Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/268

 He paused, then stopped and caught her by the elbows, peering down into her eyes. Then he laughed.

“Mated!” he cried. “This is the greatest moment of my life.”

“And mine,” her voice answered him.

Her lips met his in a quick caress, like those the wives of the Spartans gave when they sent their men to battle.

He caught her hand in his and they moved forward more quickly. Along this path Death was riding toward them, but they strode eagerly to meet it, to defy it, to defeat it. Cyril planned rapidly, casting anxious glances along the road behind them. Every foot they traveled took them further from pursuers, if pursuers there were. Every foot they traveled took them nearer the advancing messenger. So that the farther they went the longer would be the while before they were overtaken, but the shorter the time for preparation to stop the automobile. Murder was not in Hammersley’s line. They passed many places, difficult spots in the road where the machine must almost stop and go into low gear to climb declivities, places where projecting rocks jutted rough faces up to the very ruts of the road. It would not be difficult to kill with an automatic at a distance of two paces, but Hammersley could not play the game that way. He was a spy, if the laws of war called him so, but he would not, even in this extremity, use the spy’s weapons. If the other man fought, it would be different. The desperate nature of the undertaking was beginning to come to him. Two men, perhaps three or even four! And yet he must win. He must. Slowly but surely a plan was forming and he made up his mind to put it into practice.