The Black Ghost of the Highway

BY GERTRUDE LINNELL
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. NEW YORK · TORONTO 1931
LINNELL THE BLACK GHOST OF THE HIGHWAY
COPYRIGHT · 1931 BY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
FIRST EDITION PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOR E. B. S.
The roads at the crossing were wide and smooth, with cool woods on either side, but beyond them to the left rose the high, jagged, yellow-and-black mass of the mountains, bare on their upper reaches, and wooded in the shelter of the valleys, a splintered peak or two farthest inland showing snowcapped even in August. They dominated the narrow strip of fertile, hilly land between them and the sea, abrupt, savage, Central European. One of the roads led up through a cloven valley and was engulfed in it, the other ran more levelly along the sea coast. John stopped while we stared. It was not the first time that we had stopped in the last few days just to look at a landscape. The whole journey through these lands of astounding languages and suddenly varying costumes had been painted in opalescent sunlight and vivid shadows, but since morning we had been nearing the mountains. Now we found ourselves under them, but not yet in them, and two roads, equally wide and enticing, led forward to unmarked destinations.
“It’s the road to the left,” I said, looking at the map. “It seems to branch off about here, but it might be a little farther on. It’s hard to tell with no markers.”
“Anyway, let’s not take it,” John objected. “Why pass up another day or so of driving? You never know what you may find if you don’t know where you’re going.”
I agreed.
“Helena doesn’t expect us any particular day, so that’s all right,” I said. “Let’s take the wrong road.”
It was a very long and beautiful wrong road. The mountains changed their angles, but did not move from their commanding position to our left. The sea became bluer, the sun climbed higher, and then presently, we were turning inland. We passed only small villages, or isolated farms, their buildings connected, in true Central-European fashion, by a series of little walled courts, where pigs and chickens, cows, human beings, dogs, donkeys, and even mules and horses mingled but did not stop. With firm faith in the brakes of passing cars they overflowed into the highway. John dodged them all expertly, having had almost a week of practise at it, and presently we came suddenly to a customs house with a barrier across the road.