"Late for anything to be about." She looked back along the way they had come. The road could be seen threading its way among pines for a couple of miles or more. "We shall know they're coming five minutes before they can get here. Still I suppose you won't wait for them."
"No fear. Couldn't put up much of a fight with this hand."
"Pigs," said Flora. "I'd like to kill them."
"Both sides are pretty lethal. Wouldn't fancy my chances if——"
"You think they'd——"
"Course they would. Why in blazes doesn't something roll up? Bet your life if they can't get the concession for themselves they'll take precious good care no one else shall profit by it." He paced up and down looking this way and that. "It was like my infernal conceit bringing the thing through myself. Anyone but an idiot would have registered it from Cherbourg. Almost wish we'd stuck to the main road. There'd have been some traffic there. Damn all motorists who're in bed tonight."
Very faintly through the thin night air came the throb of an engine.
Flora clutched his arm.
"D'you hear?"
"They're coming."