“You do me great honour,” said the Pasha. “I shall return your visit presently, and shall then be charmed to inspect your car.”
Coffee and cigarettes were brought in, and after the interview had lasted an hour the visitors rose to go. Maurice’s wound had as yet given him little trouble, but he moved somewhat stiffly after remaining seated. The Pasha noticed this, and asked whether Maurice, like himself, suffered from rheumatism. On being told that the lameness was due to a slight accident in the hills, he insisted on summoning his hakim, who immediately discovered that it was a gunshot wound, and reported the fact to the Pasha.
“You were molested on your way?” the Pasha asked. “I will provide you with an escort for the road.”
“It is unnecessary, excellency,” said Maurice quickly. “Our car will go so fast that even horsemen would find it difficult to keep up with us, and we shall rely on our speed for safety.”
“Then we will have a race,” said the Pasha eagerly. “There is a suitable course along the valley of the river. It will amuse me to see a race between a horseman and your car. I will arrange it, and let you know the time fixed.”
No one could have guessed from Maurice’s demeanour that he was annoyed at the proposition. He politely assented, and after having had his wound dressed with strange ointments by the hakim, he returned with George to the inn.
George spent the greater part of the afternoon in overhauling the mechanism of his car. The glass case in which the gyroscopes spun was wrecked, and could not be replaced in Prizren; but the gyroscopes themselves, the motors, and the dynamo were uninjured, and there was quite enough petrol left to make the run to Sofia, if a direct route could be followed. The proposed race, George thought, was rather a nuisance, for it would consume a good deal of petrol, without carrying them a yard on their way. And yet!—an idea struck him that made him chuckle with anticipated delight, and astonished the grave bystanders, who had watched his proceedings in stolid silence.
Maurice meanwhile had found the time drag. Unwilling to leave the inn in case the Pasha called in his absence, he sat in front of the door to watch the passers-by. Down the steep street came hill-men driving pack-animals, women with empty pitchers on their heads, zaptiehs with rifles slung over their backs, long-bearded scribes, gipsy tinkers—but never a sign of the Pasha. Small boys gathered opposite the inn and watched the stranger as he smoked cigarette after cigarette, and rushed forward at intervals to pick up, not the discarded ends, but the matches he had thrown away. After a time Maurice got the hanji to despatch one of his sons to find out if the Pasha was coming; but the youth could get no farther than the sentries at the entrance of the Seralio, who replied to his question with a threat to kick him if he was impertinent.
When George had satisfied himself that the engines were in good working order, he sought his brother.
“Well, old man,” he said cheerily, “how’s the leg?”