There was, in truth, much reason for the man’s ebullient spirits. The engine was switched off: there was little or no vibration; the yacht, as he afterwards declared, seemed to float along the road. Even when she had a decided list to starboard, the near wheels leaving the ground, he laughed as he threw his long body to windward, hanging perilously over the roadway, while Eves with mouth grim-set kept the bounding craft on a broad reach. It was soon apparent that she was more than holding her own with the long car ahead. The cloud of smoke came nearer and nearer, floating across the road to leeward like the trail from the funnel of a tramp steamer. The green car was running an erratic course more or less in the middle of the road. Within thirty or forty yards of her Templeton insistently sounded his horn and drew over to the right, preparing to pass. Next moment he jammed on his brake hard, with an exclamation seldom heard on his phlegmatic lips. So far from steering to his own side of the road, the driver of the car had also pulled across to the right, with the evident intention of blocking the passage. But for Templeton’s promptitude the bowsprit must inevitably have run into the hood of the car. The jerk threw the Irishman heavily forward over the back of the seat, and when he recovered himself he broke into violent objurgation, which had no more effect on the occupants of the car than the strident blasts of Templeton’s horn. They did not even look round. A turf-cutter on the moor scratched his head and gazed open-mouthed at the novel spectacle, and on the other side two affrighted ponies galloped with tossing manes and tails through and over the whins and gorse. For the moment Templeton was baffled. Then Eves, leaning forward, shouted, to be heard above the roaring of the car: "Pass her on the near side, Bob." Templeton nodded, reserving for the future his criticism that, in the circumstances, Eves might more properly have used a nautical term. He checked the pace still further until nearly fifty yards separated him from the obstructive car. Then, with his horn at full blast, he released the brake, and the yacht shot forward. As he had expected, the car clung still more closely to the off side, leaving only the narrowest margin between the wheels and the rough edge of the turf. Suddenly, with a turn of the wheel that caused the yacht to lurch giddily, he switched on the engine and ran deftly into the open space on the near side. A yell of delight broke from the Irishman. "Sit down and be quiet," shouted Eves, "or we’ll capsize yet."