that were balls of fire, behind.

She passed through a town with lighted streets and lighted windows or
was it only imagination? It was gone again, anyhow, and there was just
black road ahead. Over the roar of the car and the sweep of the wind,
then, she caught, or fancied she caught, a series of faint reports. She
looked behind her. Yes, they were firing now. Little flashes leaped out
above and at the sides of those blazing headlights.

How long was it since she had left the Silver Sphinx? Minutes or hours
would not measure it, would they? But it could not last much longer!
She was growing very tired; the strain upon her arms, yes, and upon her
eyes, was becoming unbearable. She swayed a little in her seat, and the
car swerved, and she jerked it back again into the straight. She began
to laugh a little hysterically and then, suddenly, she straightened up,
tense and alert once more.

That swerve was the germ of an inspiration! It took root swiftly now. It
was desperate--but she was desperate. She could not drive much more, or
much longer like this. Mind and body were almost undone. And, besides,
she was not outdistancing that car behind there by a foot; and sooner or
later they would hit her with one of their shots, or, perhaps what they
were really trying to do, puncture one of her tires.

Again she glanced over her shoulder. Yes, Danglar was just far enough
behind to make the plan possible. She began to allow the car to swerve
noticeably at intervals, as though she were weakening and the car was
getting beyond her control--which was, indeed, almost too literally the
case. And now it seemed to her that each time she swerved there came an
exultant shout from the car behind. Well, she asked for nothing better;
that was what she was trying to do, wasn't it?--inspire them with the
belief that she was breaking under the strain.

Her eyes searched anxiously down the luminous pathway made by her
high-powered headlights. If only she could reach a piece of road that
combined two things--an embankment of some sort, and a curve just sharp
enough to throw those headlights behind off at a tangent for an instant
as they rounded it, too, in following her.

A minute, two, another passed. And then Rhoda Gray, tight-lipped, her
face drawn hard, as her own headlights suddenly edged away from the road
and opened what looked like a deep ravine on her left, while the road
curved to the right, flung a frenzied glance back of her. It