The village huddled on the last flat ground at the foot of a steep rise toward the mountains. Jiro found a path that led upward (to where, who knew?), climbed a short distance to a vantage where he could see the nearest houses, and watched.

He saw something move—away in the rain where one house was a gray half-real presence, a man darted quickly from one house to the next. Then, for a while, nothing. He continued to wait and watch. Finally, from this house, someone emerged. Then another, and another. Men and women, a group of at least a dozen, all holding oars, spears, and other objects that could be used as clubs. Jiro shrank behind his tree, and watched as they stealthily approached the house where he had been resting. Even the women! Yes, there among them was the woman who had given him the tea, and the warning, inadvertent though it had been. Run—no, wait.

The group made a rush to the door of the house and bunched up, all trying to get in.

Jiro took that moment as the best time to run.