Up to this point the story has been mild enough. Now it becomes tragic. For at the place where the car should have kept straight on to go to Newbury it turned suddenly, putting me in Sir George's lap for a moment, and jounced along over mud and ruts, through a narrow lane. Sir George threw me off ungallantly and yelled. Then he leaned over and held the revolver against the driver's neck. "What do you mean?" he almost shrieked. "Where are you going, sir? This is not the road to Newbury!" But the car kept on. Sir George was frantic. He demanded that the car be stopped, so he could get out and hide in the hedge. He snapped the trigger, regardless of the fact that had it been loaded we would have gone crashing into eternity and a tree at forty miles an hour. Then he commanded our chauffeur to turn around and ram the pursuing car to destruction, although he put it differently. And then, finding he made no impression on the hooded and goggled figure in the driver's seat, he stood up frantically and poised the revolver to brain the man at the wheel. He was quite mad. It was not courage on my part that made me leap and catch his arm. It was sheer self-preservation. The revolver hurtled into the road. (I cannot find the dictionary, but I'm sure "hurtled" is correct, and certainly it is forceful.) The revolver hurtled into the road, and Sir George collapsed, with me on top of him. Afterwards, of course, I had chills, because, being the Prime Minister, no doubt he could have me put in the Tower or beheaded, or something dreadful. And would it be "lèse-majesté" to knock over the King's representative? By this time we were well up the lane, and the other car shot past along the highroad. But our pace did not moderate, and after a little the other car found its mistake and came back. We could hear it a quarter of a mile or so behind us. And at that precise instant we began to slow up: the engine struggled for a few yards, began to pant, gave two or three exhausted gasps, and then turned over on its side and died. The next moment we were all three in the road and running like mad up a hill. If one knows _where_ one is going, and whom one is with, and who is behind one shouting "Stop thief!" it is not so bad. But to have a man you don't know take you by the arm and drag you along through briers and mud toward Heaven knows where, with half a dozen other men just below climbing faster than you can run, and it is raining, and you haven't an idea what it is all about--well, it is not pleasant. And I had lost a heel off one slipper and was three inches shorter on one side than on the other.