I had always regarded him as a man liable to be driven by passion across the borderland between sanity and madness; he had passed through more than one crisis of acute mental shock within the last few days; and it was more than probable that the deed of blood he had just committed, itself the act of a madman, would suffice to rob him of the last vestige of sane responsibility.
He would go to Sarita with the blood of their mutual oppressor still hot on his murderous hands, and if we were not in time to save her from him, what hope was there for her? I knew how she would receive him; and the thought maddened me until in my burning impatience I could not sit still, but thrust my head out of the carriage-window to urge the driver constantly to fresh exertions, although we were already travelling at headlong speed.
I was on fire with eagerness, and racked with alarm at the looming possibility of failure, even when all had gone so well.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE HUT ON THE HILLSIDE
No speed that the driver could get out of the mettlesome horses was swift enough to keep pace with my fears or to ease the pricking of my alarms.
Our route to Escorias lay along the road where I had followed and rescued the young King, and as we flew along, bumping, jolting and swaying, covering the level road at the gallop, dashing down and rattling up the hills, I could measure the distance by the different spots which were fixed in my memory by the incidents of that memorable ride.
"How far is it beyond Podrida?" I asked Rubio, having to shout the question to make myself heard amid the clatter and racket of the jolting carriage.
"At this pace, half an hour," came the reply, in jerks. "If we reach there without a smash." My answer was to lean out once more and shout to the driver to hurry; and then I threw myself back in my seat, folded my arms, and yielded myself up anew to the torture of my distracting thoughts.
I tried to estimate how long a start Livenza would have of us, how far he could be in advance, and what time he would have for the execution of the plan he had formed, whatever that might be. And my lowest calculation alarmed me.