Traffics and Discoveries

"If that man 'ad chose, 'e could have identified me," he said.

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.

"_Pre_cisely."

"An' you think," said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the words), "that'll make any odds? Get out!"

The man obeyed with alacrity.

"See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing. Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the double."

And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect understanding.

There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down stream, laid aside after sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in the brook. Hinchcliffe rearranged these last to make some sort of causeway; I brought up the hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.

"Talk o' the Agricultur'l Hall!" he said, mopping his brow – "'tisn't in it with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles, owin' to the squashy nature o' the country. Yes, an' we'd better have one or two on the far side to lead her on to terror fermior. Now, Hinch! Give her full steam and 'op along. If she slips off, we're done. Shall I take the wheel?"

"No. This is my job," said the first-class engine-room artificer. "Get over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."

We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken. Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.

"She – she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with 'em," Hinchcliffe panted.

"At the Agricultural Hall they would 'ave been fastened down with ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain't Olympia."

"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don't you think I conned her like a cock-angel, Pye?"

"I never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now, gentlemen, if you'll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won't hear another word from me."

"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more.

"We 'aven't begun on you yet."

"A joke's a joke," he replied. "I don't mind a little bit of a joke myself, but this is going beyond it."

"Miles an' miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We'll want water pretty soon."

Our guest's countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.

"Let me tell you," he said earnestly, "It won't make any difference to you whatever happens. Barrin' a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in the Navy. Hence we never abandon 'em."

There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.

"Robert," he said, "have you a mother?"

"Yes."

"Have you a big brother?"

"Yes."

"An' a little sister?"

"Yes."

"Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?"

"Yes. Why?"

"All right, Robert. I won't forget it."

I looked for an explanation.

"I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o' that cottage before faithful Fido turned up," Pyecroft whispered. "Ain't you glad it's all in the family somehow?"

We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard's Forest, and, despite our increasing leakage, made shift to climb the ridge above Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into the wilderness before that came.

On the roof of the world – a naked plateau clothed with young heather – she retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater (Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking beyond hope of repair; she had shifted most of her packing, and her water- pump would not lift.

"If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case an' feed direct into the boiler. It 'ud knock down her speed, but we could get on," said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges that hove us above the panorama of Sussex. Northward we could see the London haze. Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the Channel's zinc- blue. But all our available population in that vast survey was one cow and a kestrel.

"It's down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity," I said at last.

"Then he'll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we take off 'is boots first," Pyecroft replied.

"That," said our guest earnestly, "would be theft atop of assault and very serious."

"Oh, let's hang him an' be done," Hinchcliffe grunted. "It's evidently what he's sufferin' for."

Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.

"That's the man I was going to lunch with!" I cried. "Hold on!" and I ran down the road.

It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod; and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.