Instead of the traveler's voice coming from the vehicle, it was his head.
"You clumsy fellows will kill us all!" he said. "Bear to the left, deuce take ye!"
"Oh, Joseph," screamed a woman's voice inside, "help! Holy Madonna, help us!"
It was time to invoke the Queen of Heaven, for the heavy carriage was skirting the abysm; one wheel seemed to be in the air and a horse was nearly over when the traveler, springing out on the pole, grasped the postboy nearest by the collar and slack of the breeches. He raised him out of his boots as if he were a child, flung him a dozen feet clear, and taking his place in the saddle, gathered up the reins, and said in a terrifying voice to the second rider:
"Keep to the left, rascal, or I shall blow out your brains!"
The order had a magical effect. The foremost rider, haunted by the shriek of his luckless comrade, followed the substitute impulse and bore the horses toward the firm land.
"Gallop!" shouted the traveler. "If you falter, I shall run right over you and your horses."
The chariot seemed an infernal machine drawn by nightmares and pursued by a whirlwind.
But they had eluded one danger only to fall into another.
As they reached the foot of the declivity, the cloud split with an awful roar in which was blended the flame and the thunder.
A fire enwrapped the leaders, and the wheelers and the leaders were brought to their haunches as if the ground gave way under them. But the fore pair, rising quickly and feeling that the traces had snapped, carried away their man in the darkness. The vehicle, rolling on a few paces, stopped on the dead body of the stricken horse.
The whole event had been accompanied by the screams of the woman.
For a moment of confusion, none knew who was living or dead.
The traveler was safe and sound, on feeling himself; but the lady had swooned. Although he guessed this was the case, it was elsewhere that he ran to aid--to the rear of the vehicle.
The led horse was rearing with bristling mane, and shaking the door, to the handle of which his halter was hitched.
"Hang the confounded beast again!" muttered a broken voice within; "a curse on him for shaking the wall of my laboratory." Becoming louder, the same voice added in Arabic: "I bid you keep quiet, devil!"