s looked down hundreds of feet to the bed of the valley and the
boiling torrent of the Adige. It was a mere narrow ribbon of a road made
by the Romans, without a thought for the convenience of travellers in a
later day; and as the carriage turned a corner, O'Toole, mounted on his
horse, saw ahead a heavy cart crawling up towards them. The carter saw
the berlin thundering down towards him behind its four maddened horses,
and he drew his cart to the inside of the road against the rock. The
postillion tugged at his reins; he had not sufficient interval of space
to check his team; he threw a despairing glance at O'Toole. It seemed
impossible the berlin could pass. There was no use to cry out; O'Toole
fell behind the carriage with his mind made up. He looked down the
precipice; he saw in his imagination the huge carriage with its tangled,
struggling horses falling sheer into the foam of the river. He could not
ride back to Bologna with that story to tell; he and his horse must take
the same quick, steep road.

The postillion drove so close to the cart that he touched it as he
passed. "We are lost!" he shouted in an agony; and O'Toole saw the hind
wheel of the berlin slip off the road and revolve for the fraction of a
second in the air. He was already putting his horse at the precipice as
though it was a ditch to be jumped, when the berlin made, to his
astonished eyes, an effort to recover its balance like a live thing. It
seemed to spring sideways from the brink of the precipice. It not only
seemed, it did spring; and O'Toole, drawing rein, in the great revulsion
of his feelings, saw, as he rocked unsteadily in his saddle, the
carriage tearing safe and unhurt down the very centre of the road.

O'Toole set his spurs to his horse and galloped after it. The postillion
looked back and laughed.

"Trinkgeldt!" he cried.

O'Toole swore loudly, and getting level beat him with his whip. Wogan's
head popped out of the window.

"Silence!" said he in a rage. "Mademoiselle is asleep;" and then seeing
O'Toole's white and disordered face he asked, "What is it?" No one in
the coach had had a suspicion of their danger. But O'Toole still saw
before his eyes that wheel slip over the precipice and revolve in air,
he still felt his horse beneath him quiver and refuse this leap into
air. In broken tones he gasped out his story to Wogan, and as he spoke
the Princess stirred.

"Hush!" said Wogan; "she need not know. Ride behind, O'Toole! Your