“If I do,” he felt, “there will be noise enough to scare the thief, and he’ll escape.”
There was no time to argue further with himself. He knew that he had been asleep, for how long he could not tell; but his heart throbbed as he felt that he had awakened just in the nick of time, and he was about to act.
Keeping in a stooping position, he crept forward foot by foot without making a sound, till he was on the edge of the walk which extended to right and left; beyond it there was about six feet of border, and then the wall with the tree, and almost within reach the figure, more plain to see now, as it bent down evidently searching upon the ground for fallen pears.
One stride—a stride taken quick as thought, with the stout hazel stick well raised in the air, just as the figure was stooping lowest. Then—
Whoosh! Thwack!
A stinging blow, given with all the boy’s nervous force, as with a bound he threw all his strength into the cut.
“Yah!”
A tremendous yell, a rush, and before Tom could get more than one other stroke to tell, the pear-seeker was running along the soft border, evidently making for the far corner of the garden, where the fence took the place of the wall.
The chord is shorter than the arc; and this applies to walks in gardens as well as geometry, only people generally call that which amounts to the chord the short cut.
Tom took the short cut, so as to meet Pete, but in the darkness he did not pause to think. For a moment all was silent, and the enemy had evidently stopped to hide.