Hillyard will never forget to the day of his death that wild passage through the mountains. Now it was some sudden twist to avoid a precipice, now a jerk and a halt whilst José stared into the darkness ahead of him; here the car jolted suddenly over great stones, then it sank to the axle in soft dust; at another place the bushes whipped their faces; and again they must descend and build a little bridge of boughs and undergrowth over a rivulet. But so high an elation possessed him that he was unconscious both of the peril and the bruises. He could have sung aloud. They stopped an hour after daybreak and breakfasted by the side of the car in a high country of wild flowers. The sun was hidden from them by a barrier of hills.
"We shall strike an old mine-road in half an hour," said José Medina, "and make good going."
They came into a district of grey, weathered rock, and, making a wide circuit all that day, crept towards nightfall down to the road between Aguilas and Cartagena; and once more the sea lay before them.
"We are a little early," said Medina. "We will wait here until it is dark. The carabineros are not at all well disposed to me, and there are a number of them patrolling the road."
They were above the road and hidden from it by a hedge of thick bushes. Between the leaves Hillyard could see a large felucca moving westwards some miles from the shore and a long way off on the road below two tiny specks. The specks grew larger and became two men on horses. They became larger still, and in the failing light Hillyard was just able to distinguish that they wore the grey uniform of the Guardia Civil.
"Let us pray," said Medina with a note of anxiety in his voice, "that they do not become curious about our fishing-boat out there!"
As he spoke the two horsemen halted, and did look out to sea. They conversed each with the other.
"If I were near enough to hear them!" said José Medina, and he suddenly turned in alarm upon Hillyard. "What are you doing?" he said.
Hillyard had taken a large.38 Colt automatic pistol from his pocket. His face was drawn and white and very set.
"I am doing nothing—for the moment," he answered. "But those two men must ride on before it is dark and too late for me to see them."