I could hardly believe that it was really there. It must be an image called up by memory of that long-past moment, some strange illusion of an exalted mind: but the image persisted. Like a hawk it swept along the sky, coming from a direction opposite to that of the Zeppelin, as if to swoop upon it from above. I thought I heard shots. The great dirigible turned and sailed faster. I felt as if I were all eyes and pounding heart. Could the sight be real, this duel in the sky? Perhaps others watched it with me—I do not know. It seemed that I was alone on earth gazing at the incredible battle.
The Zeppelin made off, away from the town toward the fortifications, but the monoplane kept above it, despite the shots which spattered futilely. Just as the dirigible passed over the bridge, which hadn't yet been blown up, looking enormous, for it hung lower now, the monoplane—tiny in comparison—dived full upon it. With an explosion of gas from the huge cigar-shaped balloon, the dirigible dropped earthward, its bird enemy seeming to fall with it.
I gave a cry and covered my eyes with both hands.
I felt that I had been broken, crumpled up like a singed moth, burnt by the vivid flame of that awful sight. But arms caught me from behind, as I would have sunk to the floor with the roar of another explosion in my ears, each brick of the house quivering on another. A kind Belgian voice was soothing me: "Pauvre enfant!" and hands, strong, though womanly, would have pulled me away from the window to lay me down on some unoccupied bunk, if I had not struggled to keep my place. "No—no!" I stammered. "I'm not going to faint. I must see! I must!" And shaking off the nurse's protecting arms, I stared out toward an open space away from the town, where a vast mass of wreckage blazed, turning the gray dawn red.
CHAPTER XVIII
"Quel héros!" rapturously sobbed the Belgian nurse who held me. "It is he who has saved the lives of all our poor wounded ones, and our lives, too. Did you not see the monster over our heads? It had to turn just in the nick of time. An instant more, and there would have been a bomb for us. Thank heaven! And thank the hero sent by heaven!"
It was a deed, I thought, worthy of Eagle March himself. The air scout who had accomplished it was his soul brother no matter what country had given him birth.
"Is it certain, do you think, that all those men in the Zeppelin died there together?" I gasped.