“It’s a shame to take in the Pasha; he’s a decent old boy,” said George, when, after about five miles, the spectators being now out of sight, he quickened pace.
“The King’s business must be attended to,” said Maurice sententiously; “we have wasted quite enough time.”
As the gyro-car made up on the horseman, he made desperate efforts to keep his lead. When almost upon his heels, George reduced speed, and allowed him to draw away for a few minutes; then quickened again. At length, ten miles having been covered, and all danger of pursuit being at an end, George thought it time to put in practice the idea which had occurred to him at the han. He opened the throttle, increased his speed to fifteen, twenty, thirty miles an hour, caught up the horse, and as he passed, let out a volume of smoke. Startled by the noise and the fumes, the horse broke from the control of his rider, and dashed madly across the plain. By the time that he again answered the bit, the gyro-car was far ahead, concealed in a cloud of whirling dust.
Still further increasing the speed, George drove the car over the undulating plain until suddenly the railway line came in sight. A group of horsemen were halted there, with a led horse among them. George steered a little to the left to avoid them, slackened pace when he approached the line, and when the car had bumped over the rails, set off again at full speed, heedless of the shouts of the waiting party.
“The horseman is not in sight,” said Maurice, glancing back.
“At any rate he’ll win the prize,” said George with a laugh. “I hope the Pasha will give it him.”
On they went, across the Morava river, across the main line from Salonika to Belgrade, past stockaded villages, over low dusty hills, never checking the pace until, about 5 o’clock, the domes and minarets of Sofia hove into view. Soon they entered the city, slowing down as they ran through the street. They passed shops where cheese and onions lay on open counters, larger establishments where silk hats and French gloves were on sale, dodged electric cars, and a gendarme who was too much amazed to call on them to stop.
“There’s the Italian agent,” said Maurice, indicating a frock-coated gentleman crossing the street. “He won’t recognise me.”
They drove through a crowd of wondering market-people, and finally halted at a large building, surrounded by trees, that might have passed for an English country-house.
“Here we are,” said Maurice, heaving a sigh of relief. “Now I’ll deliver my despatch, and then for a bath, a meal, and bed.”