I wonder how many nowadays remember that pretty bit of goods, Maisa
Hubbard, who used to drive the racing cars in France, and was the
particular fancy of half the motormen who drive on the other side of
the blue water.
I first met her at the Gordon Bennett of 1901, and I must say I thought
her "sample goods." It's true that many would have it she was
over-well-known in America, and more than one young man got on the
rocks because of her; but the world rather likes a bit of scandal about
a pretty woman, and there's no shorter road to the masculine favour.
Anyway, Maisa Hubbard was popular enough down at Bordeaux, and you
might still have called her the belle of the ball on June 26 in the
year 1902, when we started from Champigny for the great race across the
Arlberg Mountains. That was the occasion, you will remember, when two
of our little company did something by way of a record in smashing up
their cars--but the story of one of these, Max, who drove for a French
company, has so often been told that I shall certainly not re-tell it
here. The other is a different story, and since it is the story of a
good man, a good car, and a pretty woman, there's no reason why Lal
Britten should not put his pen to it.
Well, I was driving for an English company at that time, the Vezey they
called themselves, though Wheezy would have been the better name. Such
a box of tricks I do believe was never put upon a chassis before or
since. It took two of us to start the engine in the morning, and the
same number to persuade her to leave off firing at night. The works
manager, Mr. Nathan, whose Christian name was Abraham, said that she'd
done eighty miles an hour with him easily; but the only time I got her
over fifty she broke her differential by way of an argument, and
nothing but a soft place in a hayfield saved me from the hospital. All
of which, of course, was good advertisement for the firm--and, truly,
if it came to making a noise in the world, why, you could hear their
car a good quarter of a mile away.
This was the flier I took over to France and tried to break in upon the
fine roads we all know so well. As I finished the race almost before I
began it, the less said about the affair the better--but I shall never
forget that Paris to Vienna meeting, and I shall never forget it
because of my friend Ferdinand,[1] one of the best and bravest who ever
turned a wheel, and the right winner of that great prize, but for the
woman who said "No," and said it so queerly and to such effect that a
magician out of the story-books couldn't have done it better.
I liked Ferdinand, liked him from the start. A better figure of a man
I shall never see; six feet to an inch, square set and wonderfully
muscular. His hair was dark and ridiculously curly, so much so that
talk of the "irons and brown paper" was the standing joke amongst the
racing men in Paris, who knew no more of him than that he was an
Italian by birth and had spent half his life in America. For the rest,
he spoke English as well as I did, and I never knew whether Ferdinand
was his real name, or one he took for the racecourse--nor did I care.
They say that there is no cloud without a silver lining--a poor
consolation in a thunderstorm when your hood is at home and the nearest
tree is three miles away. There had been a thunderstorm, I remember,
on the morning I met poor Ferdinand, and my batteries had refused to
hand out another volt, notwithstanding the plainest kind of speech in
which I could address them. Just in the middle of it, when the rain
was running in at the neck and out at the ankles, and I was asking
myself why I wasn't a footman in yellow plush breeches, what should
happen but that a great red car came loping up on the horizon, like
some mad thing answering to the lightning's call--and no sooner was it
a mile distant than it was by me, so to speak, and I was listening to
my friend Ferdinand for the first time.
"Halloa, and what's taken your fancy in these parts?" he asked in a
cheery voice. I told him as plainly.
"This musical box don't like the thunder," said I; "she's turned sour."
"Are you stopping here for the lady, or do you want to get back to
Paris?"
"Oh," says I, "I haven't taken a lease of this particular furlong, if
that's what you mean."
"Then I'll give you a tow," says he, and without another word, he got
down from his seat and began to make a job of it. We were at Vendreux
half an hour afterwards, and there we breakfasted together in the
French fashion. That meal, I always say, was the luckiest friend
Ferdinand ever ate.
He told me a lot about himself and a lot about his car; how he had been
everything in America, from log-roller in the backwoods to cook in the
Fifth Avenue palaces; how he met Herr Jornek, the designer of the
Modena car, on a trip to St. John's to explore Grand River, and how he
had come back to Europe to drive it in the big race. His luck, he
said, had been out in New York because of a woman; to get far away from
that particular lady was the inducement which carried him to Europe.
Here was something to awaken my curiosity, as you may well imagine, and
I asked him all sorts of questions about the girl; but to no good
purpose. His interest was in the car, one of the first made by the
famous Herr Jornek, and called the Modena after the factory in that
town. He told me it was unlike any car on the market, and that new
features of gearbox, ignition, and engine design would certainly stamp
it a winner if no bad luck overtook him. This persistent talk about
misfortune set me wondering, and I fell to questioning him a little
more closely about his story, and especially that part of it which
concerned the woman.
"Who is the lady, and how did she interfere with you?" I asked. He
would say no more than that he had known her by half a dozen names over
in America, and that she was formerly a dancer at the old Casino
Theatre in New York.
"She's done everything," he said: "gone up in balloons, ridden horses
astride at Maddison Square Gardens, played the cowboys' show with
Buffalo Bill, and sailed an iceboat on the Great Lakes. Whenever she's
out to win I'm out to lose. Make what you like of it, it's Gospel
truth. As certain as I'm up for one of the big prizes of my life, the
girl's there to thwart me. If I were what my schoolmaster used to call
a fatalist, I'd say she was the evil prophetess who used to play ducks
and drakes with the soldier boys at Athens. But I don't believe
anything of the sort--I say it's just sheer bad luck, and that woman
stands for the figure of it."
I was troubled to hear him, and put many more questions. How did the
girl thwart him? Was it just an idea, or had he something better to go
upon? He did not know what to say; I could see it troubled him very
much to speak of it.
"She puts it into my head that I shall lose, and lose I do," he said;
"it's always been the same, and always will be. When I rode that great
leaping horse, Desmond, and put him over the fences, she was in the
arena with a bronco, and she just looked up to me as sweetly as a
child, and said, "Ferdy, your horse is going to fall next time," and
fall, sure enough, he did, and laid me on my bed for more than a month.
After that I rode the bicycle match against the Frenchman, Devereux,
and there she was, dressed like a picture amongst the crowd, and
smiling like an angel in the Spanish churches. When I nodded to her
she called me back a moment, and just put in her pretty word.
"Ferdy," she said, "that Frenchman can't ride straight; he's going to
run into you, Ferdy." Will you believe it, we cannoned together at the
last corner, and I was thrown so badly that although he walked his
machine in I couldn't beat him."
He was serious enough about it all, and I must say that his talk put
some queer ideas into my head. I've never been a believer over-much in
luck myself, holding that we make it or mar it for ourselves, and that
what some call misfortune is nothing more or less than misdoing; but
here was a tale to make a man think, and think I did while he ate his
breakfast and went on to speak of his car almost as lovingly as a man
speaks of the new girl he met for the first time yesterday. Just as we
were leaving the hotel and he was getting back to his doleful manner a
bit, I put in my word and I could see that he took it well enough.
"All said and done," said I, "there's a little matter of three thousand
miles between you and the lady just at present. Whatever may have
happened over yonder is hardly likely to happen in La Belle France,
look at it how you like. You should think no more about it, Ferdinand.
You're to win this great race, and win it you certainly will if I'm a
judge. Why, then, think about a woman at all?"
"Because," he replied, and he was as grave as a judge at the moment,
"because I must; I've been thinking of her ever since I picked you up.
It's queer, Britten, but I do believe you're going to bring me luck,
and that's as true as Gospel."
"And true it shall be," said I, "if good wishes can do it, my boy.
Let's go and get the cars. My box of tricks will be melted down if I
leave it in the sun any longer. Let's get back to Paris and have some
fun; I'm sure that's what you're wanting."
He did not object; and the storm having passed, and my coil behaving
itself properly now that the damp was off the contacts, we jogged along
the road to Paris in company with many who were returning from their
morning practice, and just a few amateurs out to see the fun. We had
gone a mile, I suppose, when we met a girl driving one of the De Dion
motor tricycles, and no sooner had I seen her than she went by with a
flash and a nod; and I knew her for little Maisa Hubbard, of whom the
town had been talking for three days past. Then I ran my car alongside
Ferdinand's just to make a remark about it--but, will you believe
me?--he was as pale as a sheet, and his eyes were staring right into
vacancy, as though a ghost stood in his path, and he didn't know how to
get by it.
"Why," cried I, "and what's up now?"
He brought himself to with an effort, closed his hand about the wheel,
and then answered me:
"That's the girl, right enough," he said; "you saw her for yourself."
"Oh, look here, I can't take that. Don't you know Maisa Hubbard, who
drove the big Panhard last autumn?"
"I know Maisa Hubbard who used to dance at the Casino Theatre in New
York, and she's the same. Didn't I tell you she'd follow me to France?"
"You told me a lot of things," I retorted; "perhaps you dreamed some of
them."
"Perhaps I did," he answered, and then I was sorry I had spoken, for
his face was as sad as a woman's in sorrow, and just as pitiful.
"You want cheering up, my boy," said I; "wait till we get back to
Paris, and I'll take you in hand myself. It's over-driving that's done
it; I've known the kind of thing, and can understand what you feel; but
you wait a bit, and then we'll see. Didn't you say I was going to
bring you luck?"
"I did, but not while Maisa Hubbard's in France. There's no man born
could do it."
He was down enough about it, I must say, and a more melancholy driver
never steered a car into Champigny--the place where the great race was
to start from, and our destination for the time being. When we had
done the necessary tuning up and had cleaned ourselves, I took
Ferdinand back to Paris, and gave him a bit of dinner at a little
restaurant near the Faubourg St.-Honoré.
When we had eaten five shillings' worth for three-and-sixpence, and
drunk a good bottle of sour red wine apiece, I took him round to
"Olympia," and there we saw the famous show they called the "Man in the
Moon." This didn't cheer him up at all, and once during the evening he
told me that he thought he'd soon be in the moon himself, or any place
where they have a job for damaged racing drivers. This made me laugh
at him, but laughing wasn't any good, and I had it in my mind to take
him off to supper at a little place I knew on the Boulevards, when what
should happen but that Maisa Hubbard appeared suddenly in the promenade
where we stood, and immediately came up to him with such a smile as
might have brought a saint out of a picture to say "Good evening" to
her.
"Why, it's Ferdy!" she cried, "and he's trying to turn his back on me.
Oh, my dear boy, whatever do you look like that for?"
He shook hands with her quite civilly, and made some excuse about the
show and his not feeling very funny about it. She had another girl
with her, and her brother, Jerome Hubbard, the "whip" who used to drive
with Mr. Fownes. When I had been introduced, she asked me to come to
supper at a place I'd never heard of, and declared that her brother
would have a fit if we didn't disburse some of his savings immediately.
The little girl who was with her (I shan't write her name down) was a
lively bit of goods, and I was ready enough to go if only to cheer up
"Ferdy," who, to be sure, had become a different man already, and was
talking and laughing with Maisa just as though they had been first
"cousins" for a twelvemonth or more. In the end we ate Mr. Jerome's
supper, and got back to our little beds at two in the morning: not an
over-good preparation for a great race, as any driver will admit; but
my friend seemed himself again, and I would have eaten half a dozen
suppers to bring that about.
This was two days before the meeting, I should tell you, and I saw
little of Ferdinand until that memorable June morning, when, at
half-past three precisely, Girardot got away on his C.G.V., and was
followed two minutes later by Fournier on his Mors. I have taken part
in many a big race since, but never one which excited me more than that
famous dash from Paris to Vienna, which was to make the fortune of more
than one English house, and to bring the Gordon Bennett Cup to England
for the first time in the motor story.
I firmly believed my friend Ferdinand was to win the race, and
presentiment goes farther in this world than many folks think. Such a
dashing, daring driver I never saw. His car was a wonder. I took
several trips with him before the race, and I do believe that we made
eighty or ninety miles an hour upon her--a miracle for those days,
though not thought so much of in this year 1909. What was more, he
seemed to have forgotten all about that little devil of a Maisa Hubbard
and her prophecies, and when we breakfasted together upon the morning
of the start I would have said that he was fit to race for his life.
And what a start it was, notwithstanding the hour! What a roaring and
racing of engines, cars tearing here and tearing there, gendarmes
everywhere, men with silver on their heads and silver on their toes;
jabbering officials telling you to do twenty things at once, and
quarrelling because you did them. The enclosure itself was like the
meat-market at Smithfield on a busy morning. I never heard so much
noise in any one place before; and if there was a man, woman, or child
who slept through it in the peaceful village of Champigny, well, he,
she, or it ought to go into a museum.
Of course, all this was exciting enough, and I caught something of the
fever when twenty soldiers pushed my old rattle-trap into the roadway,
and a very fine gentleman gave the signal to "Go." Upon my word, I do
believe there was just a moment when I thought I could get to Vienna
before the others; and, letting my clutch in gently, and telling Billy,
my mechanician, to make himself fast, I soon had her upon third speed,
and was racing as fast as the bad road would let me towards Provins.
This was a bumpy bit, to be sure, and if I had put her on the "fourth,"
some one would have had to sweep up the pieces quickly. But I kept her
steady, though the great cars began to go by like roaring locomotives
on a down incline, and really she was doing very well when the offside
front tyre asked for a change of air, and we knew that it was No. 1, so
far as punctures were concerned.
Well, this was twenty miles from Provins, upon a long and desolate
stretch of a poor road, with a distant view of the hills and a couple
of sleepy peasants out among the hay. We had been lucky with our draw,
and started early in the list, and you can imagine my surprise when a
car flashed into view and I recognised Ferdinand, who was almost the
last to get off, and must have passed any number of cars to overtake us
as he did. My word, and he was driving, too! His great machine
frightened you to watch it, leaping over the bumps as it did, and
threatening every moment to be flung sheer off the road into the
hayfield on the other side of the dyke. But there was a master at the
wheel, and with a cheery wave of the hand to us Ferdinand went by, and
was lost immediately in a mighty cloud of dust which rose clear above
the poplars.
I need hardly tell you how glad I was to see him doing so well, and how
I laughed at all his foolish ideas about Maisa Hubbard. Win I felt he
would, though all the ladies of the Casino ballet came out to tell him
not to; and when old Dobbin, my own particular turn-out, condescended
to move again, I pushed on for Belfort, no longer deluding myself that
I was to be within a hundred miles of the winner, but hoping that I
should get to Vienna in time to shake "Ferdy" by the hand and to tell
him what a fool he had been.
If I didn't say this at Belfort, where Herr Jornek, the designer of the
car, stood in between us and took Ferdy away for the evening to talk to
him, it was well enough said at Brigenz. There a second halt was made;
and although we turned in at an early hour, I had plenty of time to put
the idea of winning into his head, and the idea of Maisa Hubbard out of
it. All the world knows that we had to go through France, Switzerland,
Germany, and Austria for that big race, and the Swiss part was slow
enough, since no racing was allowed by the timid old gentlemen at the
capital. Indeed, if there is one country in Europe a motorist does
well to keep out of at any time, it is Switzerland. We simply rolled
through the place on that particular journey, and at Brigenz my friend
Ferdinand was high up in the list, none but De Knyff, Jarrott, and the
Farmans being ahead of him. I told him that if he got over the Arlberg
Mountains as his car ought to get, he was winner for a certainty. And
that was the point we stuck to until it was time to turn into our
little beds and dream about to-morrow.
"I hear that the devil himself might be frightened to drive across that
pass at any speed," said I, "and there's your chance, Ferdy. You say
it will be the making of you to win this race. Well, you give your
mind to it, and don't shirk the risks, and you're as good as a winner
already. There isn't a car in the bunch can hold you on the mountains,
and you know it."
"You're right," said he, "and I wish I could say the same to you. But
Lal, my boy, it isn't exactly a war-horse that you've got under you,
and I can't say it is. I'm not frightened of the mountains, and can
break my neck as well as most; don't think otherwise. If my luck
holds, Lal Britten has fixed it up, and I shan't forget him when the
shekels are paid out. You may think me a bit dotty, but this I will
say, that I never felt so sure of myself or of the car as I do this
night, and if confidence and a good engine won't win across the
Arlberg, then we'll give it up, Lal, and take to perambulators."
"Not meaning any reference to the lady," said I; but his face clouded,
and I wished I hadn't spoken.
"She's in Paris, and thank God for it," he exclaimed, rising to go up
to bed; "if she were here in Brigenz to-night, I wouldn't give sixpence
for my chances, and that's the whole truth. Now, let's go to by-by; if
we don't, I'll be dreaming of her, and dreams won't win laurel-wreaths,
as even you will admit."
I let him go, and followed some ten minutes later to my own room. It
was just cussedness, I suppose, which kept me back, for, as I went
across the corridor of the first floor of our hotel I heard a woman
with a laugh which struck sparks off you; and turning round, there was
Maisa Hubbard herself in a fine Paris gown and a great straw hat, with
a pink feather in it large enough to decorate the Shah. She just gave
a pleasant nod to me and then went downstairs, while I made for my
bedroom, wondering what Ferdy would have said if he had seen her, and
what real bad luck brought her to Brigenz at such a time.
Of course, she had come on by train. Lots of people did, to follow the
racing; and here she was with a merry party, just as simple-looking and
as guileless as a shepherdess at the Vic, and looking no older than a
school-girl. When I got up at four next morning I was full of
curiosity to know if Ferdy had seen her. But he was out at his car in
the "control," cheerful enough as far as he himself was concerned, but
mighty anxious about his mechanician, Down, who had broken his arm
trying to start up the engine, and had already been taken to the
hospital. A minute later I heard that our old wheezer wouldn't start
at all, and there it was, as though a special Providence had ordered it.
"You can't move your own char-à-banc--the crank-shaft's broken,"
Ferdinand said to me, as he asked me for the tenth time to get up
beside him; "I've got no one, and I'm going to win this race. If you
could conjure up a new crankshaft out of nothing, you would still be
three behind the last in, and all the town out to laugh at you. Get
up, Lal, and have done with it. I tell you I knew it from the first."
Well, I stared at this: and having just a word with my mechanician
Billy, and being quite sure that the Vezey, however good she was at
going back on me, wouldn't go forward that day or for some days to
come, I left instructions for telegrams to be sent to England, and was
up beside Ferdinand without further ado.
I have told you that he stood already high in the list, and so you will
understand that we hadn't long to wait for the word "Go!" Before that
could be given, however, and while the car was still in the "control,"
who should come up to us but Maisa Hubbard herself; and, will you
believe it, I felt all my confidence, both in man and car, oozing out
of my finger-tips, just like water running out of a tap. How or why
that should have been I am not the man to say; but there was the fact,
that this pretty woman could work this magic upon me just by a look out
of her sly eyes, and could do worse to my friend Ferdinand, as I
plainly perceived. As for that poor chap, he turned as white as a
ghost directly he saw her, and I really thought he would never be able
to start the car at all.
"Oh, my dear boy, I have been looking for you everywhere," cried she,
offering him a little bunch of red roses, just as though she loved him
dearly. "Now, won't you take these for luck? I'm sure you'll want
luck to-day, Ferdy. Do you know, I dreamed about you last night?"
He said "Yes," and laid the flowers on the seat beside him. I could
see him licking his lips as though his mouth were dry, and presently he
asked her a question.
"What did you dream, Maisa?"
She shook her head and began the play-actress style.
"Oh, I guess I wouldn't tell you, anyway."
"But I want to know, Maisa?"
"It was only a dream, of course--aren't they real sometimes, Ferdy?
Why, I saw you drive your car over the side of the mountain, just as
plainly as ever I saw anything in my life."
He laughed quietly, looking at me with a look I shall never forget.
"You're quite a wonder at dreaming, Maisa. Suppose I disappoint you
this time?"
"Don't be foolish, Ferdy--you shouldn't have asked me to tell you.
Why, you're too clever to be such a silly, and you know it. Good-bye
and good luck. I shall see you in Vienna."
He just nodded his head and let in his clutch with such a bang that he
nearly threw me over the dash. I could see that his nerve had gone to
the winds with the woman's words, and if wishes could have repaid her,
she'd have got something for her pains, I do assure you. As it was, I
could do nothing but pretend to laugh at it, and that I did to the best
of my ability.
"Dreams go by contraries," said I; "any child knows that."
"She didn't dream it at all," was his answer; "she said it out of
spite."
"Why should she be spiteful----?"
"You ask the man and his master. She's out for another car to win, and
will spoil my chances if she can."
"More fool you, then, to listen to her. Make up your mind to forget
it. You can do it if you try."
"Ah," he said, and upon my word I was sorry for him, "that girl's going
to be my ruin, Lal, as sure as we're on this car."
"You speak like a coward, Ferdy--didn't you say I brought you luck----"
"And you shall--I'll try to believe, Lal--I've thought it from the
start. If it wasn't for her----"
"Oh, be d----d to her," said I; and that I really meant.
We were on the starting line as these words were spoken, and in two
minutes we got the word to go, and the great Modena car rushed away
like some giant bird upon the wing. This was the crucial stage of that
famous race, when we had to climb the Arlberg Mountains and drop down
to Innsbruck. It was the day which saw Edge the proud winner of the
Gordon Bennett Cup, and the morning upon which Jarrott broke up his
bedroom furniture to stiffen the frame of his 70-h.p. Panhard. Our car
was not in for the Gordon Bennett, and our race did not finish at
Innsbruck, but at far Vienna--that is, if we crossed the terrible
Arlberg Mountains safely, and got down the other side with our heads
still upon our shoulders. This depended upon my friend Ferdinand, the
greatest driver that ever lived upon an ordinary day, but a mad devil
that morning if ever there was one.
Oh! you could see it from the start. That woman's words had entered
into his very soul, and he did not deny that he believed his hour had
come. We were early away, and the two big cars ahead of us we caught
almost in the first hour. When we came to the mountain we began to
climb as though a magic wind was lifting us. Grand as the scene was,
with the mighty mountains towering above us and the valley full of
wonders spreading out below, I had eyes for nothing but the winding
road, nor thoughts of any goal but that of distant Innsbruck, where the
danger would be passed. Sometimes I wished that Ferdinand would change
seats with me and let me drive. No woman that ever was born would
frighten me, I thought, and yet I could not be sure even about that.
The words that were spoken in the "control" went echoing in my head.
"We were going over the mountain-side." Good God, if it were true!
The climb up the Arlberg Mountains is a wonderful thing, but I would
have you know that it is child's play to the drop down on the other
side. Imagine a series of fearful zigzags with a sheer wall of rock on
one side, and on the other a precipice just as sheer, and so open and
undefended that some fellows in this race were driven almost mad with
terror at the bare sight of it. Luckily for me, I sat upon the
left-hand side of the car and could see very little of what was going
on; but I knew that our off-side front wheel was within two inches of
the edge more than once as we went up; and when we passed over the top
and began the descent I could have sworn that even Ferdinand himself
had lost all hope of getting down safely.
Once, I remember, he gave a great cry, and shot the car over to the
inside with such a twist that our wheels scraped the very rock; there
were moments when he came to a stand altogether, and passed his hand
over his eyes as though he could not see clearly. By here and there I
thought he drove like a madman, swooping round a fearful corner with
our wheels over the very chasm, or dashing down a straight as though
nothing could save him at the bottom. If I called out at this and
implored him not to be a fool, he answered back that "What was to be,
would be"; and then he mentioned Maisa's name, and I knew he had not
forgotten.
Well, as many know, the end came at that great dome of rock which looks
for all the world like St. Paul's Cathedral. I confess that I should
have been no wiser here than Ferdinand. We seemed to be following a
gentle curve round the dome, with the rock upon our left hand, and the
valley three thousand feet down upon our right. There was nothing to
tell us of the danger trap; and, thinking he had a clear road,
Ferdinand opened his throttle and we shot ahead like a shell from a
gun. Less than a second afterwards I had made a wild leap from my
seat--and Ferdinand, without a cry or a sound, had gone headlong to the
valley below.
I suppose five good minutes must have passed before I knew anything at
all, either of the nature of this awful accident or of the good luck
which attended my leap. Lying there on my back, I became conscious
presently that I was in a thick scrub of gorse, which lined the road
hereabouts. It had caught me just as a spider's web catches a fly. I
ached intolerably, that is true--my whole body seemed numbed, as though
it had been hit with irons, while my leather clothes were torn to rags.
But, by-and-by, it came to me that I could get up if I chose, and when
I looked below me and saw the sheer precipice, and that nothing but a
bush stood between me and it, you may be sure I scrambled back to the
road quicker than a man counts two. And there I lay, trying to
remember what had happened, and what my duty called upon me to do.
Ferdy and the car! Good God, what had happened to them? The sweat
poured off me like rain when the truth came back. Ferdy was over
there, down that awful precipice. Quaking in every limb, I dragged
myself to the edge and looked over. Yes, I could see the car, looking
like a little toy thing, far down in the valley. It lay wheels
upwards, in what appeared to be a little brook or river; but of my
comrade not a sign anywhere. In vain I shouted his name again and
again. The cars began to pass me, and, warned by my presence, they
took that awful corner safely; but not a man of their drivers guessed
that a good fellow had gone over, and that I was half mad because of
it. Away they went, with a nod and a shout, leaving that cold silence
of the mountains behind them, and Lal Britten crying like a woman
because they didn't stay. In the end I ceased to think of them at all,
and, going to the brink again, I shouted "Ferdinand" until the hills
rang.
* * * * *
He answered me--as I am a living man--Ferdinand answered me at last.
At first I could believe so little in the truth of what I heard that I
almost thought the mountains were mocking me and sending my voice back
in echoes. Then I understood that it was not so at all, but that my
friend really called to me from a place thirty or forty yards down the
road, where the scrub was thicker. It was the spot where our tank and
tool-box, cast ahead as the car swerved and went over, lay shattered on
the rocks. These I hardly noticed at the moment; but, dashing to the
place, I threw myself flat on my face and hung right over the precipice
to answer my comrade. And then, in an instant I knew what had
happened--then I understood.
The car, I say, had swerved away to the right as she took the
precipice. The tremendous force of it not only sent all our loose
impedimenta flying down the road, which turned to the left, but it
threw Ferdinand sideways; and, although he had gone over, he fell, as
the newspapers have told you, just where the sheer wall bulged; and
here, holding for dear life to the shrubs, he waited for me to save
him. Such a torture I have never known, or shall know again. The
sight of my friend, not ten feet away from me, the precipice forbidding
me to go down, for it was quite sheer at the top; his white face, his
desperate hold at the scrappy shrubs--oh, you can't imagine or think of
the truth of it as I had to upon that awful morning.
"How long can you hold on?" I asked him, clenching my teeth when I had
spoken.
"Perhaps a minute, perhaps two. If you could get a rope, Lal----"
"I'll stop a car," said I--a madder thing was never said, but I had to
say something--"I'll stop a car and make them help me. Perhaps my
shirt will do it, Ferdy."
"Good-bye if it doesn't," he said quite quietly; and I knew then that
he was prepared for death, and had expected it; but I was already busy
with my shirt, tearing it up with twitching fingers, when he spoke
again.
"Pity we haven't got the rope I towed you with the other day," he said
suddenly; and at that I started up as though he had hit me.
"The rope--where did you carry it?"
"It was in the tool-box," he answered, still quite calm.
I think I shouted out at that--I know I was crying like a woman a
minute afterwards. The tool-box! Why, it lay there, against the rock,
before my very nose, the d----d fool! And the very rope which had
first brought our friendship about: was it accident or destiny which
put it into my hands, and did Ferdinand do right or wrong to say I
brought him luck?
I shan't answer these questions--for he was sitting beside me less than
two minutes afterwards, and we were hugging each other like brothers.
* * * * *
Maisa Hubbard's friend didn't get first to Vienna, and pleased enough I
was. Whether Ferdy just imagined that she had an evil influence over
him, or whether it is true that some women are the mistresses of men's
destiny, I don't pretend to say. The story is there to speak for
itself.
And Maisa, I may add, is in the halfpenny papers. Do you remember that
famous case of Lord--but perhaps it isn't my place to speak about that?
[1] The names of the driver, Ferdinand, and the car, the Modena, have
been substituted by the Editor for those in Mr. Britten's own
narrative. The reasons for this will be obvious to the reader.
V