It was Angoulême.
They swept the hem of her garment and on to the Bordeaux road.
It was during this lap most of all that the burden and heat of the day made themselves felt. The sun seemed to know that they were fighting with Time and to take up the cudgels upon his captain’s behalf. The fury of light and heat punished them mercilessly, scorching their faces, keeping their eyes hooded and making the muscles of their eyelids ache hideously with the strain. But the chauffeur never complained or slackened speed. The man understood well enough that Fairfax and Beringhampton were riding some race, and the memory of the stripes which the latter had laid upon him made him strain every nerve to bring the former home. Punch was certainly well horsed. The fellow knew his engine inside out: besides, he had done some racing and remembered the tricks of the trade.
There were times when the car swept like a blast of the wind: at others she whizzed like a shell shot out of a gun: now she swooped and sailed like a ranging gull, and now she soared up a hill with the rush of a lift: and once, on a good piece of road, for three long minutes she seemed to be standing still, heaving gently like a ship riding at anchor, while five miles of the countryside slid into and out of sight.
They ran into Bordeaux at a quarter to six.
There they took in petrol and ate and drank. And Fairfax called for a time-table and studied it while he fed. He might have spared his labour. The table was two years old, and the pages he needed were gone.
They were in the car again by six o’clock.
There was pavement to come now—some of it pretty bad. Who went by Salles avoided the very worst—and tacked ten miles on to his journey. Fairfax went by Salles: it was not his car.
He had his reward.
The sun had retired now and was well on their right: the air was cooler, and a faint tang of salt hung in its breath: the blessed evening was coming to ease their progress.