Still we were silent.
“But ’e’ll do it later, when you’re caught.”
“Not if you go on talking. ’E won’t be able to,” said Pyecroft. “I don’t know what traverse you think you’re workin’, but your duty till you’re put in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an’ cherish me most special—performin’ all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you this, in case o’ anything turnin’ up.”
“Don’t you fret about things turnin’ up,” was the reply.
Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to work, when, without warning, the road—there are two or three in Sussex like it—turned down and ceased.
“Holy Muckins!” he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless tyres slithered over wet grass and bracken—down and down into forest—early British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that all should fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the far side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
“H’m!” Our guest coughed significantly. “A great many cars thinks they can take this road; but they all come back. We walks after ’em at our convenience.”
“Meanin’ that the other jaunty is now pursuin’ us on his lily feet?” said Pyecroft.
“Precisely.”
“An’ you think,” said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the words), “that’ll make any odds? Get out!”