The Dark Star Part 41

"It's Alsatian German."

"All right. Now, why did you break into that house?"

"To take what you took."

"To steal these papers for the Turkish Emba.s.sy?"

"To _take_ them."

"For the Turkish Amba.s.sador!" he repeated incredulously.

"No; for his military attache."

"What are you, a spy?"

"You knew it well enough. You are one, also. But you have treated me as though I were a thief. You'll be killed for it, I hope."

"You think I'm a spy?" he asked, astonished.

"What else are you?"

"A spy?" he repeated. "Is _that_ what _you_ are? And you suppose me to be one, too? That's funny. That's extremely----" He checked himself, looked around at her. "What are you about?" he demanded. "What's that in your hand?"

"A cigarette."

They had arrived at the road. He got over the wall with the box; she vaulted it lightly.

In the darkness he caught the low, steady throbbing of his engine, and presently distinguished the car standing where he had left it.

"Get in," he said briefly.

"I am not a thief! Are you going to lay that charge against me?"

"I don't know. Is it worse than charging you with three separate attempts to murder me?"

"Are you going to take me to jail?"

"I'll see. You'll go as far as Orangeville with me, anyhow."

"I don't care to go."

"I don't care whether you want to go or not. Get into the car!"

She climbed to the seat beside the wheel; he tossed in the olive-wood box, turned on his lamps, and took the wheel.

"May I have a match for my cigarette?" she asked meekly.

He found one, scratched it; she placed a very thick and long cigarette between her lips and he lighted it for her.

Just as he threw in the clutch and the car started, the girl blew a shower of sparks from the end of her cigarette, rose in her seat, and flung the lighted cigarette high into the air. Instantly it burst into a flare of crimson fire, hanging aloft as though it were a fire balloon, and lighting up road and creek and bushes and fields with a brilliant strontium glare.

Then, far in the night, he heard a motor horn screech three times.

"You young devil!" he said, increasing the speed. "I ought to have remembered that every snake has its mate.... If you offer to touch me--if you move--if you as much as lift a finger, I'll throw you into the creek!"

The car was flying now, reeling over the dirt road like a drunken thing. He hung grimly to the wheel, his strained gaze fixed on the shaft of light ahead, through which the road streamed like a torrent.

A great wind roared in his ears; his cap was gone. The car hurled itself forward through an endless tunnel of darkness lined with silver. Presently he began to slow down; the furious wind died away; the streaking darkness sped by less swiftly.

"Have you gone mad?" she cried in his ear. "You'll kill us both!"

"Wait," he shouted back; "I'll show you and your friends behind us what speed really is."

The car was still slowing down as they pa.s.sed over a wooden bridge where a narrow road, partly washed out, turned to the left and ran along a hillside. Into this he steered.

"Who is it chasing us?" he asked curiously, still incredulous that any emba.s.sy whatever was involved in this amazing affair.

"Friends."

"More Turks?"

She did not reply.

He sat still, listening for a few moments, then hastily started his car down the hill.

"Now," he said, "I'll show you what this car of mine really can do!

Are you afraid?"

She said between her teeth:

"I'd be a fool if I were not. All I pray for is that you'll kill yourself, too."

"We'll chance it together, my murderous little friend."

The wind began to roar again as they rushed downward over a hill that seemed endless. She clung to her seat and he hung to his wheel like grim death; and, for one terrible instant, she almost lost consciousness.

Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running swiftly, was now speeding over a macadam road; and Neeland laughed and cried in her ear:

"Better light another of your h.e.l.l's own cigarettes if you want your friends to follow us!"

Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.

"Look up there!" he said, pointing high at a dark hillside. "See their lights? They're on the worst road in the Gayfield hills. We cut off three miles this way."

Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch, laughed contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden and almost friendly toleration born of success and a danger shared in common.

"That was rather a reckless bit of driving," he admitted. "Were you frightened?"

"Ask yourself how you'd feel with a fool at the wheel."