Page:Edgar Wallace--The book of all-power.djvu/252

 others had got away. He had marked the place where they had stopped, but the car was gone! It was too dark to see the tracks, but there was no question that it had been here, for he found an empty petrol tin and the still air reeked of rubber solution.

He had need of all his philosophy. He was in an unknown country, a fugitive from justice, and that country was teeming with soldiers. Every road was watched, and he had four cartridges between him and capture. There was only one thing to do, and that was to go back the way the car had come, and he stepped out undauntedly, halting now and again to stoop and look along the railway line, for he was enough of an old campaigner to know how to secure a skyline.

Then in the distance he saw a regular line of lights, and those lights were moving. It was a railway train, and apparently it was turning a curve, for one by one the lights disappeared and only one flicker, which he judged was on the engine, was visible. He bent down again and saw the level horizon of a railway embankment less than two hundred yards on his left, and remembered that Malinkoff had spoken of the Warsaw line.

He ran at full speed, floundering into pools, breaking through bushes, and finally scrambled up