He was an English boy; his family had gone on in front in a carriage, and he was following them in the car.

He learned at once that the carriage had gone on to Dolceacqua, and was less than an hour ahead.
He paid for his food and milk, and without delay sent the car up the steep hillside.

He had to nurse and coax it up the steepest parts.
After another long jolting he reached Dolceacqua, vexed all the time by the knowledge that the carriage was going as fast as he over such roads.

The magnificent view of the Mediterranean from the rose-gardens of Dolceacqua afforded him no pleasure at all; it made only too clear to him the risk he would run, if he recovered Dorothy and Elsie and had to descend that steep at any pace.

At Dolceacqua he learned that the carriage was little more than half an hour ahead, on the road to Islabona.