d to make breathing difficult, but
Marishka clung to the bracket at her side, trying to keep her balance as
they swung around the curves, and silently praying. Conversation was
impossible until the road rose from the plains of the Save into the
mountains, where the speed was necessarily diminished. The car,
fortunately, seemed to be a good one, for no machine unless well proven
could long stand the strain of such work as Karl was giving it to do.
Through Dervent they went at full speed, seeing no lights or human
beings. Beyond Duboj the moon came out, and this made Karl's problems
less difficult, though the road wound dangerously along the ravines of
the Brod river, which tumbled from cleft to cleft, sometimes a silver
thread and again a ragged cataract hundreds of feet below. There were no
retaining walls, and here and there as they turned sudden and unexpected
corners it almost seemed to Marishka that the rear wheels of the machine
swirled out into space. She held her breath and closed her eyes from
time to time, expecting the car to lose its equilibrium and go whirling
over and over into the echoing gorge below them, the depth of which the
shadow of the mountains opposite mercifully hid from view. But Karl had
no time in which to consider the thoughts of his passengers. He had his
orders. If achievement were in the metal he intended to carry them out.
The feudal castles of old Bosnia passed in stately review, Maglaj,
Usora, clinging leech-like to their inaccessible peaks, grim sentinels
of the vista of years, frowning at the roaring engine of modernity which
sent its echoes mocking at their lonely dignity. Marishka could look,
but not for long, for in a moment would come the terrible down-grade and
the white, leaping road before them, which held her eyes with fearful
hypnotism. Death! What right had she to pray for her own safety, when
her own lips had condemned Sophie Chotek? There was still a chance that
she would reach Sarajevo in time. She had no thought of sleep. Weary as
she was, the imminence of disaster at first fascinated--then enthralled
her. She was drunk with excitement, crying out she knew not what in
admiration of Karl's skill, her fingers in imagination with his upon the
wheel, her gaze, like his, keen and unerring upon the road.

Beside her Captain Goritz sat silently, smiling as he watched her.

"It is wonderful, is it not?" he said in a lull, when the machine
coasted down a straight piece of road. "