"Give me his hat," said Turnbull in a silver voice, that the
other obeyed like a bugle. "And get inside with the swords."

And just as the red and raging face of a policeman appeared above
the wall, Turnbull struck the horse with a terrible cut of the
whip and the two went whirling away like a boomerang.

They had spun through seven streets and three or four squares
before anything further happened. Then, in the neighbourhood of
Maida Vale, the driver opened the trap and talked through it in a
manner not wholly common in conversations through that aperture.

"Mr. MacIan," he said shortly and civilly.

"Mr. Turnbull," replied his motionless fare.

"Under circumstances such as those in which we were both recently
placed there was no time for anything but very abrupt action. I
trust therefore that you have no cause to complain of me if I
have deferred until this moment a consultation with you on our
present position or future action. Our present position, Mr.
MacIan, I imagine that I am under no special necessity of
describing. We have broken the law and we are fleeing from its
officers. Our future action is a thing about which I myself
entertain sufficiently strong views; but I have no right to
assume or to anticipate yours, though I may have formed a decided
conception of your character and a decided notion of what they
will probably be. Still, by every principle of intellectual
justice, I am bound to ask you now and seriously whether you wish
to continue our interrupted relations."