On the surface, it was obviously prudent to take the shortest line to the presidio, but Kit reflected that Olsen would expect him to do so. It might be better to put him off the track by going another way and Kit was anxious to know if he had left the café. Stepping back into the shadow, he made for another path and a few minutes afterwards returned to the street. He glanced at the café as he walked past and saw that Olsen was not there. He thought this ominous, since it indicated that the fellow had gone to consult his revolutionary friends and Kit imagined they would try to prevent his reaching the presidio. He seldom carried a pistol, which was difficult to hide when one wore thin white clothes. On the whole, he had found a suspicious bulge in one's pocket rather apt to provoke than to save one from attack; but he was sorry he had not a pistol now.
Kit went back across the alameda, hoping he had put Olsen's friends off the track. If so, he would be safe until he got near the presidio, when he must be cautious. He passed two or three groups of people, and now and then heard steps behind, but the steps were followed by voices that relieved his anxiety. For all that, he was glad to leave the alameda and turn up a street.
The street was narrow, hot, and dirty. There was a smell of decaying rubbish and the rancid oil used in cooking. One side was in shadow, and almost unbroken walls rose from the rough pavement. For the most part, the outside windows were narrow slits, since the houses got light from the central patio. Here and there an oil-lamp marked a corner, but that was all, and Kit kept in the moonlight and looked about keenly when he passed a shadowy door. Perspiration trickled down his face and he felt an unpleasant nervous tension. Yet nobody came near him and when he cautiously glanced round nobody was lurking in the gloom. He began to think he had cheated Olsen, but admitted that it was too soon to slacken his watchfulness.
At one corner, he saw two figures in shabby white uniform, and hesitated. In Spanish-American countries, the government generally maintains a force of carefully picked men, entrusted with powers that are seldom given to ordinary police. They patrol in couples, carry arms, and are sometimes called guardias civiles and sometimes rurales. Kit knew he could trust the men, but doubted if they could leave their post; besides he did not want Olsen to know he thought it needful to ask for protection. Now he came to think of it, he had seen the rurales outside the café and at another corner. Perhaps this was why he had been left alone.
He went on, rather reluctantly, and by and by reached the broad square in front of the presidio. The old building was clear in the moonlight; Kit could see a sentry on the terrace and a faint glow in the slit in the wall that marked Adam's room. It was hardly two-hundred yards off and he would be safe before he reached the arch, but a grove of small palms and shrubs ran between him and the square. There were rails behind the trees and the nearest opening was some distance off. A high blank wall threw a dark shadow that stretched across the road by the rails and met the gloom of the trees.
Kit looked about, without stopping or turning his head much. There was nobody in sight, but he somehow felt that he was not alone. It was a disturbing, and apparently an illogical, feeling that he must not indulge, and pulling himself together he went on, with his fist clenched. He was not far from the gate, and although he listened hard could only hear his own steps and voices in a neighboring street. Yet his nerves tingled and his muscles got tense. In front, a thick, dark mass that looked like a clump of euphorbia or cactus stood beside the path, and just beyond it a bright beam of moonlight shone between the drooping branches of the palms.
He thought the spot the beam touched was dangerous. As he crossed it his figure would be strongly illuminated and he would have his back to the dark bush. He wanted to move aside and go round the bush, but this might give somebody time to spring out and get between him and the gate. The gate was close by and he was strangely anxious to reach it. For all that, he was not going to indulge his imagination.
He plunged into the gloom, without deviating from his path, and conquered a nervous impulse that urged him to run. When he had nearly passed the bush he thought he heard a movement and a thick stalk of the cactus shook. Half instinctively, Kit leaped forward and felt something soft brush against his shoulder. As he swung round, in the moonlight, with his mouth set and his hand drawn back to strike, he saw a blanket on the ground. There was nothing else and he breathed hard as he searched the gloom. The blanket had not been there before.
Next moment, a dark figure sprang from the shadow and a knife flashed in the moonlight; then he heard a heavy report and a puff of smoke blew past his head. The figure swerved and, staggering awkwardly, fell with a heavy thud. It did not move afterwards, and while Kit gazed at it dully a man in white uniform ran past and stooped beside the fellow on the ground. Kit vacantly noted that a little smoke curled from the muzzle of his pistol.
"One cartridge is enough," he said coolly. "Your worship did not escape by much."