on that great mountain highroad that slants in a straight line across
almost all Switzerland from Coire to Martigny; but we kept on it only
for a little while, to steal through Hospenthal--as dead asleep as the
other villages (for Labour had not yet begun to waken in its hard
bed), and take the southern road that leads to Italy.

Thus far, audacity had been laurelled by success. It was near one in
the morning, and we were spinning fast up a valley which showed
bleakly in the flying lights of our car. Soon Jack called to us that
we had crossed the border line of the Canton Ticino, and presently
through the blackness twinkled the little lakes which mark the summit
of the Pass. We were nearly seven thousand feet above the sea, and
suddenly, as we crossed the ridge and began to sail down the dismal
Val Tremolo towards Airolo, the great wind that had made majestic
music all day and night ceased to blow. We ran into a zone of
motionless, ice-cold air, and what seemed an unnatural silence, only
the hum of the motor breaking the frozen stillness of these high
Alpine solitudes.

The road plunged to lower levels in interminable windings, the car
swooping in a series of bird-like flights, exhilarating to the nerves,
thrilling to the imagination; for in the blackness that held us we
could but guess at abysses which dropped away almost from under the
tyres of our wheels. Sometimes we dashed over foaming rivers, and soon
we sped through Airolo, where yet no one moved. Now the loud-voiced
Ticino was our companion, and we swept down through an open valley to
Faido, where we met the first human being we had seen since we left
Gurtnellen. It was a very old man, with a red cap, like a stocking,
pulled close upon his head. He had a rake on his shoulder, and we were
close on him before he knew; for the car was coasting, and ran with