We reached the rendezvous in good time. But the other car, which had started ahead of us on a shorter route, was not there. The Chief looked a little anxious, I thought. But we waited practically in silence for an hour or so before he voiced his anxiety.
“Well, Clayton, no traffic jam could have held them up this long. Unless the car has broken down, which isn’t likely, they’ve been picked off in some way. I think we had better go on alone, eh?”
“Right you are, sir,” I answered; “I think so, too.”
My big, grizzled companion leaned forward and opened the window. “Heldt,” he said, “I was going to drop you here, but I’ll take you along if you want to come, as the other car hasn’t turned up. What about it?”
“Sure, sir,” the driver answered. “Why wouldn’t I come along?”
The Chief laughed. “All right. I’m going to sit in front with you and tell you the road, and Clayton here will stay out of sight in the back.”
He got out and stepped up on the front seat with the driver, and I settled down on the back seat, curling up on it so that I would not be visible from outside the car. And so we started.
For the better part of an hour we drove along smoothly and with some speed. For the most part I kept out of sight, but now and then, when my position became too cramped to be borne any longer, I sat up and turned over, snatching a passing glimpse out of the windows to see where we were.
My shoulder pained me a good deal in the cramped position in which I was forced to lie. But it was in a good cause, I thought, and I was quite willing to put up with a little discomfort.
In a way, however, I think that sore shoulder saved all our lives. We had swung into a long level stretch of road with trees growing thick and close to it on either side, when I decided to turn again. I knew that we had taken the toll road through the center of the Island and that we were still on it, but in settling down on the seat again I glanced out of the back window of the limousine, and as I did so a man stepped out from the trees into the road behind us and waved his hands above his head in the direction in which we were going.