“Good God!” he gasped, and his eyes almost started from his head. “Then Mitter knows!” The full devilry of it came home to him, and he gasped again. “Any second that rod might have dropped off, and what would have happened if I had been going at speed?”
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “Yes, Mitter did it,” he murmured brokenly, “in those few minutes he left me, just before lunch. I thought when he came back that his eyes were avoiding mine!”
Then, recovering his equanimity, he smiled with resignation as if it were all in the day's work. So he took out his tools and was just proceeding to jack up the car when the butler appeared round the corner of the plantation upon a bicycle.
“Sorry I'm late, sir,” panted the man, “but I couldn't get away bef
