“All right,” I said. “Nothing hit.”
“Nothing but me,” said John.
“Where?” I demanded, alarmed, and swung the car in an abrupt and rutty curve. He groaned. “Right arm. I don’t think I’m going to do anything strange, faint or anything like that, but you can’t tell. If I do, don’t pay any attention, for God’s sake, but keep on going. Good driving, old man. We’d never have made it if you had stopped to shift gears.”
“Luck,” I said. As it was, with a strange car. “It might have stalled just as well as not. Hold on to the seat, we’ll have to make as good time as we can for a while in spite of your arm. If they catch up with us they’ll shoot us up some more.”
For the next three miles, perhaps, we drove down the rough and muddy road, then John slowly slumped down in his seat, so that I had to slow the car while I held him so that he would not fall on the gear lever. I felt guilty that I was always urging that we escape, and John was always getting hurt doing it.
CHAPTER VI
It seemed years before I reached the high road. Before then I had slowed down with the realisation that since we had the last car in the garage, danger must lie ahead of us, and not behind. We had two passes to the Queen in Herrovosca, so our lack of passports would probably be overlooked except by the Black Ghost’s adherents, who would shut us up again in any case if they caught us. John had only fainted, but I had no idea how badly he might be hurt. My first concern was to get him to a doctor, though that was a dangerous business, with everyone but the legal authorities against us, in a country where the legal authorities had almost become fugitives.
The high road where we turned into it was deserted, except for an old donkey cart with a small girl driving. She looked too stupid to be a menace even if she had wished. About three miles farther on we came to a small village. There was nowhere to go but through it, so I drove boldly, if not straight, up the main street. It was not very much like our main streets in America. Here were small thatched-roof houses, many only one story high. The vehicles in the street were propelled by ox, horse, mule and donkey power, most of them had solid squeaking wooden wheels. I felt John move. He sat up.
“How’s your arm?” I asked.
“Feels better, thanks. Aches like the devil, still, but this isn’t so bad. It was the jolting over those ruts that did me up. I’ll last all right now till we get to a doctor in Herrovosca. You go right on driving.”