He was thunderstruck. Reckless and impulsive as he was, prone to play many a mad prank on his bicycle, he had never attempted such a feat as now, in the twinkling of an eye, he saw himself committed to. The ravine was more than thirty feet across. He would reach it in half a minute. No power on earth could check his descent. He must either plunge into the chasm, fifty feet deep, or leap the gap.
How can his sensations be described! Every second his speed was quickening. The steepness of the slope induced the feeling that he was dropping into space. He was conscious of the strange heaving sensation that a person feels on descending in a rapidly-moving lift. His body seemed to be flying upward. The air rushed past, scarifying his flesh, catching his breath, stunning his ears so that he did not hear the report of a dozen rifles across the gap. Down, down, faster than an express train, as fast as a racing motor-car, his body rigid, his mind working swifter than the electric flash--down to he knew not what.
On either side of the bridge the ground had been cleared. He must avoid the ruins of the bridge; he would steer to one side of it. As he swooped meteor-like towards the gap the space on his right widened out, and the ground made a slight ascent to the brink of the ravine. A touch on the handle-bar altered his course a point or two. Barely conscious of the rise, breathless and dizzy, he shut his eyes at the fateful moment--and the machine shot off the brink of the ravine like a stone from a catapult. For a fraction of a second he was in mid air, the wheels whirring beneath him. Then there was a tremendous thud as they struck the ground 011 the opposite side. The machine raced up the incline; the speed slackened; instinctively he applied the brakes; and in a few more seconds he fell rather than jumped from the saddle, and dropped panting, a mass of quivering nerves, upon the track.
A group of Japanese flocked about him. One gave him water from a mug. All were trembling with excitement. When he had collected himself, and inquired what had become of the pursuers, he learnt that, as they rode headlong down the hill behind him, two of the horses had slipped and brought their riders to the ground. The rest had reined up at the volley from the Japanese. Apparently none had been hit, but recognising that further pursuit was hopeless, they had stood watching the last few hundred yards of the cycle's flashing course. The Japanese had been too much amazed and alarmed to fire again. Both the parties looked on as at a thrilling spectacle. After the cycle had made its leap their amazement held them motionless for a while. Then, at a second volley, the enemy wheeled round and galloped away.