the
front-door open; ran down the hall; caught Elsie's hand, and crying,
"Come along! Come along!" ran down the avenue, followed by Dorothy and
Selina as fast as they could pelt.

Three minutes brought them to the car; and he bundled his breathless
charges into it, drove it out of the clump of trees, and sent it hard
down the road. Just before Apricale he bade them crouch down in the
car that they might not be seen, and rushed through the ill-lighted
street at full speed. A mile beyond the town he lighted the lamp and
drove her at full speed again, along the smooth road to Islabona.

Beyond Islabona he was forced to go very slowly down the jolting
descent; if he had tried to go at any pace, the car on those loose
stones might at any moment have taken its own steering in hand and
smashed itself against the rocky banks. Dorothy and Elsie took
advantage of the slowness to pour into his ears the tale of how the
kidnappers had seized them on the Corniche a mile outside the town,
thrust them into the carriage, and kept them quiet by threats. Now and
again he hushed them, to listen for pursuing horses. He had not much
fear of pursuit. The kidnappers would be some time breaking out of the
room in which he had locked them; and when they were out they would
scour the neighbourhood on foot. He had kept well out of sight behind
Selina; and they would hear nothing of the car before they began to
pursue. When they did pursue, it would be on the sure-footed hill
horses; they would come three yards to the car's one.

At last they reached Dolceacqua, and pushed steadily and carefully
downwards. Half-way between that town and Camporossa, they came round
a bend in the road, to see half a mile below them the flaring lamp of a
motor-car.

"Here's my father, or the police!" said Tinker with a sigh of relief.

In five minutes Dorothy was kissing her father; and Tinker was
presenting the new-found Selina to Sir Tancred with a joyful account of
her delinquencies.

It had taken Sir Tancred little more than two and a half hours to get
free of the Italian authorities; and as Tinker had expected he had
hired a motor-car, and came straight and hard for Genoa, to be turned
aside on to the right track by Tinker's shepherdess.

When they had exchanged stories, Mr. Rainer was for going on and taking
vengeance on the kidnappers. But Sir Tancred dissuaded him, pointing
out that there was no need to have every gossip in Europe talking a