“I can't say they've brought us luck.”
“Wait,” said Pilar.
“Meanwhile let's turn back,” said Dick. “Another hundred yards like this, and even if we don't smash the differential or the chassis, Ropes will get side-slip of the brain. Half an hour of such driving must be equal to a week in Purgatory for a chauffeur.”
We did turn back, and feeling years older, arrived once more at the point from which he had started. We would have given something to see the man with the two hats, and his companion, but they had prudently taken themselves off, like full-fed vultures. This time we made no inquiries, but trusted to our intuition and our maps, which, without once contradicting each other, led us into a decent road that seemed like a path to paradise after all we had endured.
Making up for lost time, and revelling in joy of motion, we put on our best speed, which for a few moments brought the roadside telegraph posts as close together as fir trees in a Norwegian forest. But suddenly the motor slowed, and stopped with a tired sigh within sight of a village white as newly polished silver.
“Petrol gone,” said Ropes. “It oughtn't to be, but it is. Extra strain in that short cut of the Duke's used it up.”
He got out, and untied a bidon from the reserve store fastened [pg 171]upon the foot-board. But the tin was light in his hand as a feather. He gave a low whistle, and a shadow darkened his face, a shadow which was not made by the brim of his motor-cap as he bent his head to examine the bidon.
“There's a leak here, sir,” he said to me—for though Dick was now supposed to be his master, in moments of stress he clung to old habits. “Looks as if the tin had been pricked with some sharp instrument. H'm! Shouldn't wonder if it had been. It would be of a piece with all the rest.”
“You mean at Toledo?”
“Yes, sir. Everything was right, then. I bought enough petrol in Madrid to last to Cordoba, pretty well all we could carry, and ordered more to meet us there, grande vitesse, in case I couldn't get it—as you said we were sure now to go that way.”