Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/146

130 could feel my mudguard rubbing his. This time the yell of the mécanicien reached me. It sounded like the bleat of a sheep. Then, evenly abreast and my foot nursing the pedal, I shot ahead, giving the wheel the slightest twist. I heard the grind of metal, then a crash as I flirted the stern of my big car into the forward end of the other. I did not dare take my eyes from the road, and so slight was the jar that I thought that I had missed. But a shriek pierced the roaring of the exhaust and the next instant I heard from far behind me, as it seemed, a terrific crash. I cut off the power and braked, gently.

The car slowed, then stopped and I looked back. There was nothing on the road behind me. There was nothing in the ditch, against the trees. I flung up my mask. Lord of Life, but what was this, out there in the standing wheat? The other car, as I hope to live. The other car, both men still aboard it, and still going. It looked like a western reaper, out there in the waving grain.

I rubbed my eyes. What had happened? How did he get out there intact?

Then suddenly I understood. Even as I closed in on him, Chu-Chu had guessed what was afoot. Perhaps he recognised me, mask and all, in one swift sidelong glance. He saw my deadly intention and his marvellous quick wit had leaped at the only possible means of escape from annihilation. The shove I gave him had aided his own design and he had leaped the cross ditch, slipped between the trees, crashed through the hedge and shot into the wheat-field.