Then he called to the hostlers and other servants to come and clear away the useless cars, for Donna Hera was going to make a dash in the night. With a will they fell to, and one wreck after another was dragged out of the garage. Sandro touched something in the surviving machine, and smiled to hear it respond with coughs and sobs. He took a minute to crawl under it, measure things with critical eye by the light of an electric lantern, and was on his feet again throwing in lap cloths and handing a mask to Hera. He sprang in, pulled the lever and shot the machine out to the court. Once or twice he ran it back and forth, cutting figures after the manner of fancy skaters, and with a satisfied “All right” he descended again and opened the door for Hera. When she had her seat it was touch and go. With the hostlers standing wide-eyed, and Beppe, no longer tipsy, running from the portico big with the news of what he had found in the library, the car swung out of the court, headed for the Venetian Gate. “I wish you to make the best speed that you can,” Hera said, when they were bumping over the cobbles of Via Borghetto. He patted the air reassuringly as he glanced back at her. “Your Excellency need have no anxiety,” he said. “Leave it to me.” As he spoke they leaped into a swifter pace, and this was held in the Corso and through the streets beyond the walls; but when the crowds of soldiers and civilians were behind them, and Hera sighted once more the far horizon, set with stars, he sent the speed lever home and, like a spurred horse, the machine plunged out upon the wide, white road. In the suburb of Villacosa she received an impression of dimly-lighted street, carbineers and gesturing workmen, bare heads at windows, barking dogs, and a thumping rise and fall over a cobbled bridge. A few seconds and all this was far at their back, and they were spinning over plains that stretched in the silver night for miles on either hand, level as a table. Now and then they came upon a market wagon labouring along, but the way was wide, and they curved around it like a shooting star. The wind had swept all the clouds from heaven; only a few vapours thin as the moonlight flitted across the stars; to footfarers the wind did no more than whisper; for Hera and Sandro it was a gale that whipped around them with a high, thin yell and caught up the powder of the road and smote them with it in clouds that must have blinded but for their masks.