“I’m not going to anybody. I want to see that angel on the tower.”
“Ah, to see the angel on the tower? A holy Inglays. You will come to Ribote, where your angel of the tower shall be a little searched into. You are under arrest.”
“I’m English,” Hi said. “I have not broken any of your laws. You had better let me go.”
“It is for me to judge whether to let you go,” the officer said, “and whether you have broken the laws. You are walking without a permit on a forbidden road. You will come with me to Ribote.”
“But I can prove that I am doing no harm,” Hi said.
“If you can prove it, you can prove it at Ribote,” the officer answered. “But to Ribote you will certainly come.”
He turned his back upon Hi. He left him in charge of two troopers, while he strolled away to drink his maté. When he had finished his maté, he gave orders that Hi should mount a spare horse. When the troop had formed up, with Hi in the midst of them, they set off at a quick pace along the great road to the south. It was half-past five, as Hi judged, when they set out. The mountains were stretching their shadows like fingers along the plain. Glancing back, he saw the angel of the tower of Anselmo growing smaller and smaller. “We are miles from Anselmo now,” he thought. “It will be midnight now before I can get there.” He had no fears for himself. “They won’t really dare to harm me,” he thought, but he did bother acutely about the delay of the message. “Here’s the whole day gone,” he thought, “and I haven’t started yet and these beasts may jail me for a week.”
He was going, as far as he could judge, south or south with a little east in it. Presently they were riding in the dark, except for a flaring lower sky behind them and the young moon westering over the plain. “This is ten miles,” he thought, “or fifteen miles from Anselmo. I am no nearer than I was in Santa Barbara.”
At about seven or later he saw lights in front of him running up a slope. They came into a town of some size built on the side of a hill, which was crowned with pine trees. “Here is Ribote,” he thought. The town, though it was mainly a collection of wooden houses, was lit with electric light. Near the entrance of the town there was a big enclosure containing a mansion. The troop rode past this, up the hill to an important stone building, which looked like a large public-house partially converted into a Greek temple. As it had a flagstaff with two small guns in front of it, Hi judged it to be the city hall. The troop halted outside this hall. The officer with about a dozen men dismounted, drew their revolvers and entered. Perhaps thirty seconds later there came a cry from within and shots were fired. A few minutes later, three men, the better sort of citizen, were brought out from the hall. As the officer brought these men into the open, he caught sight of Hi, whom he seemed to have forgotten.
“Here is this Inglays again,” he said. “You shall rest from your horse ride.”