small force demoralised by their recent reverse. His first concern was to restore their morale. The great difficulty was provisions. The small supply in the hut would soon be exhausted, and in the inhospitable hills there was no chance of obtaining any food except wild fruit from the bushes. The river swarmed with fish, however, and Mr. O'Hagan, to give the men employment, set some of them to weave a seine net out of the creeping plants that flourished along the banks. With this primitive implement they caught a good number of fish.

Meanwhile he sent out half a dozen men to bring in any more fugitives whom they might meet, and Romana with another man to discover what the enemy were doing. When these scouts returned late at night, they reported that the main body of the enemy had withdrawn southward, either to San Rosario or to San Juan. They were partly gendarmes, the mounted police of the province, partly the irregular troops which the Prefect attached to his cause by the hope of plunder. The camp was still occupied, but Romana had not been able to ascertain by how many.

One of the last comers among the fugitives declared that he had seen the Prefect himself in the action. This seemed doubtful to Mr. O'Hagan, but Mollendo assured him that it was not at all improbable. The Prefect was a man of great, if spasmodic, energy, and of much personal courage and resource. In Spanish America no man could arrive at his position of virtual dictator without such qualities. He must have guessed that his escaped prisoner had taken refuge in the Mollendist camp, and having so much at stake had himself led the attack upon it, instead of leaving it to the gobernador, of whose prowess he had a mean opinion, by no means unjustified. Indeed, Senor Fagasta was in disgrace. The Prefect had accused him of conniving at the prisoner's escape, and put him under arrest in his own house--a prelude to another demand for money.

It seemed strange that the greater part of the Prefect's force should have been withdrawn so soon after the capture of the camp. Mollendo suggested that he was anxious not to be absent too long from San Juan. He had many enemies there, secret if not active; and if he allowed himself to be lured into the wilds he might return from a successful campaign only to find himself, as it were, locked out of his own house. No doubt he reckoned on the demoralising effect of his sudden swoop to break up the Mollendist party, and had left a portion of his force to harry the remnant at their leisure.

The position was discussed between Mollendo and Mr. O'Hagan in the hut. Tim was close at hand, giving eager attention to all that his elders said.

"I am much to blame for allowing the enemy to surprise me," said Mollendo bitterly. "I ought to have guarded my back door more diligently, but I was relying on the gobernador's known want of enterprise. He boasts of what he is going to do, but I have never known him to do anything."

"Don't take it to heart, excellency," said Mr. O'Hagan. "You were not to know that the Prefect would take matters into his own hands, nor would he have done so, I suspect, but for me. It is therefore incumbent on me, as the cause of your misfortune, to do what I can to retrieve it."

"And I trust much in your valour and skill, general."

"I thank you, excellency. Our most urgent need is food; the next is arms and ammunition; the next, men. That is the order in which our fortunes must be built up. And I confess that at the moment I am rather at a loss as to what steps to advise."

"We could get a certain amount of food at our own place," suggested Tim. "There can be no harm in robbing what we have been robbed of."

"That is all very well, but Pardo is in possession, no doubt with gendarmes to support him; and the enemy lie between us and home. It is very necessary to keep a careful watch on their movements, and I propose, with your consent, excellency, to send two scouts forward to-night to see what they are doing."

"Let me be one, Father," said Tim eagerly.

"You are rather too young," said Mr. O'Hagan, remembering his wife's injunctions. "Many of his excellency's men are no doubt experienced in such work."

"Let the boy go, general," said Mollendo. "I have already formed a high opinion of his courage. Such a task would give him invaluable experience. And if you send Nicolas Romana as the second scout, you need have no fear; the boy will be safe with Romana, one of the most active and trustworthy of my adherents."

Mr. O'Hagan felt himself in a difficulty. It would certainly weaken his own position with Mollendo if he refused to let his boy take a share in the operations. After so direct a proposal he could hardly hesitate to employ Tim when he would employ any one else. After a brief inward conflict he said:

"Very well, excellency; the boy must win his spurs; he shall go."

Tim was delighted, Romana scarcely less; he felt much flattered by his chief's praises. Soon after dark, therefore, the two set off on horseback. It was a cold night; a biting wind blew down from the mountains; and the scouts were not sorry when, arriving within a few miles of the camp, they had to dismount and proceed on foot. They led their horses some distance from the track, and tethered them in a clump of trees, placing on their return three large boulders at the side of the path to mark the place. If they should have to hurry back in the darkness, without such signposts they might very well overshoot the spot. Then, keeping on the hill-side above the track, they crept along, listening for sounds from the enemy's outposts.

They were within half a mile of the camp when they had the first indication of the enemy's presence. They heard the sound of horses champing their bits in the distance, and a low murmur of voices. Moving stealthily forward, they found that two or three men were posted on the track. As far as they could tell, this was the only precaution taken by the enemy against surprise from this quarter.

The scouts wormed their way foot by foot towards the camp. Their course was difficult. They durst not advance along the track itself; and the hill-side above was rugged and broken, littered with loose stones which had been removed at some time from the Inca buildings. Their route brought them presently to a spot from which they saw a slight glow ahead. It evidently came from a camp fire; but the fire itself was hidden from them by the ruined wall. Skirting the enclosure, they made their way to the side where, as they knew by the sounds, the horses were tethered. Here they caught the footfalls of a sentry moving to and fro outside the wall. They stole past him to a point where the hill fell away steeply, crawled up the slope until they gained the foot of the wall, and clambering up its ruined face, peered over into the interior of the courtyard. The horses just beneath them snorted with alarm; their movements, quiet as they were, or their scent, had disturbed the sensitive beasts. The sentry close by stopped; but after a silent pause of a few moments resumed his beat.

The scouts clung to the wall, their eyes just above its top. They saw three fires in the courtyard; all were dying down. Around each lay a number of men, wrapped in their cloaks. They could not count them; indeed, only when the breeze stirred the embers could they distinguish the forms at all. But it was easier to count the horses, ranged in a close rank with their heads towards the wall. There were ninety. A similar line stood against the adjacent wall at right angles. Altogether there must be at least a hundred and eighty animals.

There seemed to be no chance of making any more discoveries, and the twain were about to move away, when a sudden gust of wind stirred the nearest of the dull fires to a momentary flame. By its light Tim caught a glimpse of his motor-cycle resting against the wall on the far side of the enclosure. He nudged Romana's elbow to draw his attention to it. Neither dared to speak.

They remained thus for a few seconds; then, by a second nudge, Tim intimated his intention to retire. They let themselves down silently, and crept up the hill-side. When they were out of earshot from the camp, Tim said in a whisper:

"Romana, I am going to get my bike."