u know, Mr Tanner; but you asked me as man to man; and I told you
as man to man.

TANNER. [wildly appealing to the heavens] Then I--I am the bee, the
spider, the marked down victim, the destined prey.

STRAKER. I dunno about the bee and the spider. But the marked down
victim, that's what you are and no mistake; and a jolly good job for
you, too, I should say.

TANNER. [momentously] Henry Straker: the moment of your life has
arrived.

STRAKER. What d'y'mean?

TANNER. That record to Biskra.

STRAKER. [eagerly] Yes?

TANNER. Break it.

STRAKER. [rising to the height of his destiny] D'y'mean it?

TANNER. I do.

STRAKER. When?

TANNER. Now. Is that machine ready to start?

STRAKER. [quailing] But you can't--

TANNER. [cutting him short by getting into the car] Off we go. First to
the bank for money; then to my rooms for my kit; then to your rooms for
your kit; then break the record from London to Dover or Folkestone; then
across the channel and away like mad to Marseilles, Gibraltar, Genoa,
any port from which we can sail to a Mahometan country where men are
protected from women.

STRAKER. Garn! you're kiddin.

TANNER. [resolutely] Stay behind then. If you won't come I'll do it
alone. [He starts the motor].

STRAKER. [running after him] Here! Mister! arf a mo! steady on! [he
scrambles in as the car plunges forward].

ACT III

Evening in the Sierra Nevada. Rolling slopes of brown, with olive trees
instead of apple trees in the cultivated patches, and occasional prickly
pears instead of gorse and bracken in the wilds. Higher up, tall stone
peaks and precipices, all handsome and distinguished. No wild nature
here: rather a most aristocratic mountain landscape made by a fastidious
artist-creator. No vulgar profusion of vegetation: even a touch of
aridity in the frequent patches of stones: Spanish magnificence and
Spanish economy everywhere.

Not very far north of a spot at which the high road over one of the
passes crosses a tunnel on the railway from Malaga to Granada, is one
of the mountain amphitheatres of the Sierra. Looking at it from the wide
end of the horse-shoe, one sees, a little to the right, in the face
of the cliff, a romantic cave which is really an abandoned quarry, and
towards the left a little hill, commanding a view of the road, which
skirts the amphitheatre on the left, maintaining its higher level on
embankments and on an occasional stone arch. On the hill, watching
the road,