Explore "The Cruise of the Gyro Car" by Herbert Strang on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
YARD by yard the path became steeper, and at times bent so abruptly that only with the greatest care, and by the united efforts of the whole party, could the gyro-car be dragged or pushed round. More than once Giulika muttered an imprecation on the people who invented machines. On foot, even on horseback, the narrow path presented little difficulty to a mountaineer, and the simple old man could not understand why two travellers, in peril of their lives from enemies, should enhance their danger by clinging to a thing of metal. He admitted, however, that the lamp was a good one, and even said that he should like to have a light as brilliant in his kula; it would enable the women to knit at night!
When they had gone so far from the village that there was no risk of a sound reaching the Albanians at their camp fire, George started the motor actuating the gyroscopes, and so made the haulage of the car easier, since the men no longer needed to concern themselves with keeping it upright. This fact caused no little consternation among them, and one asked earnestly whether the Inglesi would assure him that the car was not a creature of Shaitan.