led elks' horns. Still,
as one could never be sure what might not be lurking behind some rocky
shoulder, where the road turned like a tight belt, our musical siren
sang at each turn its gay little mocking notes.

After a lonely mountain village, named St. Germain-en-Calberte, and
famous only because the tyrant-priest Chayla was burned there, the
surface of the road changed with startling abruptness. Till this moment
we'd known no really bad roads anywhere, and almost all had been as
white as snow, as pink as rose leaves, and smooth as velvet; but
suddenly the Aigle sank up to her expensive ankles in deep, thick mud.

"Hullo, what's this bumping? Anything wrong with the car?"

Out popped Sir Samuel's anxious head from its luxurious cage.

"The trouble is with the road," answered the chauffeur, without so much
as an "I told you so!" expression on his face. "I'm afraid we've come to
that _declassee_ part."

Poor Sir Samuel looked so humble and sad that I was sorry for him. "My
mistake!" he murmured meekly. "Had we better turn after all?"

"I fear we can't turn, or even run back, sir," said Mr. Dane. "The
road's so bad and so narrow, it would be rather risky."

This was a mild way of putting it; and he was considerate in not
mentioning the precipice which fell abruptly down under the uneven shelf
he generously called a road.

Sir Samuel gave a wary glance down, and said no more. Luckily Lady
Turnour, sitting inside her cage, on the side of the rock wall we were
following up the mountains, could not see that unpleasant drop under the
shelf, or even quite realize that she was on a shelf at all. Her husband
sat down by her side, more quietly than he had got up, even forgetting
to shut the window; but he was soon reminded of that duty.

"Are you frightened?" the chauffeur asked me; and I thought it no harm
to answer: "Not when you're driving."

"Do you mean that? Or is it only an empty little compliment?" he
catechized me, though his eyes did not leave the narrow slippery road,
up which he was steering with a skill of a woman who aims for the eye of
a delicate needle with the end of a thread a size too big.

"I mean it!" I said.

"I'm glad," he answered. "I was going to tell you not to be nervous, for
we shall win through all right with this powerful car. But now I will
save my breath."

"You may," I said, "I'm very happy." And so I was, though I had the most
curious sensation in my toes, as if they were being do