“Not he,” Hilary said. “He took a short cut and passed this Mr. Dorney on the road somewhere. Let us call those negroes again.”
They called, but had no other answer than the distant drumming noise, which seemed to be a part of the tenseness of the night.
“It began with Lotta,” Hilary said. “Her handkerchief proves that Lotta came for Ramón. Any folly may have come from Lotta. We have given them a fair chance, now we will go.”
“Listen.”
“No; there’s no one.”
It was close, still, tense night, save for the sighing in the pines and that beating, like a heart-beat, from the distant drum.
“Come along, then, Hilary,” she said. “We will take Paco’s buggy and go into town.”
They set out for Paco’s estancia. They were both glad to be out of the grounds of Los Xicales. When they had gone about a hundred yards, they stopped and looked at each other.
“We’re both thinking the same thing,” Hilary said. “We can’t leave quite like this, without knowing what has happened to these people. We had better go round the estate before we go to Paco’s. Or how would it be if you went to Paco’s alone, while I went back to the house? Or wait: I’ll walk with you to Paco’s, get Paco and the buggy and Paco’s son Enrique, with their guns, and then we’ll all come back together, search the estate and then go to Las Palomas. Let’s do that: come along.”
“No,” she said. “All that will take time. I’m afraid that Lotta, or one of her children, or her imbecile man, or poor old Ramón, is in extremis somewhere. And our losing time may be fatal. I don’t like leaving the estate. I’m not afraid of desperadoes. If they were about, why did they not set upon us when we were shouting at the lodge?”