A PUNCTURE
Tim's rush had been so swift, so silent, so effectual, that he was
already running beside his cycle and preparing to mount before the three
men down the track, more than a quarter of a mile away, became aware
that something was wrong. The first intimation was the pounding of the
horses' hoofs as they took flight. They looked up to see the cause of
the sudden stampede, but Tim was hidden from them by the galloping
animals, which were dashing downhill at so desperate a pace that the
troopers, if they waited for them, must be almost inevitably swept off
the narrow track over the precipice. Though they now heard the yells of
the mounted trooper above, they durst not delay, but promptly wheeled
round and set off to head the race, intending to pull up as soon as the
frantic beasts behind them had recovered from their fright.
Meanwhile the shouts of their comrade had brought the other men
hurriedly to the mouth of the cave, which they reached just in time to
see Tim disappear round a curve in the track. They plunged through the
scrub, and screamed with rage when they caught sight of the crowd of
horses headed by the three troopers far down the hill to their right.
Men of southern blood make little attempt to control their feelings, and
these Peruvians, their vision of L500 vanished, stamped and gesticulated
and wept, venting bitter curses upon the hapless trooper whom Tim had
felled, and who was now sitting up and dizzily feeling his chin.
It was the presence of the three men on the track that had determined
Tim to ride northward. With them waiting for him, ready to shoot as he
passed, or before, there would have been little chance of successfully
running the gauntlet. He had not reckoned on the stampeding of the
horses; nor had it occurred to him at the first moment to follow at
their heels and snatch an opportunity of slipping through in the
confusion. When he did think of it, he felt very much annoyed with
himself for being so stupid. Not that he could have run past them: his
experience on the track soon proved that the attempt would have been
hopeless. Paradoxical as it may appear, this only deepened his
annoyance. Three of the horses had started up instead of down the hill.
The ascent being rather steep, they were more fatigued than frightened
before they had run a mile. The gallop became a trot, the trot a walk,
and they were making up their simple minds to stop and refresh
themselves with herbage from the side of the track when a creature on
two wheels came up to meddle. At the appearance of the bicycle they
kicked up their heels and fled, all their terrors revived.
It was now that Tim was angry with himself. If this was the effect
uphill, what would it have been in the other direction? Flying downhill
after the troop, with a judicious use of his hooter he might have kept
them all madly on the run, and even driven them before him into the arms
of his amiable commander. It was too late now. Tim was unreasonably
irritated. An older person might have consoled himself with the
reflection that it is easy to be wise after the event.
He had intended, when he started from camp, to ride northward along this
very track; but he wished now that he had remained at the cross-roads,
even though that might have involved playing nap with Colonel Zegarra,
or making himself amiable to that gentleman's lady friends. There was
danger behind him; there might be still graver danger ahead. Other
parties of the enemy might be coming down; perhaps the junction of the
tracks was held by them. It was a good defensible position, covering
any possible attack on the Inca camp by way of the eastern route. If
there had been any other path home, Tim might have taken it and bolted,
without any reason to feel that he was a coward. But there was none; he
was compelled to follow this only track--committed to an attempt to make
the round.
There was not much reason to fear pursuit. The men whom he had tricked
at the cave had lost their steeds; the other three would perhaps have to
ride for many a mile in the wrong direction. Like John Gilpin, they
could not help it. By the time they had checked the stampeded animals
and brought them up the hill, a good many miles would separate them from
the quarry who had baffled them. Tim felt quite easy on that score.
He began to take a little amusement in the chase in which he was, for
his own part, involuntarily engaged. The riderless horses in front of
him were not at all happy. They would gallop up the steeper inclines,
out-distance the strange thudding creature behind them, and when they no
longer heard its snorts, slow down and begin to take things easy. But
on the more level portions of the track, and the occasional downward
gradients, the machine made four or five yards to their one. They had
no sooner settled down into an amble than the pertinacious pursuer came
panting at their heels, and taking fresh alarm, they dashed on
frantically until another rise gave muscle the advantage of mechanism.
So it went on for eight or ten miles, until the horses must have
thought--if horses think--that they were doomed to drop at length from
exhaustion, and fall a prey to the modern centaur.
But Fate, after all, was kind to them. Tim suddenly became aware of that
unpleasant sensation, abominable to every cyclist, which announces a
punctured tyre. There was no loud bang, like the report of a monster
pop-gun, such as sometimes startles pedestrians in the street, and makes
horses tremble or prance. The air was oozing gradually away; moment by
moment the rear tyre became softer and slacker; and Tim had to stop at
once before irreparable damage was done.
Here was a disaster, the more serious because the track was no longer
flanked by a cliff on one side and a precipice on the other, but ran
along the crest of an exposed ridge, from which he could see a long way
before and behind and on either hand. He could see--he might also be
seen. The track afforded no cover, the country at either side very
little. If he wheeled the cycle to right or left in search of a
sheltered nook in which to make his repairs, he would spend much time in
getting there and back again. The enemy were doubtless now hot in
pursuit. Missing the tracks of his wheels they would hunt for him, and
here there was no cave, no waterfall, only a scattered bush or two. They
would easily find him, and then!...
Tim sprang off the machine in a hurry. His only chance was to mend it on
the track. He rested it against a rock, shot a glance around, then knelt
to examine the tyre. Now, as every one knows, it is sometimes not easy
to locate a puncture. Tim hoped that it would not be a case of
immersing the tube in water, for that would involve going down to the
river half a mile away. Luckily the puncture was a fairly large one,
and easily seen. The outer cover of the tyre was cut through for about
two inches, and the perforation had extended to the inner tube.
He opened the pouch in which he carried a few small tools and material
for making temporary repairs. From it he took a phial of rubber
solution, a strip of canvas, and a "gaiter"--a thickness of rubber
vulcanised to two or three layers of strong canvas, shaped to the tyre,
with hooks at the bottom. The first step was to repair the inner tube.
This he did by smearing the cut with the solution and sticking on a
rubber patch. Then he fastened the canvas by means of the solution to
the inside of the outer cover, over the rent, to prevent the inner tube
from being chafed by the rough edges made by the cut. The last
operation was to fix the gaiter to the rim by its hooks. All this took
some time. In tyre mending, as in other things, the more haste the less
speed. Tim worked with deliberate care, glancing up and down the track
from time to time. At last, after about half an hour's work, he
straightened himself, satisfied that the tyre was good for a few hundred
miles, and much relieved that he had been able to complete the repairs
without interruption.
It only remained to inflate the tyre. He had just inserted the pump
when a succession of faint irregular clicks fell on his ear. Turning
hastily, he looked down the track. He had a good view of it for half a
mile. At that distance it curved out of sight, but was visible again
for a short stretch a mile lower down, and still farther in patches.
The air was very clear; every tree and hillock was sharply defined in
the sunlight; there was nobody in sight.
But the clicks were growing louder; they seemed to be the sounds of
iron-shod hoofs upon the rocky ground. He gazed down the track, passing
from patch to patch over the intervening bluffs and the stretches of
rough country where it was not visible. The sounds came beyond question
from his left; still he could see nobody.
Meanwhile he was pumping hard, keeping his head turned in the direction
of the sounds. All at once he caught sight of six or seven dark specks
moving towards him along the sunlit track. He guessed that they were
about a mile away. There was just time to fill his tyre before they
came up with him.
The pursuers were now hidden by a curve in the track. He pumped on; the
tyre was almost fully inflated. Suddenly he heard a shout, and saw a
horseman round the bend half a mile below. He instantly whipped off the
pump, turned the petrol tap, and had run a yard or two with the machine
when he remembered that in his haste he had left his pouch on the
ground. He could not afford to lose that. Backing, he recovered it,
thrust it into his pocket, and in another twenty seconds was running
slowly up the hill.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw five men galloping after him. They
were no more than a quarter-mile away, shouting, urging their horses to
their utmost speed, gaining on him. But the crest of the hill was near;
then the track was level for a while; then had a downward incline. The
engine worked well; the cycle breasted the slope, gained the flat, and
sped on at forty miles an hour.
A minute after Tim topped the crest, the horsemen reached the same spot
on their panting steeds. They yelled with rage and disappointment when
they saw their quarry bowling along at a speed that a Pegasus might
envy. One took a shot at him, but Tim, bending over the handle-bar,
offered a low target, and escaped injury. In two minutes he had turned
a corner and was out of sight.