“We won’t talk!”
“No. I’m quite ready for a rest.”
A couple of farm labourers passed, one of them airing a grievance, the condemning of his pig by some sanitary official. “I be’unt a fool. A touch of de joint evil, dat’s what it be. But he comes and he swears it be tu-ber-coo-lousis, and says I be to slaughter d’beast.” The voice died away, bemoaning the fate of the pig, and Eve felt a drowsiness descending upon her eyelids. She remembered Joan Gaunt sitting erect and watchful beside her, and then dreams came.
She woke suddenly to find two huge glaring eyes lighting the road. They were the headlights of a stationary motor, and she heard the purr of the engine turning dead slow. Someone was speaking. A high pitched, jerky and excitable voice was giving orders.
“Turn out the headlights, Jones, and light the oil lamps. You had better shove in another can of petrol. Well, here we are; on the tick—what!”
Joan Gaunt’s voice answered him.
“Last time you were an hour late.”
“That’s good. We had two punctures, you know. Where are the others?”
“Asleep in the ditch.”
Eve woke Lizzie Straker. The headlights went out suddenly, and two figures approached, one of them carrying the tail lamp of the car.