horses’ feet. Some one must be in a deuce of a hurry, I thought, as I looked back along the road. Some one was, surely enough. Not a couple of hundred yards from the brink of the hill came a light caleche with two occupants drawn by a pair of horses at full gallop. What was the fool of a driver about? To dash down the Devil’s Staircase at that mad pace meant death. No horses ever foaled could make the sharp turns and twists of that zigzag, treacherous, deadly incline at a gallop. I shouted a warning at the top of my voice; and then my heart seemed to leap in my breast and every vein in my body to chill like ice as the occupants of the caleche looked up, and I recognized Count Peter Valdemar and the girl who had been in my thoughts all that day. As the runaways reached me I leapt down on to the road and I made a spring for the reins of the horse nearest me. I missed them and was rolled over and over, while the frightened beasts dashed[19] on, the Count tearing and tugging and straining at the reins in a futile effort to stop them. [19] I jumped up and ran down the hill in pursuit. Just below, the road made an S-shaped curve, and the horses were round this and out of sight like a flash; and while I was racing after them round the first bend, I heard a shout in a man’s voice, a girl’s scream, and then the crashing sound of a smash. I reached the scene in a few moments. The wreck had come at a point where the road turned at less than a right angle; and the sight of it sickened me with fear. One horse was down, lying against a bank, bleeding profusely and kicking spasmodically in what I judged to be a death struggle. The other was on its feet and was plunging and tugging to free itself from the reins and harness which had got entangled in the wreck of the caleche. Under the body of the vehicle lay the Count, and as I did not for the moment see his companion, I guessed that she must be hidden under the wreckage too. With a big effort I hoisted the vehicle sufficiently to drag out the Count; but the girl was not there. Then I saw her lying behind a bush by the roadside. I ran to her and laid my finger on her pulse. With intense relief I found the beat; feeble it is true, but steady; and I poured some brandy into the cup of my flask and managed to get a little of it between her lips. A trembling sigh escaped her; and I returned to the
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