"The coward!" stormed Frank. He had never been so angry in his life. "He might have killed you, Harry! And just because he was in a rage over what had happened to the airships! He didn't even know that you'd had anything to do with it—not positively! And we'd already surrendered."
Henri laughed—and he meant the laugh. It was not affectation. He had faced his danger in the true spirit of the Frenchman, who is as brave in action as any man in the world.
"Eh, well!" he said. "He did not shoot me, so what does it matter? That was a fine crack on the head you gave him! He will remember us, I think, next time he sees us."
Frank shuddered a little.
"I hope not!" he said. "Or, that if he does, he will be a prisoner himself, and won't be able to try to get even."
Frank remembered the look of sheer devilish rage in the eyes of the German. It was not pleasant to think that they might meet again.
"If it is to be, it will be," said Henri. "I bear him no grudge! He had cause to be angry—ma foi, yes! The Kaiser will not say pretty things when he hears of what we did to-night, Francois!"
"No!" Frank laughed. "I wonder where those airships were meant to go? Paris? They could have done terrible damage. Perhaps they were to attack the army—to lie behind its course, knowing that our aeroplanes would be scouting on the front. They might have made it harder than ever to retreat in good order. But I think they would have gone to Paris. I think that they would have been there before daylight."
"And now—pouf!" said Henri. "What is left of them? Not so much as would fill a barrel!"
Once all danger of pursuit was past, Henri had slowed down the speed of the car. Both scouts were thoroughly tired out by this time. They had had a strenuous day, and a night that merited the description of strenuous even more fully than the day. And now that danger seemed to lie behind them, and a clear road to safety in front, their weariness was realized fully for the first time.