Meanwhile George had thoroughly overhauled the car.
“She’s in tip-top condition,” he said. “Not a sign of weakness anywhere. Have you seen anything of Slavianski?”
“Nothing,” replied Maurice. “I don’t think he has come into the town. The arrival of a racing motor could not fail to attract attention. The Foreign Office has discovered who he is, and telegraphed to us to be on our guard.”
“Thank you for nothing,” said George with a grimace. “Have you made all arrangements?”
“Yes. The skipper is a stout fellow, and if his seamanship is as good as his Italian is bad, we shall make Durazzo in less than twelve hours.”
“What about passports, by the way?” asked the officer. “You can’t travel in Turkey without them.”
“I have mine,” replied Maurice. “George must pass as my chauffeur; I daresay they’ll let him in without difficulty in that capacity.”
Having dined early as the guest of the officer, they left the hotel about five o’clock, running the gauntlet of a crowd of urchins who shrieked entreaties for alms. George had started the gyroscopes while still in the garage. They proceeded due westward over a gradually ascending road until they ran down into the little town of S. Vito de Normanni. Immediately after leaving this town Maurice, looking back, saw the green car speeding after them at a tremendous pace.
“They haven’t given it up, then,” said George, when Maurice informed him.
He opened the throttle until the car spun along at the rate of nearly seventy miles an hour. For a few minutes the racer held its own, but then began to drop away, not from any defect of speed, but owing to the bumpiness of the road. Just before reaching Ostuni there was a short, steep hill, first down and then up. George did not slacken speed until he reached the by-road that turned abruptly to the right towards the sea. When round the corner he drove at maximum velocity, crossed the railway line, and came to the hamlet of Villanuova, within twenty minutes of leaving Brindisi. Maurice looked anxiously behind. There was no sign of the motor-car; it had indeed overshot the by-road.
Amid the wonderment of the fishermen, the gyro-car ran down the beach, and into the sea. The Margherita was not in sight, and George steered eastward to meet her. They were nearly a mile from the shore when they saw the motor-car emerge from the village. It halted for a few minutes; no doubt Slavianski was scanning the sea. Then it turned about, and disappeared from view.
“He’s running back to Brindisi,” said George. “Will he pursue us in one of those Austrian boats, I wonder?”
“It’s a lost game, I think,” replied Maurice. “It will be dark before he can overtake us, and even his perseverance won’t be able to discover us then. But I wish the Margherita were in sight.”
There were several craft, including a large steamer going south, near the horizon, too far off to be distinguished with any certainty. None of them was the Margherita. The travellers became anxious; had Antonio Fagazzi failed them?
“If she doesn’t appear soon we shall be in a pretty hobble,” said George. “I can’t do more than seven knots on the water.”
“We could steer for Durazzo by your compass if the weather keeps reasonably fine,” suggested Maurice.
“That’s true, but we should consume a terrible quantity of petrol, and probably shouldn’t have enough left for a hundred miles’ run in Albania. Has that skipper sold us?”
“I doubt it. Perhaps he had to wait for the petrol. We had better cruise about, and not too far from Villanuova.”
An hour went by; darkness fell, and they switched on one of the small electric lamps that lit the interior of the car. The wind blew cold, and their spirits sank: the Margherita might easily pass them in the dark, and they hesitated to light the powerful acetylene lamp, lest it attracted foes rather than friends. At last, when they almost despaired, they caught sight of a light some distance out at sea to the north-east. Immediately afterwards a second light appeared, near the first, but swinging like a pendulum.
“I fancy that’s a signal,” said George; “I’ll light our lamp and show it in that direction; it’s too far northward to be seen towards Brindisi.”
“We might make towards it, don’t you think?” said Maurice. “If you find we are wrong, we must try to slip away in the darkness.”
They moved slowly towards the swinging light, George every now and then turning his lamp inwards. In half an hour they came up with a sailing vessel, hove to.
“Is that the Margherita?” Maurice called in Italian.
“Si, Signori,” came the reply. “An Austrian gunboat ran down a little while ago, and I thought it best not to take you in tow while she was in sight. Now that they have this telegraphing without wires, I feared she might communicate with the Austrian vessels in the harbour.”
Maurice complimented the man on his forethought. A rope was thrown from the deck; George made it fast to the gyro-car; the skipper hauled up his courses, and the vessel sailed away on the smooth sea, under a cloudless sky, towards the Illyrian coast. The brothers slept for the greater part of the night, too fatigued to feel the want of overcoats or rugs.
At daybreak on the following morning they saw, far ahead, the castellated fortress of Durazzo gleaming white on its rocky headland, with the Albanian hills behind. Just as Brindisi had evoked memories of Virgil and Horace, so Durazzo—the Dyrhacchium of the ancient world, and the starting-point of the Via Egnatia—had familiar associations in Maurice’s mind. As they stepped on to the jetty he said to George:
“It’s odd to think that Cicero may have come ashore on this very spot? He chose Dyrhacchium as his place of exile when he fled from Clodius.”
“Well, all I can say is,” said George, “that I’ve lost all my respect for Roman noses. Brindisi was bad enough, but there are several generations of stinks here.”
Maurice smiled, and turned from him to meet the Customs officer, who addressed him in Italian. The gyro-car was being swung ashore from the deck of the Margherita.
“I am at a loss, Signor,” said the officer, eyeing the vehicle in perplexity. “I have no scale for such a thing. Is it a boat or a motor-car?”
“It is both, Signor,” replied Maurice.
“Then I fear I must refer the matter to Constantinople. It will be a week or more before I receive a reply. Meanwhile I must, of course, impound the machine.”
“Perhaps that will not be necessary, Signor,” said Maurice, pleasantly. “As a boat it is not subject to duty, I presume. I am quite willing to pay the duty on a motor-car and on the petrol we carry.”
“That will be sufficient, Signor. But have you a passport?”
Maurice produced it, and the official handed it back after inspection.
“And this other?” he added, indicating George, who stood looking on with the air of suspicion common with persons who hear a conversation in a language they do not understand.
“He is my chauffeur; he doesn’t count, Signor,” replied Maurice, smiling as he thought how indignant George would be if he understood him.
This explanation satisfied the official, who accepted the English money offered him in payment of the duties, and allowed the travellers to pass. They made their way, wheeling the gyro-car, through the single dirty street of which Durazzo consists, avoiding the small hairy bullocks that lay here and there, and the swarms of red-capped children who buzzed about them, calling out: “Capitagno! O capitagno! Pará! pará!” Maurice beckoned one, and asked him in Italian to lead him to the little hotel recommended by the skipper of the Margherita, promising him a couple of paras for his trouble. Meanwhile the sailors were trundling the tins of petrol in the rear.
The hotel was kept by an Italian, who gave the English capitani—all well-dressed strangers are captains in Durazzo—a satisfactory breakfast.
Maurice entered into conversation with him, and learnt, with a certain misgiving, that there were several Austrians in the town. For some time past there had been an influx of Austrians into the seaboard districts of Albania. They had been diligent in making friends with the people, sympathising with them in the diminished prosperity of the ports due to the railway from Salonika, hinting that the day of independence would soon dawn for them, and that when they finally threw off the Turkish yoke they might get a slice of territory from Servia or Montenegro. These hints and suggestions fell on a ready soil. The Albanians were still sore from the stern suppression of their rising a few years before, and the disarmament which had been attempted by the Turks. They resented also the endeavours of the Turkish Government to enforce the use in their schools of Arabic characters instead of the Latin alphabet, which had been formally adopted in a national congress. Their discontent was being artfully fomented by Austrian agents, who had plenty of secret service money at their disposal. Something of this was already known to Maurice; but the hotel-keeper having, as a good Italian, a cordial dislike of the growth of Austrian influence, told his English guest a great deal that was not suspected by the British Foreign Office.
Maurice was making a careful mental note of all this for the benefit of his chief, when Antonio Fagazzi came in hurriedly:
“Per Bacco! Signor,” he cried, “there is a steam-launch making all speed for the harbour. She shows no flag yet, but she is as like an Austrian launch that lay in Brindisi harbour yesterday as one egg to another.”
This news was disquieting, in the light of what Maurice had learnt from the hotel-keeper. He had good hope of escaping the pursuit of Slavianski if they once got among the mountains and had only natural difficulties to contend with. These difficulties, of course, were serious enough. Apart from the risks of travelling through a wild and unknown country of rugged mountains, there was the danger of falling among brigands. To this must now be added the probability that the Albanian mountaineers, who would, perhaps, in any case be likely to regard the travellers as fair game, would be egged on by the Austrians to attack them, not merely as travellers, but as enemies of the country. It was the Young Turks that were troubling Albania, and the Young Turks were encouraged by England. Slavianski, if he was in the approaching launch, would not scruple to make use of odium and prejudice to effect his purpose.
Maurice thanked the skipper, and learning from him that the launch would probably not make the harbour for half an hour, decided to leave Durazzo at once. The gyro-car could travel a good distance in half an hour. He told George rapidly what he had heard. They laid in a stock of food and wine—this of a poor quality, but the best, and indeed the only, beverage the hotel afforded—and bought a fez each as a measure of precaution, Maurice saying that if they passed through the country in infidel hats, some fanatical Moslems might be provoked to molest them. Then they prepared to start.
But they were not to get away easily. At the door they were beset by people, old and young, begging the nobili capitani to purchase their wares. Maurice sternly refused, knowing that if he bought from one, the rest would clamour the more persistently. They had mounted into the car, when the bimbashi of the Turkish garrison came up and demanded to see their taskereh. Maurice amiably showed him the passport, and gave him the same explanation about George; whereupon the officer became very friendly, and began to ask questions about the mechanism of the car. It required all Maurice’s tact to make his answers brief without offence; and when at last the car was started, nearly a quarter of an hour had passed.
Maurice felt miserably handicapped by the lack of a map. Monastir, the place he intended to make for, was, he knew, due east of Durazzo, but he did not know how far distant it was, nor could the hotel-keeper tell him with any certainty. The road at first ran over a plain, but it was worse than the worst by-lane in the wildest part of England. To an ordinary motor-car it would have been quite impassable, and even a cyclist would have had to dismount frequently. But over such rough ground the gyro-car had an advantage. Its equilibrium was not easily disturbed; it could even run in a rut that would prove fatal to motor-car or bicycle. Yet it was only at a very modest pace that the travellers were able to pick their way along this apology for a highway. George’s patience was severely taxed when he found it impossible to maintain a higher average speed than about six miles an hour.
The ground rose gradually towards a barren range of hills, along the sides of which ran a track so narrow, that if it had rained there would have been the greatest risk of skidding on the slippery clay soil. George had to drive with infinite care, crawling along at a walking pace, and often applying the brakes. When they had crossed the ridge they saw a broad river winding picturesquely between high cliffs, and a village nestling among olive-grounds. Here Maurice would have liked to engage a guide, but reflected that there was no time to make inquiries, and it would be imprudent to employ a man without recommendation. Maurice knew enough of the Albanian language to ask the way of the keeper of a small han, as the inns are called, and learnt that Tirana, the first town of any size, lay about four hours’ journey across the river. Beyond Tirana, another four or five hours’ march, lay Elbasan, and though its distance from Durazzo could scarcely have been more than forty miles as the crow flies, it was clear that they would be lucky if they reached it by nightfall.
They passed on, and found that the river wound so frequently that they had to ford it eight times before they finally crossed it by a stone bridge. At this point the road was a trifle better, and they were able to drive faster. At another time they might have been interested in the scenes along the road—the luxuriant olive-gardens, the women trudging with heavy bundles on their backs, knitting as they walked; the teams of mules laden with black wool, and driven by black-cloaked men who called upon Allah as the strange vehicle ran past them. But their anxieties forbade more than a fleeting attention to their surroundings. They crossed little streams on crazy plank budges, each one of which gave George a shudder; and as they approached Tirana were amazed at the immense flocks of turkeys that infested the road, and stubbornly refused to heed the warnings of the hooter.
Tirana itself proved to be even more dirty than Durazzo. They were hungry, but wished to reserve for emergencies the food bought at Durazzo, yet hesitated to seek a meal in the wretched-looking hans. Plucking up their courage, they entered that which appeared least offensive, and found themselves in a low room, suffocatingly hot, festooned with cobwebs, and swarming with cockroaches. They made a meal of grapes, the only article of food for which they had any appetite, and left the place in a few minutes, to find the whole population gazing with awe at the gyro-car.
On again, through a broad, undulating plain, and once more into the mountains, covered with beech and oak and a tangle of ferns and creepers. Looking back over the splendid prospect when they reached the crest, they saw, in the valley about four miles away, a party of horsemen following the same track as themselves, and riding at extraordinary speed, considering the nature of the ground. They were too far away to be distinguished, but, strung up to anticipate pursuit, the Bucklands did not doubt that Slavianski and his companions had engaged Albanian guides, and were hot-foot in chase.
“We can go wherever horses can,” said George, “and faster. They daren’t go at more than a walking-pace in these hills. By the time they get here we ought to be a dozen miles away.”
“I shouldn’t risk too high a speed,” said Maurice; “a single slip, and we’re over a precipice.”
“Don’t be nervous, old man. Those white minarets yonder should be Elbasan; but we can’t venture to put up for the night, can we?”
“I’m afraid not. It will be four o’clock by the time we get there, at a guess; we shall have to go on until it’s dark, and then either find a shelter in some village, or camp in the open. It will be quite impossible to run by night, as we did in Italy.”
“Well, luckily it’s fine. I suppose there are no wild beasts in these parts?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve got a fit of the blues,” said George. “I hoped we had seen the last of those fellows.”
“I confess I’m off colour too. There is evidently a good deal at stake with Slavianski, or he wouldn’t have kept it up so long. We have had good luck so far, but the country is getting wilder as we go on, and we shall come across the mountaineers before long. If we are held up, we shall be overtaken.”
“Confound your despatch!”
“I’m not troubled about my despatch,” said Maurice with a laugh; “that is, I don’t think Slavianski will find it. The bother is the delay. The Foreign Secretary would have risked the telegraph, I think, if he had had any inkling of Slavianski’s game.”
“Well, we’ve had some fun,” said George; “but I hope it’s not going to be spoilt now. I’d relish a stand-up fight, with a fair chance; but this handicap’s rather unfair, don’t you think so?”
“My dear fellow, have you lost faith in your gyro-car?”