Alan felt a sudden stinging sensation on his cheek and could not suppress a cry of pain. Something warm began to trickle down his cheek. A sudden giddiness made his head swim. His eyes blurred and he felt that he might topple over the narrow taffrail at any moment.
Blindly he groped behind him for the handle of the door leading back into the ship—found it, tried to call for help—then stumbled forward and sank huddled to the airship floor unconscious.
CHAPTER X
AN ADVENTURE IN THE ARDENNES
Both Ned and Buck were too busily engaged in getting the Ocean Flyer out of range of the aerial guns to miss Alan for fully ten minutes. They shot the airship almost obliquely upwards over the city until the clouds shut off all sight of it from them and even the most daring of the pestering French aeroplanes could follow them no higher. Then Ned noticed for the first time that Alan had not returned to the pilot house.
“Is Alan down there in the engine room with you, Buck?” he called through the speaking tube.
“No. Good gracious! Isn’t he with you either?” exclaimed Buck anxiously. “Everything here seems to be running smoothly, so I’m going to risk leaving it a few minutes to look for him.”
It was not a hard matter to find Alan where he lay huddled up just inside the port door. With a cry of consternation Buck dropped upon his knees beside the silent figure, turned it over gently and was shocked to note the bloody ghastliness of his comrade’s face.
Severe newspaper training was strong in Buck Stewart though. He did not turn squeamish or raise Ned’s anxieties by shouting that Alan had been wounded. Ned needed his whole mind for the management of the Flyer, and Buck realized that.
Gathering the insensible boy up in his arms, Buck carried him into one of the small staterooms, hurriedly bathed his face in warm water, and was relieved to discover that what had at first appeared to be a mortal wound was merely an abrasion of the flesh where the Frenchman’s bullet had grazed its way. Alan revived a few minutes afterward, and while his legs were still a little shaky he protested that he felt quite his usual self.