The fugitive was a man of considerable reasoning powers. Arguing that his late captors would naturally conclude that he was making westward towards far-distant neutral Holland, he had decided to go south, risking the lesser danger of a journey through Austria, and seize a favourable opportunity of passing through the comparatively weak cordon between the Tyrol and the north of Italian Lombardy. The possibilities of escaping into Switzerland had entered into his calculations, only to be set aside. Bavaria offered too formidable a stumbling-block. There were ways and means on the Italian frontier, and he meant to try them.
The wayfarer's thoughts were rudely interrupted by the pulsations of a motor that was rapidly approaching from the direction he had just come.
"A Mercèdes, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "What brings a car along this unfrequented pass, when there are two at least, infinitely better engineered, within an hour's run? Hope to goodness I haven't been tracked."
Thankfully he noticed that his footprints had already been obliterated by the fast-falling snow. Then, throwing himself at full length behind a dead thorn bush, every branch of which was outlined with dazzling white powdery snow, he awaited the appearance of the approaching car.
He was not long kept in suspense. Swaying and lurching the huge Mercèdes swung into sight round a projecting spur of rock. With the bonnet, wind-screen, and dash-boards hidden by the accumulation of snow, and throwing showers of glistening flakes from the wheels, the car presented a picturesque spectacle one moment. At another it was a tangle of wreckage.
The catastrophe happened when the vehicle was abreast the solitary pine tree where the fugitive had been sheltering. There was a loud report as one of the tyres burst. The wheels skidding the car slewed sideways and toppled over the edge of the road upon a partly snow-covered rock fifty feet below.
Unhesitatingly the Englishman left his place of concealment and made his way over the slippery track formed by the skidding wheels, until he was able to look over the unguarded side of the road upon the wrecked car.
It was lying on its side, the fore part shattered almost beyond recognition, but the relatively frail coupé had come off comparatively lightly. The top was torn away and the glass windows smashed to fragments, but through the open roof the fugitive could see that the interior was almost intact, and that huddled on the floor was the figure of a man wearing a German officer's field overcoat.
Very deliberately and cautiously the Englishman descended the sloping cliff. It would have been an easy task but for the snow that lay thickly on the numerous ledges and had drifted into a deep bed, in which the car was partly buried.
Forgetting everything else in his eagerness to render aid, the fugitive plunged knee-deep through the drift and gained the overturned car. The door had jammed. With all the strength at his command he was unable to wrench it open. Clambering up the side of the coupé he dropped through the huge gap in the roof.