Lost trumpet

Il6 THE LOST TRUMPET
I dropped the tea-cup into Georgios’ willing
hands, struggled into my jacket, and made haste
from the camp towards that quivering automobiline
impatience. Pelagueya I discerned ensconced at the
wheel and her laugh met me.
“Well run, Anton!”
She seemed very much amused. I leant, panting,
against the tonneau.
“What is wrong ?”
She opened the door for me. “Nothing. What
would be ? You promised to come up to Cairo with
me to-day.”
“But at this hour ? And with all this wild bleat¬
ing on your horn I had imagined ”
She laughed again. She moved restlessly. “Oh,
do come in and sit down. Sorry if I disturbed your
middle-aged slumbers. . . . But you’re always half-
asleep anyhow, aren’t you ? . . . And you can have
a nap as I drive.”
I had seen this mood once or twice before. I sat
beside her and snicked the door of the automobile.
“I think I had better drive.”
“Not if I know it.” Hatless, she glanced aside at
me, with a jerk of her head flinging back the cluster
of hair from her forehead. “We’ll all be in our
hearse-processions soon enough without acting as
though we were in them while alive. Hold tight.”
The dim morning cluster of Abu Zabal jerked
towards us in crazy bounds, attained momentum,
charged upon the car like a running panther, swerved
to the right, missed us by a hair’s-breadth, vanished