Illyrian Summer Read Free Page A

the sand.
    Suddenly Sarah heard Adam shout and the next moment felt the car shudder, tilt alarmingly, remain poised for a second before it gathered momentum, and then it seemed that she was being dizzily thrown about inside a box.
    When at last everything stopped moving, the cushion she was lying on gave a muffled groan and she discovered that she was sitting on top of Ricardo.
    “ O mama mia !” he gasped as she tried to move.
    Then she saw that she and Ricardo were wedged into the wreckage of what had been the back seats.
    “ Sarah! Are you all right? ” A voice penetrated her muzziness.
    “ Yes, Edmund, I think so. I don ’ t know. ”
    A strong hand grasped hers and pulled her through the opening where a car door had been. Now she saw that the hand belonged to Adam.
    “ No bones broken? ” His tone was so abrupt that she was not sure whether he was asking a question or telling her the fact. In any case she had no time to answer, for he was now helping Ricardo out of the debris.
    “ Edmund? ” she queried. “ What happened? ”
    “ He ’ s all right, ” Adam replied tersely.
    She noticed that his bare arm was bleeding and his shirt and trousers blood splattered. “ Your arm! ” she exclaimed.
    “ It ’ s nothing. ”
    “ How did we crash? ” she asked.
    “ I think the steering failed, ” Adam answered, “ and coming down on that bend we went into the boulders on the side and toppled over the edge. ”
    He rose from his kneeling position. “ Not very far down the mountainside, fortunately. ”
    She glanced up toward the road they had left. Not very far! Well, on one ’ s two feet, slithering about twenty yards down a slope might be only trifling, but in a car it was different. Adam seemed to dismiss the event as though it were an everyday occurrence to crawl out of a wrecked vehicle.
    Sarah still felt muzzy and the men ’ s conversation after they consulted the map only dimly registered. She rubbed her knee, which had begun to hurt intolerably.
    “ Sarah, d ’ you think you can walk ten miles along rough roads? ” asked Edmund.
    “ I can try, ” she said.
    “ More than trying is necessary, ” Adam pointed out. “ We can ’ t abandon you halfway. ”
    “ I know that, ” she snapped. “ All right, I can walk. ”
    She saw that he was still trying to stem the blood from the cut on his arm.
    “ I have a small towel you could use as a bandage, ” she offered, and struggled to her feet to get it, but her knee gave way immediately and she collapsed with a cry of pain.
    Adam turned toward her.
    “ It ’ s only my knee. Bruised, I expect. ” Sarah desperately wanted to make light of any injuries while Adam was present.
    He and Edmund hoisted her to her feet.
    “ I can ’ t put my weight on it, ” she gasped as the knee again buckled under her.
    Adam knelt down and his fingers gently probed her knee joint. “ It may be nothing worse than a bad wrench, ” he commented. “ Have you had trouble with it before? ”
    “ Of course not! ” Indignation swept over her. Did he think that she had been half-crippled before she came on this jaunt?
    Edmund ’ s arm supported Sarah and he looked at Adam. “ This means a change of plan if Sarah can ’ t walk. We shall have to find some sort of transport and get it here. ”
    Tears sprang into her eyes, but she blinked them angrily away. This was no time to play the pathetically helpless feminine hindrance, especially in Adam ’ s presence.
    Adam stood up. “ Then two of us will walk to the next village and see what we can find. Ricardo, you ’ d better come with me, and Edmund will stay with Sarah. ”
    The slight-figured Italian looked dismayed. “ To walk on such roads! How far? Sixteen kilometers? It will kill me. I have never walked such distance in my life. ”
    Adam grinned unfeelingly. “ Then it ’ ll be a new experience for you. ”
    “ No, no, ” protested Ricardo. “ You will walk so fast that I shall only delay you. Edmund is