Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/207

. Then I yelled to Payne to get into the tonneau. There was no more pride left in him than in a rag, and he crawled over, like a dog. Meanwhile, I'd made up my mind what to do, and was going to try an experiment as our best chance to get out of the town without bloodshed.

I knew that a union which held the exhaust pipe in place on the silencer had been working loose. I grabbed a spanner out of the tool-box, and elbowing my way along the side of the car again, with two turns of the spanner loosened the union, pushed forward the throttle-lever in the steering-post, and gave the motor all its gas.

The thing was done in a quarter the time it's taken me to write of it, and you can guess the effect. Bang! bang! came a succession of explosions quick and pitiless as a Maxim gun. Those peasants gave way like wheat before the scythe. I don't doubt they thought they were shot and on the way to kingdom come; and before they'd time to find out their mistake I was up on the step, had seized the steering-wheel, and started the car. We were on a slight decline, and the good steed bounded forward at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. An instant later I slipped in the fourth, and we were going forty-five.

When the enemy saw how they'd been tricked, which they did in about six seconds, they were after us with a howl. A shower of stones fell harmlessly on the road behind us, angry yells were drowned in the hideous noise of the exhaust. We could afford to laugh at the thought of pursuit. But there was another side to the story. Now that there was no