get her cart out of the way. The howl of the siren frightened her
perhaps, for she lost her head and went to the wrong side. Then the
shriek of the machine drowned the human scream as the automobile struck.

The shock of contact was muffled. But the mass of machinery hoisted
itself in the air as if it had a life of its own and had been stung into
sudden madness. It was horrible to see, and so grotesque that a long-
forgotten memory of my boyhood leaped instantaneously into my mind, a
recollection of the evolutions performed by a Newfoundland dog that
rooted under a board walk and found a hive of wild bees.

The great machine left the road for the fields on the right, reared,
fell, leaped against the stone side of the culvert, apparently trying to
climb it, stood straight on end, whirled backward in a half-somersault,
crashed over on its side, flashed with flame and explosion, and lay
hidden under a cloud of dust and smoke.

Ward's driver slammed down his accelerator, sent us spinning round the
curve, and the next moment, throwing on his brakes, halted sharply at
the culvert.

The fabric of the road was so torn and distorted one might have thought
a steam dredge had begun work there, but the fragments of wreckage were
oddly isolated and inconspicuous. The peasant's cart, tossed into a
clump of weeds, rested on its side, the spokes of a rimless wheel slowly
revolving on the hub uppermost. Some tools were strewn in a semi-
circular trail in the dust; a pair of smashed goggles crunched beneath
my foot as I sprang out of Ward's car, and a big brass lamp had fallen
in the middle of the road, crumpled like waste paper. Beside it lay a
gold rouge box.