hty curtains about our path, stifling all
echo, striking reverberation dumb. The strong, sweet smell of the
woods enhanced the mystery. The cool, clean air thrashed us with
perfume....

The lights of the car were powerful and focussed perfectly. The
steady, bright splash upon the road, one hundred yards ahead, robbed
the night of its sting.

Rabbits rocketed across our bows; a bat spilled its brains upon our
wind-screen; a hare led us for an instant, only to flash to safety
under our very wheels. As for the moths, the screen was strewn with
the dead. Three times Piers had to rise and wipe it clear.

Of men and beasts, mercifully, we saw no sign.

If Houeilles knew of our passage, her ears told her. Seemingly the
hamlet slept. I doubt if we took four seconds to thread its one
straight street. Next day, I suppose, men swore the devil was loose.
They may be forgiven. Looking back from a hazy distance, I think he
was at my arm.

As we ran into Casteljaloux, a clock was striking....

Nine o'clock.

We had covered the thirty-five miles in thirty-five minutes dead.

"To the left, you know," said Piers.

"_Left?_" I cried, setting a foot on the brake. "Straight on, surely.
We turn to the left at Marmande."

"No, no, _no_. We don't touch Marmande. We turn to the left here." I
swung round obediently. "This is the Langon road. It's quite all
right, and it saves us about ten miles."

Ten miles.

I could have screamed for joy.

Only fifty-five miles to go--and an hour and a quarter left.

The hope which had never died lifted up its head....

It was when we were nearing Auros that we sighted the van.

This was a hooded horror--a great, two-ton affair, a creature, I
imagine, of Bordeaux, blinding home like a mad thing, instead of
blundering.

Ah, I see a hundred fingers pointing to the beam in my eye. Bear with
me, gentlemen. I am not so sightless as all that.

I could steer my car with two fingers upon the roughest road. I could
bring her up, all standing, in twice her length. My lights, as you
know, made darkness a thing of nought.... I cannot answer for its
headlights, nor for its brake-control, but the backlash in the steering
of that two-ton van was terrible to behold.

Hurling itself along at thirty odd miles an hour, the vehicle rocked
and swung all over the narrow surface--now lurching to the right, now
plunging to the left, but, in the main, holding a wobbling course upon
the crow