"Get as far forward as you can," Herrick said, "I'm after the front tires."
Their own front tires passed the rear of the first car; as they came abreast the man with the broken wrist, using his left hand, emptied his pistol almost in their faces; a shot from the man in the body of the car struck their steering-wheel; there was a cloud now between the two cars, smelling so thick of powder that Stanley seemed to himself to eat it. He was aware of Herrick suddenly casting aside all defenses, leaning forward into this cloud, his brows knotted and his arm outstretched. There came the quick Ping!--Ping! of his last two shots and as if in the same breath, the earthquake! The black touring-car seemed to spring into the air; then her fore wheels collapsed and she sank forward, still sliding a little as if on her nose, and, running quietly over the edge of the road into the shallow ditch that edged it, turned on her side.
They were well passed by this time, and despite the jerk with which Stanley brought up, Herrick had leaped out before they were stopped, and at the same moment a figure scrambled from the fallen hulk and, without a glance behind, made off across the fields. Herrick, shifting his empty revolver as he ran, till he carried it by the barrel, swung into full pursuit.
This was the more foolhardy because on getting to his feet Nicola had drawn his own revolver, from which Herrick had to dodge as he ran, and at length indeed to throw himself down, and get forward only by his hands and knees. They were now in a broken, stony lot, spotted with underbrush; a brook running through it, and here and there tall chestnut trees. By screening himself with these, and making a run for it in any patch of shadow, he kept his man in sight and even gained upon him; he was waiting till Nicola's gun should be as empty as his own before he came to closer quarters. For this he knelt and rose and ran and crawled, now showing himself, to draw--and waste!--a bullet; and now plumping down among bushes. It was at one of these moments that he heard a shot behind him and, peering through the screen of twigs, saw that Nicola's comrades had freed themselves from the ditch and were advancing, apparently full-armed, and he of the uninjured hand beating the coverts as they came. They called to each other, and in Italian sure enough; and they carried a lantern from Stanley's car. What had become of Stanley? And what now was he himself to do?