“It’s the road to the left,” I said, looking at the map. “It seems to branch off about here, but it might be a little farther on. It’s hard to tell with no markers.”
“Anyway, let’s not take it,” John objected. “Why pass up another day or so of driving? You never know what you may find if you don’t know where you’re going.”
I agreed.
“Helena doesn’t expect us any particular day, so that’s all right,” I said. “Let’s take the wrong road.”
It was a very long and beautiful wrong road. The mountains changed their angles, but did not move from their commanding position to our left. The sea became bluer, the sun climbed higher, and then presently, we were turning inland. We passed only small villages, or isolated farms, their buildings connected, in true Central-European fashion, by a series of little walled courts, where pigs and chickens, cows, human beings, dogs, donkeys, and even mules and horses mingled but did not stop. With firm faith in the brakes of passing cars they overflowed into the highway. John dodged them all expertly, having had almost a week of practise at it, and presently we came suddenly to a customs house with a barrier across the road.
“This must be the Alarian frontier,” John said. “There’s always something at the end of a road. Shall we go through?”
“Why not?” I said. “We’re here, and we can get back to Helena’s across the mountains. There’s a rather famous Pass. Handsome scenery.”
“There are no shortcuts to beauty,” he proclaimed, grinning. “The farther we go the better it gets. Where’s your passport?”
The inspector peered into the tonneau of our car, and seemed pained by the number of tightly strapped pieces he saw there. He gratefully accepted a pair of cigars from me, and then dutifully read our names with a thick accent, so that John became Yohn Coltaire, and I Marr-s-hall Carrr-veen. Our likenesses puzzled him a little. He stared from them to us several times before he decided that they were, after all, passable. He then waved us through the barrier, and we came, a hundred yards or so farther on, to a second barrier, where the performance was repeated, in the same order, as though rehearsed, like a comic opera chorus. The only difference was the uniform of the examiners. We were then given gracious permission to enter the realm of King Bela of Alaria.
“Chap I know,” John said, “went all through here last year and wrote a book about it. He said the roads were fine and the food and wines even better, if you like garlic and mutton. And he’s never tired of raving about the people. Maybe we’d better stop and do some painting.”