He went along over the dark road, walking silently like a man who knows the country in the dark, and for the sake of prudence does not wish to attract attention. As he approached the farm, he felt a certain uneasiness. This was his neighbourhood, but here also were his most tenacious enemies.
Some minutes before arriving at the farm, near the blue farm-house where the girls danced on Sundays, the road became narrow, forming various curves. At one side, a high bank was crowned by a double row of mulberry-trees; on the other, was a narrow canal whose sloping shores were thickly covered with tall cane-brake.
It looked in the darkness like an Indian thicket, a vault of bamboos bending over the road. It was completely dark here; the mass of cane-brake trembled in the light wind of the night, giving forth a mournful sound; the place, so cool and agreeable during the hours of sunlight, seemed to smell of treason.
Batiste, laughing at his uneasiness, mentally exaggerated the danger. A magnificent place to fire a safe shot at him. If Pimentó should come along here, he would not scorn such a beautiful chance.
And scarcely had he thought of this, when there came forth from among the cane-brake a straight and fleeting tongue of fire, a red arrow which vanished, followed by a report; and something passed, hissing close to his ear. Some one was firing upon him. Instinctively he stooped down, wishing to fuse with the darkness of the ground, so as not to present a target to the enemy. In the same moment a new flash glowed, another report sounded, mingling with the echoes still reverberating from the first, and Batiste felt a tearing sensation in the left shoulder, something like the scratch of steel, scraping him superficially.
But his attention scarcely stopped at this. He felt a savage joy. Two shots ... the enemy was disarmed.
"Christ! Now I've got you!"
He rushed out through the cane-brake, plunged, almost rolling down the slope, and entered the water up to the waist, his feet in the mud and his arms aloft, very high, in order to prevent his shotgun from getting wet, guarding like a miser the two shots until the moment should arrive when he could safely deal them out.
Before his eyes the cane-brake met, forming a close arch almost level with the water. Before him in the darkness, he heard a splashing like that of a dog fleeing down through the canal. Here was the enemy: after him!
And in the stream-bed, he entered on a mad race, plunging along groping through the shadows, leaving his sandals behind him, lost in the mud: his trousers, clinging to his body, and dragging heavily, retarded his movements: and the stiff sharp stalks of the broken cane-brake struck and scratched his face.