It reminded Hi of the sounds of pheasant shooting at home in the unpreserved downland coverts where birds are scarce.
When the commander came out, another officer was with him. This one seemed to be a general, preparing to ride. He was flicking his spotless boots with a silk handkerchief, and walking with an arch of the legs caused partly by tight breeches, partly by affectation. “Where is this English fellow?” he called.
“There, sir,” the commander said. “Bring him up, you.” Hi was led forward.
“I believe, boy, that you are a spy,” the general said. “I’ve a good mind to shoot you. Most soldiers in my place would shoot you. As it happens, my orders are not to shoot aliens, but to send them in for trial; which I shall do. You will go in to Santa Barbara till your case can be sifted a little. Any misfortune which happens to you you will have brought upon yourself.” He called in Spanish to some troopers to take Hi to the waggons which were about to start under escort to the city. He also gave them a few written words about Hi’s case for the escort commander. As Hi now knew what answer any officer would give to him, if he replied, he held his peace. The troopers gave him into the charge of the escort of the waggon, who told him, in English, to get into a waggon. When Hi asked which waggon, for there were half a dozen tilted army waggons all of one pattern, the man told him that he did not care which waggon, but that if he did not get into one straightaway he would break his face. “Get into that one there,” he cried, “and don’t show your face outside the tilt or you’ll get a butt in the lip.”
“You can’t come in here,” an Englishman, inside the waggon said, “this one is full up.”
“What are you waiting for?” the escort called. “Get in.”
“It is full up,” Hi said.
“Full up,” the man replied. “Who says it’s full up? You sacred suspects should all be shot if I’d my way. I’ll see if you’re full up. Get in. Make way for him, you. Now get in.” With a cudgel which he carried he poked the suspects till they made room; then Hi was thrust in among them.
The waggon was full. It contained an Englishman with a Spanish wife and three little children; an elderly American in the pineapple trade; an imbecile of doubtful nationality who dribbled at the mouth and gurgled in the throat; a strong young native woman in hysterics; an old woman who was drunk; her grandson, who had eaten something which had disagreed with him; three native men, one of them very old and infirm, the second shot in the body, unconscious and plainly near death, the third in a dreadful condition with fever. On the top of the discomforts of Hi’s entrance, the waggons started.
“Why couldn’t you have gone to one of the other waggons?” the Englishman said. “You could have seen that this was full, one would have thought.”