He met no one. In less than an hour he came to the rear of the private grounds. A thick shrubbery enclosed the field on which he was accustomed to play cricket and lawn-tennis. To the left was the petrol shed. Between the field and the house were the kitchen garden and an orchard.
Tim made his way to the back of the shed. It was an easy matter to pull out the loose boards. He entered, took a can, and returning with it to the shrubbery, hid it among the dense foliage near the spot where he had emerged from the plantation. In the course of half an hour he had four cans ready for removal. By this time dusk had fallen. He heard the clatter of crockery from the house. It was dinner time. An uncontrollable desire seized him to look in upon Pardo at the meal. Carefully replacing the boards taken from the wall of the shed, he slipped quietly round by the shrubbery towards the end of the house remote from the servants' quarters. There was now a light in the dining-room. He stole through the intervening orchard, crept to the wall of the house; then, going down on hands and knees, peeped over the window-sill.
The table was laid profusely; evidently, he thought, Pardo was "doing himself well." The ex-bookkeeper had the head of the table; there were two guests, one of them the Captain Pierola who was to have superintended the execution of Mr. O'Hagan, the other Señor Fagasta's secretary. The men were on good terms with their fare and each other. They were chatting in high good temper, and Tim felt a flush of anger as he saw how free they were making with his father's Burgundy. It was a good wine, used but sparingly by its owner; these Peruvians had already emptied one bottle, and two more stood at Pardo's elbow.
Tim watched them for some minutes, conscious of a mad longing to rush in and break the bottles on their heads. But the night was deepening; it was time to get back; and he pictured Romaña's surprise when he met him, as he expected to do, coming through the plantation. Retracing his steps as stealthily as he had approached, he returned to the shrubbery, took up one of the cans, and set off with it towards the rendezvous.
He had taken only a few steps, however, when he heard a sudden commotion from the front of the house. Men's voices were raised in angry cries. He halted, wondering what was happening. After a moment's hesitation, he ran back, dropped the can in the shrubbery, and again hastened noiselessly to the house. Looking into the dining-room, he saw that it was now empty; but the door leading into the patio was open, and through it he caught sight of a group of gendarmes. At the same moment he heard the crack of a whip, then a cry of pain, followed by howls of rage and the crash of breaking glass.
The patio was brightly lit, but Tim's view of what was proceeding there was intercepted by the backs of the gendarmes. Throbbing with excitement, he ran to the side of the one-storeyed house, scrambled up the wall by means of holes which he had once made when climbing for a lost ball, and got upon the roof. A few steps more brought him to the edge of the open patio. Peeping over, he took in at a rapid glance a dramatic situation. In the centre of the floor lay a Japanese workman, held down by two gendarmes, while Pardo belaboured him with a raw-hide whip. In the veranda and on the lawn beyond there was a swarm of the Japanese labourers, howling with rage, brandishing bill-hooks, and pressing forward to the patio, the glass door of which had just been shattered by the men nearest it. Within stood more gendarmes with fixed bayonets, and just as Tim arrived, Captain Pierola stepped forward and fired his revolver into the midst of the crowd. A man fell back among his comrades, shot to the heart. The cries were stilled; the throng drew away out of the light; and Pardo went on with his thrashing.
Tim's first feeling was utter shame and indignant wrath. Then he had a sudden inspiration. Rushing back to the wall, he shinned down with the speed of a squirrel, ran round to the front, and dashing among the crowd of Japanese, who were standing in the darkness, enraged but irresolute, he called on them to follow him. They recognised him, hailed him with a shout of delight, and next moment the whole eighty were following him in a yelling horde back to the house.
He kept out of the light from the patio, until, as he expected, the gendarmes fired a scattered volley. Then springing on to the veranda, he discharged his revolver point-blank at Captain Pierola, and brought him to the ground. The fall of their officer took the gendarmes aback. Before they could recover themselves, the Japanese burst into the patio with a shout of triumph. The Peruvians did not await the cold steel of their flashing bill-hooks. Pardo had already dropped his whip and fled. The gendarmes flocked after him, across the patio, through the corridor and out at the main door towards the road to San Rosario. Not all escaped. The rearmost were swooped upon by the exultant Japanese, who took an ample vengeance for the death of their comrade and the brutal treatment of their foreman.
"Glory be!" said a voice from the rear of the patio, and Biddy Flanagan came hastily to greet Tim. "Is the master after coming back?"
"He is not, Biddy, but he and Mother are quite safe."