Back at his post of observation, he watched, hoping against hope, while the car lunged and tore like a mad thing through the night, snoring up grades, screaming down them, drumming across the levels, clattering wildly through villages and hamlets; while the moon rose and gathered strength and made the road a streaming river of milk and ink; while his heart sank as minute succeeded minute, mile followed mile, and ever the lights of the pursuing car, lost to sight from time to time, reappeared with a brighter, fiercer glow, and conviction forced itself home that they were being gradually but surely overhauled.

He took this intelligence to the ear of Jules.  The chauffeur answered only with a worried shake of his head that said too plainly he was doing his best, extracting every ounce of power from the engine.

Ill luck ambushed them in the streets of a sizable town, its name unknown to Lanyard, where another car, driven inexpertly, rolled out of a side street and stalled in their path.  The emergency brake saved them a collision; but there were not six inches between the two when the touring car stopped dead; and minutes were lost before the other got under way and they were able to proceed.

Less than three hundred yards separated pursued and pursuer as they raced out through open fields once more.  And foot by foot this lead was being inexorably cut down.

In the seat beside the driver of the grey car a man rose and, steadying himself by holding onto the windshield, poured out the contents of an automatic, presumably hoping to puncture the tires of the quarry.  A bullet bored a neat hole through the windshield between the heads of Liane Delorme and Jules.  The woman slipped down upon the floor and Jules crouched over the wheel.  Lanyard fingered his automatic but held its fire against a moment when he could be more sure of his arm.

Instead, he turned to the lunch hamper and opened it.  Liane’s provisioning had been ample for a party thrice their number.  In the bottom of the basket lay six pint bottles of champagne, four of them unopened.  Lanyard took them to the rear seat—­and found the grey car had drawn up to within fifty yards of its prey.  Making a pace better than seventy miles per hour, it would not dare swerve.

The first empty bottle broke to one side, the second squarely between the front wheels.  He grasped the first full bottle by the neck and felt that its weight promised more accuracy, but ducked before attempting to throw it as a volley of shots sought to discourage him.  At the first lull he rose and cast the bottle with the overhand action employed in grenade throwing.  It crashed fairly beneath the nearer forward wheel of the grey car, but without effect, other than to draw another volley in retaliation.  This he risked; the emergency had grown too desperate for more paltering; the lead had been abridged to thirty yards; in two minutes more it would be nothing.