“I suppose our pursuers are still considering whether to try to force the pass or not.”
“Ah no! Look!” cried Giorgio, pointing to the left.
Following the direction of his outstretched finger, George and Maurice saw, far above them on the skyline, perhaps a mile distant, a series of specks moving in the same direction as themselves.
“That is why there are no shots, excellence,” said Giorgio. “They must have gone back to a narrow gorge that runs up into the mountains, a very bad path, but shorter than this one. It leads to the road my grandfather spoke of. If they get there first they can block our way to the Drin. But the road there is pretty good, and if you make the machine buzz loud, you can dash into them and throw them over the cliff, horses and all.”
“We had better get there first, if we can,” said Maurice, repeating to George what he had just heard.
“We must make a dash for it, and take our chance,” said George. “I’m not going to be collared again. Get into the car, old boy, and Giorgio too. The path isn’t so bad as it was, and if we don’t get a puncture we shall do very well.”
Maurice mounted to his seat beside his brother. There was no proper accommodation for a third person in the car, but Giorgio crouched in the narrow space between the seats and the gyroscopes. George started the engine, and the car began to gather away. The Albanian, stolid and iron-nerved as he was, gasped with dismay as the vehicle ran down the incline, bumping a little when, in spite of George’s careful steering, it crossed a hollow or a knob of rock. The path began to switchback. Then it was a series of rushes at the up grades and scrambles down the slopes on the other side, with the brakes hard on. George knew well that a few yards of specially bumpy ground might break a spring or puncture a tyre; but the risk seemed to him negligible by comparison with the greater risk of being intercepted. More than once he felt the indescribable movement of the rear wheels that betokened skidding, and he could not repress a shudder as he recognised how the swerving of an inch or two to the right must plunge them over the chasm. But he set his teeth and kept a firm grip on his levers, and after nearly half an hour of this perilous driving he saw with joy that the path left the rocky face of the cliff, and ran into a wider and more level track.
They looked ahead. No one was in sight. They looked behind, along the narrow track by which the pursuers must come. There was no sign of them. But they heard shouts from the heights above them, long, vociferous, howling calls that must have made great demands on the lungs of the shouters. To Giorgio’s dismay these shouts were answered on their right. It seemed as if they would have to reckon with enemies on both sides of them. But at present on neither side was an enemy visible.
The path being now less rugged and tortuous, with no yawning precipice at its edge, George increased the speed of the gyro-car. Giorgio said that they would soon come in sight of the Drin. All at once George was conscious of a lack of power in the engine. He opened the throttle, to no effect.
“We are done for,” he said in despair. “Something is wrong.”