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We're from London, and we're looking for the same man." The policeman, satisfied, stepped back with a clumsy salute and a "Beg pardon, gentlemen," and once more they were off. Ten minutes later, another cyclist, pedaling furiously, rode into the zone of light cast by their head-lamps. A hail brought him to a stop, and Green put a question, explaining who he was.
A lucky escape, I thought, when once again I was out on the broad high road to Magdeburg, my head-lamps showing a stream of white light far along the dusty way. Instead of getting into Magdeburg, as I believed, I found myself, an hour later, in a dark, ill-lit town upon a broad river, and discovered that I was in Schönebeck, on the main road to Hanover.
Captain Spade then comes up to me I am standing on the starboard side and unceremoniously orders me to go below. I can but obey. I remark, however, ere I go, that the boatswain has not lighted the head-lamps, whereas the lamps of the three-master shine brightly green to starboard, and red to port.
Before the car the great head-lamps threw long beams of white light against which Hugh saw the silhouette of the muffled-up mysterious driver, with his keen eyes fixed straight before him, and driving at such a pace that it was apparent that he knew every inch of the dangerous road. What could it all mean? What, indeed?
Andrews, who had come running from the kitchen regions at the sound of the horn, flung open the door, and disclosed the big car with its flaring head-lamps, throbbing itself to a standstill at the foot of the steps. A young man jumped out a man whom neither Rose nor Herrick had ever seen before and, rushing up the steps, looked wildly round him. "Where is she?" he demanded loudly. "Where is she?"
"Monsieur is, I understand, in a bit of a scrape, and it is for all of us to assist each other is it not?" "Of course. But who told you to do all this?" Hugh inquired, standing in the dark road beside the car. The pair could not see each other's faces, though the big head-lamps glared far ahead over the white road. "Well a friend of yours, m'sieur." "What is his name?"
With the fading day the cold became intense, and when I stopped to light the head-lamps I got out my cashmere muffler and wrapped it around her throat. At last we reached the small frontier village, where we pulled up before the Belgian Custom House, paid the deposit upon the car, and obtained the leaden seal.
For nearly three-quarters of an hour I worked away by the light of one of the acetylene head-lamps, for darkness had now fallen, and at last I recommenced to climb the hill and drop down into Sawtry, the big French lamps illuminating the dark, wet road.
How long I had been there I cannot say, when suddenly it began to rain in torrents. What I might have done or what I had hoped to do is of no importance; for as I sat there staring out at the dismal rain-swept street, a man came along, saw the head-lamps of the cab and stopped, peering in my direction. Evidently perceiving that I drove a cab and not a private car, he came towards me.
Then there was a violent jerk as he put on the brakes, and the beam of the head-lamps touched and stopped upon a tilted car that lay with the wheels on one side in the ditch. "Bring a lamp," said Mordaunt coolly, and next moment they were all out of the car and running across the grass.
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