He had reached a slight incline—just enough to give a slight forward impetus to the car, in addition to that which it got from its engine.
On came the bowlder, and it is beyond question that, if the car had been absolutely on level ground, or had encountered a little rise, there would have been a collision which could have resulted only in an awful tragedy.
The rock swept down! It was almost on top of the car! Then, as the automobile took its little extra spurt forward, the great stone skimmed the back of the machine, actually scraping the leather cover top.
With a bang on the path, it ricocheted over to the edge of the precipice, hung there a moment, and flew off into space!
The car rushed on, but the hands of Nick Carter, grasping the steering wheel, were as cold as those of a corpse.
CHAPTER IX.
RASCALS READY FOR ACTION.
In a handsome room in the royal palace at Penza, capital of Joyalita, a man in a gorgeous uniform sat at a heavy mahogany table, writing.
It was very early in the morning of the eighteenth, the day on which the council was to be held that would decide the future fate of Joyalita.
A tap at the door, and in response to the gorgeous man’s “Come in!” a slim man, in plain clothes, whose shifty eyes took in the whole apartment at a glance, while he ran one of his clawlike hands over his damp face, stepped forward.
“Well, Jason?” snapped the man at the table.