At first he was conscious of nothing but relief and joy at his own lucky escape. But he had not ridden far before he began to think of the gobernador. His conscience pricked him. He felt like a deserter. He owed nothing, it was true, to Señor Fagasta, who, while genial enough in private life, had always struck Tim as a ridiculous, pompous kind of person in his public capacity. But it seemed rather mean to ride away and leave the magistrate to his fate. There was not time to reach the town and bring back help; he could not himself do anything for the gobernador; and he began to wonder what the brigands would do with him. Perhaps they would rob him of what valuables he had, and let him go. Surely they would not hurt him! But when Tim remembered stories of the lengths to which these outlaws sometimes went he grew more and more uneasy.
After a few minutes he slowed down, considered for a little, then dismounted and pushed his bicycle into a thick clump of bushes, where it was well hidden. He durst not ride back, for though his machine was furnished with a silencer, it did not run so quietly as not to be heard. He had made up his mind to retrace his path on foot, and see for himself what had happened. It was a long tramp uphill in the heat, and it took him nearly an hour to walk the distance which on the cycle he had covered in six or seven minutes. Fortunately the track wound so frequently that he ran no risk of being seen by the brigands.
As he approached the spot, he moved slowly and warily, peeping from behind bushes along straight stretches of the track, and glancing up into the hills to right and left. On reaching the scene of the capture he found that it was deserted. Nobody was in sight. He looked this way and that, and stooped to the ground to see if he could discover by their footmarks the direction in which the brigands had gone. But the ground was hard; he could scarcely discern the tracks of his own tyres. A trained scout might perhaps have noticed some slight indication, but Tim had had no such training.
"They've hauled him away," he thought, and there flashed into his mind recollections of fairy stories, in which ogres had carried human beings to their dens to make a meal of them. Tim had a vivid imagination.
He was on the point of returning when a sudden loud buzzing struck his ear. He listened: it was like the sound made by swarms of insects in the forest. And yet it was different--hoarser, less musical. Somehow it reminded Tim of the gobernador's speeches on great occasions in the plaza, He left the path, still on his guard, and scouted to the right among the trees, from which the humming seemed to come. And guiding himself by the sound, he presently started back when he saw Señor Fagasta himself, bound upright to a trunk, bare-headed, his mouth gagged.
The humming became very violent when Tim appeared. He noticed that the gobernador had managed to shift the gag a little. None of the brigands being in sight, he ran to the tree, removed the gag altogether, slit the cords about the señor's limbs, and was immediately embarrassed by two stout arms flung around him, and two hot lips pressing kisses on one cheek after the other.
"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, wriggling. "Steady on, señor."
"Ah, my dear friend! My preserver! my deliverer!" Here there was another hug, but Tim evaded the kiss. "Tell me!" whispered the gobernador, "have those wretches gone away?"
"Indeed they have," said Tim. "You had better come away too."
"But they have taken my mule! I am not accustomed to walking. I shall faint: I shall be seized with apoplexy."