During those last minutes Lescault’s words to Stevenson were as an exhortation. Of technic he could give the boy no more, for his skill had been transmitted completely, astoundingly to him. So now, with his voice lowered, Lescault spoke with all his long-growing, loosened emotions; he impressed upon him that Giron was the one to beat, the only rival he need fear, and commanded him particularly to obey orders, do all that he said, nothing more. And Stevenson, who long ago had caught the fervor of this broken-bodied little Frenchman, felt a fierce yearning to be at the wheel, to be riding the wind, with all others falling as he rode. With an exclamation he sprang from the pit and scrambled into the car. The soul of jean Lescault would be driving the “Ninety” that day.
By this time chaos had opened its gates. Thirty engines were roaring, their steel throats belching. Flame and smoke burst from them. A clamor of machinery smote the ear. Gears rattled shrilly, levers ground and rasped. A stench of oil assailed the nostrils. Now the bluish canopy, thickening, descended as a curtain. Through it Lescault saw the “Ninety” sliding like a great specter, creeping along until its front wheels almost touched the red tanks of the Saturn.
Above the crash of machinery he heard a man’s voice intoning the seconds from one to ten backward. He could not see the man, for the drifting smoke shrouded all; but he listened, and suddenly a voice shouted “Go!” Then came a rattling from the Saturn, a succession of sharp reports, a deep boom, a savage cry from Giron: the Vanderbilt was on.
Three minutes later the white “Ninety” loomed through the smoke, paused on the line, licked at the starter with thin tongues of yellow flame, and, snorting eagerly, crashed away.
Twenty-seven other cars followed, but upon none of them would Lescault deign to glance. With pad and pencil in hand he was busy figuring how fast Stevenson would have to go to lead Giron at the end of the first lap. He knew that the best Giron had done in practice was a circuit of the twenty-mile course in eighteen minutes. This was at the rate of sixty-seven miles an hour. And Lescault grinned, for he had told Stevenson to keep his speedometer at seventy-five miles an hour, gain a two-minute lead at the outset, and confound Giron when the race was only a lap old.