“He says that there is no danger. He knows the road well.”
“All right, all right. Don’t say any more. Let him keep his eyes on the road.”
They had been driving for nearly an hour, and the promised moon had begun to rise, when the road joined another coming from the north. Ten minutes later they turned to the left and began a long, steady climb through the hills. They passed one or two isolated stone barns, then the road began to get steadily worse. Soon the car was bouncing and sliding along over a surface littered with loose stones and rocks. After a mile or two of this, the car suddenly slowed down, lurched across the road to avoid an axle-deep pot-hole, and stopped dead.
The lurch and the sudden stop flung George against Miss Kolin. For a moment he thought that the car had broken down; then, as they disentangled themselves, he saw that the driver was standing there with the door open, motioning them to get out.
“What’s the idea?” George demanded.
The old man said something.
“He says that this is where we get out,” reported Miss Kolin.
George looked round. The road was a narrow ledge of track running across a bleak hillside of thorn scrub. In the bright moonlight it looked utterly desolate. From the scrub there came a steady chorus of cicadas.
“Tell him we’re staying right here until he takes us where we’re supposed to go.”
There was a torrent of speech when this was translated.