"No. There is no sign of any one coming yet; and I am afraid we should be almost too late if we started now," she said.
Twice again the girl paced up and down in a fever of impatience, then stood rigidly still, leaning forward a little, for a faint thudding sound came out of the shadows.
"He is coming at last!"
The man came up at a gallop, with a hammer and a bag of tools, and, talking volubly, remounted the wheel. Then he lashed his horses viciously, and they were off, pressing on at a gallop almost to the divide, where, partly bathed in silver light by the moon, and partly wrapped in black shadow by the mighty peak, the great horseshoe vale of Oratava sloped to the Atlantic. Here the driver turned.
"The brake of this coche is also broke. I have ten children, señoras, and all very small, and if we must go down at the full speed it will be one more ten shillings for the risk."
Mrs. Chatterton, glancing down toward the lights that twinkled apparently vertically beneath her, and the glimmering plain of the Atlantic very far below, somewhat naturally hesitated, and was about to speak, when Lilian thrust a gold coin into the man's brown palm.
"You shall have more when I come back from Tampena. Only lose no time!" she urged.
The driver, who had been deluded on various occasions by British emigrants bound for the Cape, first prudently bit the coin, then piously crossed himself, after which he lashed the horses, and the carriage began the long descent like a run-away locomotive or a thunderbolt, as Mrs. Chatterton afterward said. The road was good, but it dipped in zig-zags down the steep hillside, and they went round the bends madly with two wheels in the air; while twice the elder lady held her breath as a straggling mule team rushed past. She prayed spasmodically that the ancient harness might not break.
The walnuts gave place to fig-trees, the figs in turn to vines, and still the straining gear held fast, and the bouncing vehicle hung together behind the lathered beasts. Then the terraced vines were replaced by maize, and when the broad leaves of bananas raced up, as it were, to meet them under the moon, the driver, shouting his loudest, reined his team in outside a little hill posada.
"Horses and a trusty guide for the sugar-mill!" he roared, beating on the door. "Here are two mad English señoras with a purse of gold!"