Suddenly the hooter began to yell of its own accord. I felt the insurmountable need of saying something or other, but my dumbness redoubled my anxiety.
“It is out of order generally,” I said, endeavoring to speak in a casual tone. “We shan’t get there before night, my dear.”
“Would it not be better to repair it immediately?”
“No, I prefer to go on. When one stops one never knows when one will be able to set out again. There will always be time to....”
“Perhaps it will warm up again,” but the hooter drowned my hesitating voice with a great clamor, and my fingers clutched hold of the steering-wheel, for when this clamor had died down, it turned to a continuous note which took on rhythm and inflections, and I felt coming through this cadence an air—a marching tune (after all, it was perhaps I who made myself hear it).
This air drew nearer, so to say, became more defined, and after some halting attempts like those of a singer trying his voice, the car resolutely thundered out with its copper throat, “Rum fil dum, fil dum.”
At the accent of the German’s songs, a horde of suspicions swooped on my uneasy mind. I had an intuition that something fantastic, mysterious, monstrous, had happened. I tried cutting off the petrol. The handle resisted. The brake resisted. A superior force kept them immovable.
Losing my head altogether, I let go the steering-wheel, and took two arms to the diabolical brake. The same result, but the hooter made a gargling sound, and then was silent.
The girl exclaimed angrily, “That’s a funny trumpet!”