"Well, if things turn out anything like right," returned Molly cheerfully, "I shall simply tell the escort that they had better find some other way of getting me into Portriga. I don't want to be mixed up in a free fight just before I'm married." She laughed gently. "I should like to hear what Saltero says about you, Tony," she added. "He'll shove everything down to your account, you know." Tony nodded. "I hate to treat him like this," he observed sadly, "but it really can't be helped. In a big crisis the lesser virtues always have to give way to the greater." "You must explain that to him," said Molly, "if you ever run up against him again. It will probably console him quite a lot." By this time the last traces of Braxa were already some distance in the rear, and the countryside had assumed that forlorn and neglected aspect which forty years of misgovernment have so successfully impressed upon the greater part of Northern Livadia. Here and there they came across an occasional peasant woman, slouching along under a heavy burden: presumably carrying on the family business while her lord and master was assisting to make history in the Capital. With these exceptions, however, the road was absolutely deserted, a fact of which Jimmy took full advantage by pushing the car along at the utmost limit of speed which the deplorable surface would permit. The only relief to the monotonous landscape was the long range of hills towards which they were steadily making their way. These rose sharply in the near distance against the cloudless blue sky, and somewhere amongst them, as Tony knew, lay the Château of Saint Anna and the goal of their expedition. At last Jimmy slackened down, and looked round again from the driving seat. "You'd better get ready for trouble," he said. "The turning's about half a mile on from here, and it's a hundred to one they'll have a patrol out at the corner." Tony acknowledged the information with a reassuring wave of his hand; while Molly, after settling herself into a decorous attitude, opened her prayer-book at random and commenced to study "The Publick Baptism of Infants" with a deep and absorbed interest. Jimmy proceeded forward at the same leisurely pace, until, bit by bit, the branch road that he had spoken of crept into view, turning off to the right, and then winding its way up through the hills, like a piece of yellowish ribbon dropped down carelessly from the sky. At the point where it joined the main road stood a straggling coppice of stunted oak trees. To the unsuspicious eye there was nothing about it to suggest the least danger; but quite suddenly, while the car was still about a hundred yards distant, the apparently peaceful prospect underwent a startling change. With the crash and swirl of breaking undergrowth, a number of uniformed figures scrambled out hastily into the sunlight, and running forward with their rifles in their hands, formed up into an irregular cordon across the roadway.