“Yes; and then?” he said to himself. “What am I to do if the journey ends in some robbers’ lair? Ought I to wait to find myself facing alone half a dozen jail-birds whom I shall have to fight for the girl? Or had I better get to work now?” A sudden movement of the young girl forced a decision. In an access of despair she tried to spring from the car at the risk of killing herself. The man caught her and held her with a grip of steel. “No foolishness!” he cried. “If you’ve got to die, you’ll die by my hand and at the appointed hour. Have you forgotten what I told you on the express, before you and William did in the two brothers? So I advise——” He did not finish. There suddenly appeared a head and bust separating him from the girl. A grinning head and a shoving bust which pressed him into his corner. “And how are you, old friend?” snarled a voice. The ruffian was dumfounded. A wrong turn of the wheel must throw all three of them into a ravine. “Cristi de Cristi!” he stammered. “Who on earth is this blighter? Where did he come from?” “What?” said Ralph. “You don’t remember me? But since you were speaking of the express, you must remember me—the first gentleman you knocked on the head—the unfortunate chap from whom you collared twenty-three notes and two rings. The lady recognizes me perfectly, don’t you, mademoiselle? You recognize the kind gentleman who carried you away in his arms that night and whom you quitted without a word of thanks.” The girl said nothing; she crouched lower, shrinking away from him. The dumfounded driver babbled on: “Who the devil is the blighter? Where the hell did he come from?” “From the Villa Faradoni, where I was keeping an eye on you. And now it’s time to stop and let Mademoiselle get down.” The ruffian did not answer. He accelerated. “Are you going to be naughty? You’re wrong, my friend,” said Ralph. “You must have seen in the papers the care I took of you. I never whispered a word about you; and the consequence is that everybody is accusing me of being the leader of the gang. Me! An inoffensive passenger who only did his best to save everybody. Come, comrade, take a pull at the reins and slow down.” The road was winding down a defile, on one side the walls of the cliff, on the other a parapet which ran along the top of another cliff which dropped sheer to a torrent beneath. Very narrow, it was made narrower still by a street-car line. Ralph decided that the situation was reversible. Standing nearly upright he had a better view of the road than the driver as they came round each turn. Of a sudden he raised himself to his full height, bent down, opened his arms, passed them to the right and left of his enemy, dropped down heavily on him and over his shoulder seized the wheel with both hands. The startled ruffian yielded a little as he stammered: “Cristi! The blighter’s mad! Damnation! He’s going to pitch us into the ravine. Loose me, you fool!”