I moved, crouching, back along the inner wall of the archway. The moon was momentarily behind a cloud. It was black under the arch; and out front it was so dim I could only see the faint blob of Gutierrez's standing figure, and the spot of his flashlight.
Perona: "He is not around here, De Boer. That is foolish."
Spawn: "He could have gone anywhere. Maybe a walk around the village."
Perona: "Go back home, Spawn. De Boer will come—"
Their voices faded as I moved away. A searching bandit behind me poked with his light into the crevice where a moment before I had been crouching. I moved faster. Only Gutierrez now was in front of me. He was at the far end of the arch. I could slip past, and still be fifty feet from him—if I could avoid his swinging little light-beam.
I was running now, chancing that he would hear me. I was on the path; I could see it vaguely.
From behind me came a sizzling flash, and the ting of the flying needle as it missed me by a foot.
"The Americano! He goes there!"
Another shot. The shouts of the bandits in the archway. A turmoil back there.
But it was all behind me. I leaped sidewise off the path as Gutierrez small light-beam swept it. I ran stumbling through a stubble of boulders, around an upstanding rock spire, back to the path again.