He laughed suddenly and shrugged and swept erratically into a lighter mood of impudence and daring.  There was rain beating furiously in his face and his hair was wet.  Well, the car pounding along beneath him had known many such nights of storm and wild adventure.  It had pleased him frequently to mock and gibe at death, with the wheel in his hand and a song on his lips, and now wind and storm were tempting him to ride with the devil.

So, dashing wildly through the whirl of dirt and wind, heavy with the odor of burnt oil, he bent to the wheel, every nerve alert and leaping.  As the great car jumped to its limit of speed, he fell to singing an elaborate sketch of opera in an insolent, dare-devil voice of splendid timbre, the exhaust, unmuffled, pounding forth an obligato.

The lightning flared.  It glittered wickedly upon the unlighted lamps of a car rolling rapidly toward him.  With a squirt of mud and a scatter of flying pebbles, Carl swung far to the side of the road and slammed on his brakes, skidding dangerously.  The other car, heading wildly to the left, went crashing headlong into a ditch from which a man crawled, cursing viciously in a foreign tongue.

“You damned fool!” thundered Carl in a flash of temper.  “Where are your lights?”

The man did not reply.

Carl, whose normal instincts were friendly, sprang solicitously from the car.

“I beg your pardon,” said he carelessly.  “Are you hurt?”

“No,” said the other curtly.

“French,” decided Carl, marking the European intonation.  “Badly shaken up, poor devil!—­and not sure of his English.  That accounts for his peculiar silence.  Monsieur,” said he civilly in French.  “I am not prepared to deliver a homily upon wild driving, but it’s well to drive with lights when roads are dark and storm abroad.”

“I have driven so few times,” said the other coldly in excellent English, “and the storm and erratic manner of your approach were disquieting.”

“Touche!” admitted Carl indifferently.  “You have me there.  Your choice of a practice night, however,” he added dryly, “was unique, to say the least.”

He crossed the road, frowned curiously down at the wrecked machine and struck a match.

“Voila!” he exclaimed, staring aghast at the bent and splintered mass, “c’est magnifique, Monsieur!’”

A sheet of flame shot suddenly from the match downward and wrapped the wreck in fire.  Conscious now of the fumes of leaking gasoline, Carl leaped back.

“Monsieur,” said he ruefully, and turned.  The reflection of the burning oil revealed Monsieur some feet away, running rapidly.  Angered by the man’s unaccountable indifference, Carl leaped after him.  He was much the better runner of the two and presently swung his prisoner about in a brutal grip and marched him savagely back to the blazing car.  Again there was an indefinable peculiarity about the manner of the man’s surrender.