Along the main road from Middelfart to Odense a motorcycle came roaring: a powerful engine of large bore and with an open exhaust, a long piece of copper pipe in all the colors of the rainbow protruding behind with no silencer. When the machine was coasting along comfortably, the engine gave a shattering report, like a bursting shell, with each explosion, but when the throttle was opened out and the machine gathered speed, reaching sixty miles an hour, or more, the explosions fused into a steady roar from the exhaust pipe where the metal vibrated: this is a noise which causes other road-users to shake their heads in indignation, while to the motorcyclist it is the essence of life itself. We all know that there is a world of difference between having to suffer ear-splitting, noises and making such noise oneself.

The throttle was kept wide open all the time because the road from Middelfart to Odense is wide and straight with a smooth surface; and they had to catch the ferry at Nyborg.

The driver was Sophus Hansen, returning to Copenhagen from a short trip to Jutland; Elvira was on the pillion. They were always called Sophus and Vira by their friends, so they will be called the same here. Vira sat, her long legs pointing backward and downward from under her dustcoat, a chic small leather helmet on her head, a little above Sophus, her head held on one side behind his shoulder, enabling her to peer ahead. Sophus steered, hunched forward, short in the neck, alert for any surprises the road might bring. It was a summer morning with early morning mist and restricted visibility calling for careful driving. Funen lay bathed in dew, with gossamery gardens and hedges, the road slightly damp from the mist but not quite wet enough to lay the dust. Here and there treacherous fresh sand had been sprinkled; the back wheel skidded more than once, and it was necessary to steer and balance as on a hair.

Sophus, nevertheless, was not averse to racing anything when he had a chance. The opportunity came but seldom as he went far too fast for most of the traffic, It was not often that he met up with a motorcycle of comparable power to his own which could give him a race, and in such cases the result was decided by a combination of road conditions and slick driving, as well as by the question of what risks the opponent was prepared to run, for in such cases Sophus went flat out.

As for exceeding the speed limit, of course, it was never in the built-up areas nor the towns, where control was likely to be xercised, that Sophus went all out; and it cannot harm him now to disclose the fact of his high speeding, for as will shortly be seen, he is far removed from having to account for the readings of his speedometer.

Two or three cars had come over on the same ferry from Jutland as Sophus, and had had a short lead because they were off the ferry first; two of these Sophus had overtaken immediately outside the town, a couple of Fords they were, but the third car he had not so far seen again; it was a small red Afag which he had noticed on the ferry.

Sophus and Vira were anxious to catch the first ferry from Nyborg. Counting every minute it could just be done, assuming, of course, that the machine continued to run as it was now doing. That is why the roar of the engine was so high, and the countryside so streaky. Vira sat securely behind, as close to Sophus as possible, with one knee on either side of him like a pair of tongs to assure a good grip. She was entirely and happily ignorant of the small critical situations with which Sophus dealt en route: the farm cart which pulled out without giving any sign of its intention, right across the road, to take a side turning at the very moment when Sophus was about to overtake it: it was a crime, plain murder, damn the fool! But then Sophus on principle mistrusted any horse-drawn vehicle and managed to scrape round it with a quick maneuver based entirely on instinct; there was no question of reducing speed at the decisive moment; the driver’s eyes and his own met for a split second and Sophus shook his head at him, pityingly, with an expression of sorrow for the man’s mental standards and morals; but afterward his heart thumped hard, and Sophus felt a passing weakness which found expression in a sigh: he had had a very narrow escape from thundering at the rate of sixty miles an hour right into the side of that damned muck cart. Vira had suspected nothing.

About eight miles before Odense they could glimpse the spire of St. Alban’s Church at the end of the straight road. Sophus overtook one car after another in long sweeps. He lay behind them until by bending sideways and surveying the road for oncoming traffic he could see if there was room to overtake—then forward in a sweep with open throttle, and the occupants of the car did not suffer from his dust in their eyes for long!

Shortly before Odense he caught up with the small red Afag—one had to say this for its driver, he certainly knew how to drive. Sophus lay behind him, glancing at his own speedometer. You did not notice it from behind, but the man was actually going over sixty miles an hour. Sophus managed to pass him just outside the town, and in overtaking he gave the driver a glance and saw that he wore large, dark goggles and smiled almost imperceptively when the motorcycle flashed by.

With loud blasts from his exhaust pipe Sophus drove with hypocritical caution through Odense at the few miles per hour the speed limit allows. He lost his way as one does in intricate provincial towns—and swore; when he eventually found the main road again the Afag was once more ahead. Sophus looked at his watch. By fast driving he had gained a quarter of an hour on his timetable. It was obvious that the Afag was also heading for Nyborg so there was every reason to try a race with him! But Sophus felt he was running short of petrol and swung in at the next filling station, a red pump, looking like a man in armor, standing outside a blacksmith’s. While the petrol was being pumped in, he exchanged some words with the garage hand, a young, rural mechanic, and Vira could hear the two oil-smeared characters discussing the various makes of machine. Their remarks were expert and cool. Take, for instance, the machine Sophus was riding, there could be no doubt about its superiority; but there was, of course, also the little new single-cylinder job, the K.G.W., which made quite a show on the speedway … then, with a nod, Sophus was off.

He soon caught up with the Afag again, but only by driving very fast indeed. He hooted, and the driver, to show that he had heard, turned, presenting two large, dark eye-sockets; then Sophus accelerated and pressed forward alongside him. The road was free, wide enough and straight, and he accelerated still more until he felt that his powerful engine was running at its absolute maximum speed, The motorcycle swayed under him in a peculiar manner at the tremendous speed, and the vibrations from the engine could be felt in the whole machine. Even fairly long depressions in the road beat like hammers against the wheels. Everything rushed by until the air became streaky, but Sophus could not get past. He accelerated for all he was worth with the throttle wide open, but the driver in the car beside him smiled and bent forward a little further, a movement which showed that he too was accelerating. The car crept into the lead again with the motorcycle beside; then the man in the Afag had the nerve to smile at Vira on the pillion…

Suddenly Sophus felt that he could just make it, but there was a bend ahead, and he dared not risk the camber of the road at his present speed, so he slowed a fraction and let the car go ahead again. He lay behind it gathering his forces and, as it were, accumulating speed for a new forward drive, for he had been speeding for a long time now. He looked at the speedometer and saw the needle vibrating between seventy and eighty, although they were now going at well under the speed they had held when they were side by side. The car in front, however, kept pitching horribly as if at any moment it might leave the road and go skyward, the springs could be seen yielding beneath the chassis, it took the bumps in the road with small, hard thuds—it was unbelievable that he dared keep up such a speed with such a small car! Now they were going downhill, and Sophus held back wisely and let the other go ahead. His chance of overtaking the car, which was heavier, would come when they were again going uphill. The road again climbed ahead and when he had accelerated and was immediately behind the car, the driver turned and grinned; they could see his dark sockets and a wide double row of teeth, and Sophus swore—and the race continued.

By now it had become a lovely, clear summer morning. Funen displayed her green charms, the flowers were nodding in the ditches, the air was filled with white butterflies, so many that it looked like a snowfall. They stuck on to the front of Vira’s dustcoat by sheer pressure of air from the speed which was so great that it would have forced one’s mouth open if one hadn’t the whole time done one’s utmost to keep it closed. But neither Sophus nor Vira saw much of Funen—they had to keep their eyes screwed up because of the showers of dust and stones from the car in front. It was literally as if the back wheels were shooting gravel, the air was a flying mass of fine, biting dust which whipped their faces with the force of a hurricane; it was like riding in a stream of sand fired from a gun. It could not be endured for long and once more Sophus pressed forward up alongside the Afag…

And then occurred just what may happen when a motorcyclist ventures to race a motorcar; the car driver grinned and dropped his mask—he was Death. He veered right over in front of Sophus to the other side of the road, a dirty but by no means unknown trick by a motorist who does not wish to be overtaken, and Sophus was forced off the road toward the ditch with greensward and loose sand. He experienced the sinking feeling underneath the saddle which occurs when the back wheel is skidding, held on to the handlebars for dear life, and crashed.

He and Vira never knew. The machine hurtled straight up into the air at the insane speed, came crashing down, and Sophus and Vira rolled and rolled, down, down, down, straight down to the Underworld.

At that very moment the ferry touched against the shore with a bump—it was Charon’s black barge, which is old and worn, and slimy and slithery inside. Charon had been ordered for just that moment and was on time, and as he swung alongside, the two figures rolled and rolled down the incline, down, down, down, ending up with a thud in the bottom of the ferry.

And Charon laughed, ho, ho, ho, so that it echoed from the opposite shore of the river, an echoing roar as when icebergs calve in a fiord. Then he swung his pole over and briskly pushed off from the shore carrying Sophus and Vira across.

Oh yes! They caught the ferry.