“Won by a neck!” said George with a gay laugh.
“By a head, I should say,” remarked Maurice—“a head with brains in it. I had no idea you were so expert a mechanician. What was wrong with the engine?”
“The carburettor. The nozzle was foul, so that the petrol couldn’t get into the float-chamber fast enough. It didn’t take me long to put it right when I discovered what was wrong: that always takes time.”
“We had a lucky escape. Now we really owe a good deal to the Count. He will have to back his car to the main road; there’s no room to turn it, and to follow us is impossible; the road gets worse and worse. We get off through his error of judgment. He ought to have run straight on and cut us off from Brindisi. Now, barring another accident, he is too late.”
“We may lose ourselves.”
“Oh no! According to the map, this road runs to Castellane, which is not very far from the main road. It makes a sharp turn a few miles from where we left it. We shall find somebody there who’ll direct us, and then we shall only be about sixty miles from Brindisi.”
They ran on to Castellane, thence regained the highway below Mottola, and the road being fairly level, reached Taranto in twenty minutes. There they halted for a few minutes to drink a glass of lemonade, then made by way of Francavilla for Brindisi, where they arrived at 11.20, ten minutes before the mail train was due.
“Do you remember that Virgil died here?” asked Maurice, as they passed the column marking the end of the Appian Way.
“Poor chap!” said George. “He might have chosen a cleaner town. Perhaps it was cleaner in his time; it is a disreputable-looking place now.”
The streets were indeed squalid in the extreme. Here and there stood half-finished buildings, the ground floor complete, but falling into decay. On open patches heaps of garbage polluted the air, and the harbour itself had an air of neglect and stagnation.