ne uttered perfunctory thanks and called to Jules, who was
still tinkering at the limousine engine with the aid of an electric
torch.

"Come, Jules! Leave Leon to attend to what is required there."

"Very good, madame."

Jules strolled over to the touring car and settled down at the wheel.
Liane Delorme had the seat beside him.

Lanyard had established himself in a debatable space in the tonneau to
which his right was disputed by bags and boxes of every shape, size and
description.

"How long, Jules, will Leon need--?"

"Five minutes, madame, if he takes his time about it."

"Then let us hasten."

They drew away from the limousine so quickly that in thirty seconds its
headlights were all that marked its stand.

Lanyard studied the phosphorescent dial of his wristwatch. From first
to last the transaction had consumed little more than three minutes.

Liane slewed round to talk over the back of the seat.

"What time is it, monsieur?"

"Ten after nine. In an hour precisely the moon will rise."

"It will be in this hour of darkness, then..."

A bend in the road blotted out the stationary lights of the limousine.
There was no tail-light visible on the road before them. Lanyard
touched Jules on the shoulder.

"Switch off your lights," he said--"all of them. Then find a place
where we can turn off and wait till Leon and Marthe pass us."

In sudden blindness the car moved on slowly, groping its way for a few
hundred yards. Then Jules picked out the mouth of a narrow lane,
overshadowed by dense foliage, ran past, stopped, and backed into it.

In four minutes by Lanyard's watch the pulse of the limousine began to
beat upon the stillness of that sleepy countryside. A blue-white glare
like naked and hungry steel leapt quivering past the bend, swept in a
wide arc as the lamps themselves became visible, and lay horizontal
with the road as the car bored past.

"Evidently Leon feels quite lost without us," Lanyard commented.
"Shoot, Jules--follow his rear lamp, and _don't_ cut out your muffler.
Can you manage without headlights for a while?"

"I drove an ambulance for four years, sir."

The car swung out into the main highway. Far ahead the red sardonic eye
in the rear of the limousine leered as if mocking their hopes of
keeping it in sight. Jules, however, proved unresentful; and he was
marvellously competent.

"To anybody who's ever piloted a load of casualties through eighteen
inches of mud, dodging shell h