. We're all _alive_,
anyhow, and that's something."

"Ah, but how long shall we be?" moaned her mother. "I don't want to be
silly, but I didn't know that an automobile had the habits of a
kangaroo and a crab, and a base-ball, and I'm afraid I shall never get
used to them."

Terry explained that his car was not addicted to producing these
sensational effects, and compared the difficulties it was now combatting
with those which a skater might experience if the hard ice were covered
an inch deep with soft soap. "We shall soon be out of this," he said,
"for the road will be better higher up where the hill begins, and the
rain has had a chance to drain away."

Cheered by these promises, the poor Countess behaved herself very well,
though she looked as if she might burst an important blood-vessel, as
Terry carefully turned his car on the slippery surface of the road's
tortoise-back. I was not happy myself, for it would have been as "easy
as falling off a log" for the automobile to leap gracefully into the
Roya; but the brakes held nobly, and as Terry had said, there was better
going round the next corner.

Here the mountains began to draw together, so that we were no longer
travelling in a valley, but in a gorge. Deep shadow shut us in, as if we
had left the warm, outer air and entered a dim castle, perpetually
shuttered and austerely cold. Dark crags shaped themselves
magnificently, and the scene was of such wild grandeur that even Beechy
ceased to be flippant. We drove on in silence, listening to the battle
song of the river as it fought its way on through the rocky chasm its
own strength had hewn.

The road mounted continuously, with a gentle incline, weaving its grey
thread round the blind face of the mountain, and suddenly, turning a
shoulder of rock we came upon the Prince's car which we had fancied many
kilometres in advance. The big red chariot was stationary, one wheel
tilted into the ditch at the roadside, while Dalmar-Kalm and his
melancholy chauffeur were straining to rescue it from its ignominious
position.

Our Panhard had been going particularly well, as if to justify itself in
its employers' eyes after its late slip from rectitude. "She" was taking
the hill gaily, pretending not to know it from the level, and it did
seem hard to play the part of good Samaritan to one marked by nature as
a Levite. But--_noblesse oblige_, and--honour among chauffeurs.

Terry is as far from sainthood as I am, and I knew