God, if it were true!

The climb up the Arlberg Mountains is a wonderful thing, but I would
have you know that it is child's play to the drop down on the other
side. Imagine a series of fearful zigzags with a sheer wall of rock on
one side, and on the other a precipice just as sheer, and so open and
undefended that some fellows in this race were driven almost mad with
terror at the bare sight of it. Luckily for me, I sat upon the
left-hand side of the car and could see very little of what was going
on; but I knew that our off-side front wheel was within two inches of
the edge more than once as we went up; and when we passed over the top
and began the descent I could have sworn that even Ferdinand himself
had lost all hope of getting down safely.

Once, I remember, he gave a great cry, and shot the car over to the
inside with such a twist that our wheels scraped the very rock; there
were moments when he came to a stand altogether, and passed his hand
over his eyes as though he could not see clearly. By here and there I
thought he drove like a madman, swooping round a fearful corner with
our wheels over the very chasm, or dashing down a straight as though
nothing could save him at the bottom. If I called out at this and
implored him not to be a fool, he answered back that "What was to be,
would be"; and then he mentioned Maisa's name, and I knew he had not
forgotten.

Well, as many know, the end came at that great dome of rock which looks
for all the world like St. Paul's Cathedral. I confess that I should
have been no wiser here than Ferdinand. We seemed to be following a
gentle curve round the dome, with the rock upon our left hand, and the
valley three thousand feet down upon our right. There was nothing to
tell us of the danger trap; and, thinking he had a clear road,
Ferdinand opened his throttle and we shot ahead like a shell from a
gun. Less than a second afterwards I had made a wild leap from my
seat--and Ferdinand, without a cry or a sound, had gone headlong to the
valley below.

I suppose five good minutes must have passed before I knew anything at
all, either of the nature of this awful accident or of the good luck
which attended my leap. Lying there on my back, I became conscious
presently that I was in a thick scrub of gorse, which lined the road
hereabouts. It had caught me just as a spider's web catches a fly. I
ached intolerably, that is true--my whole body seemed numbed, as though
it had