How long this state of things went on I can't tell. I was bruised by the bumping from hat to heel, and was much engaged in fending myself against further abrasions. But at last a sharp cry from the driver roused me to look out of one of the window-ports, and I saw that we had opened out a small bay that was backed by a high rocky island of red and yellow stone. One end of the island showed a curious profile of a man's face, and I recognized it as Dragonera; but what the bay was called I didn't remember, though I had a sort of dim recollection of an anchorage for small craft there.
Anchorage it was sure enough too, for as we rose the inlet further, I saw a small screw boat riding there to some sort of moorings and lifting languidly to the swell. She was an ex-yacht, Cowes or Clyde built for a wager, of the sort one sees in small Mediterranean ports for the petty coasting traffic; a lean, slender craft of some eighty or hundred tons register, with all her pristine smartness thoroughly submerged in southern happy-go-lucky squalor. There was a faint gray pencil of steam feathering away from her escape-pipe, and as we drew nearer I saw she had hove short, and was ready to break her anchor out of the ground at a moment's notice.
Another cry from the driver called off my attention. The carriage ahead had stopped; its three passengers had descended, and hand in hand were running over the rough ground towards the shore. A small dinghy was waiting for them at the edge of the shingle. So there had been method in their mad scurry after all.
Our driver cursed and arr-e-e'd and forced his cattle into a scrambling gallop, and we drew up with the deserted carriage, whose mules were standing straddle-legged, and panting as though they were going to burst. He pulled up there, but Haigh snatched hold of the reins through the front window, and turning the animals off the road, sent them with a yell into the palm scrub that fringed it. The poor beasts took fright and sprang off at fresh gallop, the carriage leaping and bumping after them like a tin kettle at a dog's tail, till at one jolt stronger than the rest it lost balance, and fell over with a splintering crash to its side.
We were all heaped over to leeward amongst a tidy heap of wreckage; but we soon managed to scramble out, and saw the fugitives making rapid going towards their boat.
"Now, Cospatric, ye wiry divil," shouted Haigh, "run for all you're worth, and put Pether in your pocket."
Off I started, and measured my length twice in the first fifty yards. The ground was awfully uneven, and the palmetto scrub so thick that one could not see where to tread. The trio ahead were close upon their boat, and it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I should be too late. But a fresh crashing amongst the spiky shrubs behind made me turn my head, and I saw the absurd figure of the old man charging down on a mule that he had cut adrift. He passed me like a flash, his face glowering like a fiend's, and he reached the shingle just as the dinghy had got two boat-lengths away.
The passengers were encouraging the two sailors at the oars to every exertion; but Taltavull pulled up as his mule's feet splashed in the water, and whipping out a blue revolver covered the two rowers and sharply bade them stop. They easied in the middle of a stroke, and raised their oar-blades, glistening and dripping.
"And now, Señor Pether, I hold you covered. I am a dead shot, and if you carry the Recipe a yard farther away you bring your fate upon your own head. I, Taltavull, swear it."
I saw Mrs. Cromwell lean over and cover the blind man's body with her own. Sadi also made a movement, apparently for the same purpose. But Pether waved them both back. He slipped a hand into his breast-pocket, and brought out the little mahogany case.