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It was like being daped above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held his breath. "It ain't fair! It ain't fair!" our guest moaned. "You're makin' me sick." "What an ungrateful blighter he is!" said Pyecroft. "Money couldn't buy you a run like this ... Do it well overboard!" "We'll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think," said Kysh.
Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few remaining hairs much nearer the grave. "We're in Surrey now; better look out," I said. "Never mind. I'll roll her into Kent for a bit. We've lots of time; it's only three o'clock."
And that was the first and last time he addressed the man. We ran through Penfield Green, half stupefied with open air, drugged with the relentless boom of the Octopod, and extinct with famine. "I used to shoot about here," said Kysh, a few miles further on. "Open that gate, please," and he slowed as the sun touched the sky-line.
She flung up her tail like a sounding whale and buried us in a fifteen- foot deep bridle-path buttressed with the exposed roots of enormous beeches. The wheels leaped from root to rounded boulder, and it was very dark in the shadow of the foliage. "There ought to be a hammer-pond somewhere about here." Kysh was letting her down this chute in brakeful spasms. "Water dead ahead, Sir.
"Do we turn over to the new cruiser?" I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh. "You drive?" Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered way through the world. "Steam only, and I've about had my whack for to-day, thanks." "I see."
"Trevington up yonder is a fairly isolated little dorp," I said, for I was beginning to feel hungry. "No," said Kysh. "He'd get a lift to the railway in no time.... Besides, I'm enjoying myself.... Three pounds eighteen and sixpence. Infernal swindle!" I take it one of his more recent fines was rankling in Kysh's brain; but he drove like the Archangel of the Twilight.
After a great meal we poured libations and made burnt-offerings in honour of Kysh, who received our homage graciously, and, by the way, explained a few things in the natural history line that had puzzled us. England is a most marvellous country, but one is not, till one knows the eccentricities of large land-owners, trained to accept kangaroos, zebras, or beavers as part of its landscape.
About the longitude of Cassocks, Hinchcliffe yawned. "Aren't we goin' to maroon our Robert? I'm hungry, too." "The commodore wants his money back," I answered. "If he drives like this habitual, there must be a tidyish little lump owin' to him," said Pyecroft. "Well, I'm agreeable." "I didn't know it could be done. S'welp me, I didn't," our guest murmured. "But you will," said Kysh.
We passed with some decency through some towns, till by way of the Hastings road we whirled into Cramberhurst, which is a deep pit. "Now," said Kysh, "we begin." "Previous service not reckoned towards pension," said Pyecroft. "We are doin' you lavish, Robert." "But when's this silly game to finish, any'ow?" our guest snarled. "Don't worry about the when of it, Robert.
Stack o' brushwood on the starboard beam, and no road," sang Pyecroft. "Cr-r-ri-key!" said Hinchcliffe, as the car on a wild cant to the left went astern, screwing herself round the angle of a track that overhung the pond. "If she only had two propellers, I believe she'd talk poetry. She can do everything else." "We're rather on our port wheels now," said Kysh; "but I don't think she'll capsize.
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