They pushed on over the intervening space and had proceeded some fifty yards when around the stern of one of the air-ships before them a man came into sight. One glance at the burly figure and black beard was sufficient. It was the “Black Hawk.”
They recognized him and, with an astonished shout, he as quickly recognized them.
Instantly he advanced toward them.
They were in a species of small clearing, with air-ships on all four sides. Mortimer halted. All his moodiness had disappeared. There was a strange light in his eyes and a smile upon his lips. He cast a rapid glance around him. There were no others in sight. Ah, God was good! There was the blue sky above their heads and the green grass beneath their feet and he and the “Black Hawk” were face to face.
An instant more and he confronted them. A sword hung at his side and upon his left shoulder there glittered the gold star of an officer of the Army of the New Republic.
“So,” he said, his black beard bristling, his eyes snapping with hatred, “so you dogs have escaped from your kennel, eh?”
From Mortimer there came no reply. He stood gazing upon his enemy, the same peculiar light in his eyes and smile upon his lips.
“But you’ll quickly march back again,” he continued, with a malignant snarl. “At least one of you. As for you, Mr. Fine Feathers, I am glad to see you are armed, for no blame can then be put upon me. Later, too, I’ll find out how all this happened. I suspect that heifer, Valerie, had a hand in this!”
The words sealed his fate. For Valerie’s sake, the thought flashed through Mortimer’s mind, this man must not escape him.
“Let me first pay my debt!” he exclaimed, and his long, sinuous arm shot out and struck Henry, with open palm, full in the face.