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“Divine! Divine!” he murmured. “Command me.”

“Take charge of the situation,” I said. “You’ll find a Mr. Pyecroft on the quarter-deck. I’m altogether out of it.”

“He shall stay there. Who am I but the instrument of vengeance in the hands of an over-ruling Providence? (And I put in fresh sparking-plugs this morning.) Salmon, take that steam-kettle home, somehow. I would be alone.”

“Leggat,” I said to my man, “help Salmon home with my car.”

“Home? Now? It’s hard. It’s cruel hard,” said Leggat, almost with a sob.

Hinchcliffe outlined my car’s condition briefly to the two engineers. Mr. Pyecroft clung to our guest, who stared with affrighted eyes at the palpitating Octopod; and the free wind of high Sussex whimpered across the ling.

“I am quite agreeable to walkin’ ‘ome all the way on my feet,” said our guest. “I wouldn’t go to any railway station. It ‘ud be just the proper finish to our little joke.” He laughed nervously.

“What’s the evolution?” said Pyecroft. “Do we turn over to the new cruiser?”

I nodded, and he escorted our guest to the tonneau with care. When I was in, he sat himself broad-armed on the little flap-seat which controls the door. Hinchcliffe sat by Kysh.

“You drive?” Kysh asked, with the smile that has won him his chequered way through the world.

“Steam only, and I’ve about had my whack for to-day, thanks.”

“I see.”

The long, low car slid forward and then dropped like a bullet down the descent our steam toy had so painfully climbed. Our guest’s face blanched, and he clutched the back of the tonneau.

“New commander’s evidently been trained on a destroyer,” said Hinchcliffe.

“What’s ‘is wonderful name?” whispered Pyecroft. “Ho! Well, I’m glad it ain’t Saul we’ve run up against–nor Nimshi, for that matter. This is makin’ me feel religious.”

Our impetus carried us half-way up the next slope, where we steadied to a resonant fifteen an hour against the collar.

“What do you think?” I called to Hinchcliffe.

“‘Taint as sweet as steam, o’ course; but for power it’s twice the Furious against half the Jaseur in a head-sea.”

Volumes could not have touched it more exactly. His bright eyes were glued on Kysh’s hands juggling with levers behind the discreet backward sloping dash.

“An’ what sort of a brake might you use?” he said politely.

“This,” Kysh replied, as the last of the hill shot up to one in eight. He let the car run back a few feet and caught her deftly on the brake, repeating the performance cup and ball fashion. It was like being daped above the Pit at the end of an uncoiled solar plexus. Even Pyecroft held his breath.

“It ain’t fair! It ain’t fair!” our guest moaned. “You’re makin’ me sick.”

“What an ungrateful blighter he is!” said Pyecroft. “Money couldn’t buy you a run like this … Do it well overboard!”

“We’ll just trundle up the Forest and drop into the Park Row, I think,” said Kysh. “There’s a bit of good going hereabouts.”

He flung a careless knee over the low raking tiller that the ordinary expert puts under his armpit, and down four miles of yellow road, cut through barren waste, the Octopod sang like a six-inch shell.

“Whew! But you know your job,” said Hinchcliffe. “You’re wasted here. I’d give something to have you in my engine-room.”

“He’s steering with ‘is little hind-legs,” said Pyecroft. “Stand up and look at him, Robert. You’ll never see such a sight again!”

“Nor don’t want to,” was our guest’s reply. “Five ‘undred pounds wouldn’t begin to cover ‘is fines even since I’ve been with him.”

Park Row is reached by one hill which drops three hundred feet in half a mile. Kysh had the thought to steer with his hand down the abyss, but the manner in which he took the curved bridge at the bottom brought my few remaining hairs much nearer the grave.

“We’re in Surrey now; better look out,” I said.

“Never mind. I’ll roll her into Kent for a bit. We’ve lots of time; it’s only three o’clock.”