ollars."

The car had reached a speed at which they could only talk in a shout,
and it seemed no more than a few minutes before Tinker slowed down for
Mentone, and stopped at a gendarme. Before saying a word Sir Tancred
showed him a twenty-franc piece; and the gendarme spoke, he was even
voluble. Yes, he had seen a carriage, rather more than an hour before.
It had galloped through the town. It carried fever-patients for the
hospital at Genoa, ill of the bubonic plague. The police and the
custom-house officials had been warned by wire from Monte Carlo and
Genoa not to delay it. There were relays of horses every twenty miles
to Genoa: the wires had said so.

"That was how they crossed the frontier, was it? What fools these
officials are!" said Sir Tancred, and he gave the gendarme his
Napoleon: and bade him tell his superior officer that the police had
been humbugged.

"If they're really bound for Genoa, we can catch them and to spare--bar
accidents," said Tinker cheerfully. "Besides, M. Lautrec will have
wired to look out for them." And he set the car going.

"Oh, they're bound for Genoa, sure enough," said Sir Tancred. "But
they won't enter it in that carriage, or much before daybreak. Still
the rascals don't know that you've come, Mr. Rainer, and that we're
already on their track. That ought to spoil their game."

The car ran through Mentone, and into Ventimiglia, but as it drew near
the custom-house, Sir Tancred cried, "By Jove, we're going to be
delayed! The guard's turned out!" And sure enough, a dozen soldiers
barred the road.

Tinker stopped the car: and a sergeant bade Sir Tancred and Mr. Rainer
come with him to the officer in command. Tinker gave his father the
pocketbook which contained their passports; the two of them got out of
the car, and followed the sergeant into the custom-house.

Tinker jumped down, and sure that he had plenty of time, looked at the
machinery and filled up the petrol tank from a gallon tin in the back
of the car. Then he went back to his seat.

He could hear a murmur of voices from the custom-house, and it grew
louder and louder; he caught disjointed scraps of angry talk. Of a
sudden his father's voice rose loud in apparent fury, and he cried in
Italian, "Spies! We're nothing of the kind!" and then in English,
"Bolt!"

In a flash the car was moving, and half a dozen soldiers sprang
forward, crying, "Stop! Stop!"

"It's running away!" screamed Tinker in Ita