Tim pushed his little craft hard. The bandits, amazed that the first attempt had failed, were startled when the usually sluggish mail doubled its speed and took after them.
The gap between the two planes closed rapidly. Tim, crouched behind his guns and protected from the invisible rays by the lead and zinc which covered the cockpit, waited. Ahead loomed the black plane, its two astonished occupants glancing back at him.
Tim tripped his machine guns and a stream of tracer bullets, singing their song of death, streaked the blackness of night with threads of sparkling crimson as they coursed through the sky.
The black plane dodged this way and that, but always Tim was at their heels. He flew with the fury of a man possessed. Again and again it seemed as though the black plane must be destroyed by the leaden hail but each time its pilot managed to escape.
Tim zoomed quickly, the nose of his ship pointing into the belly of the bandit craft. Suddenly, with a grinding chatter, his guns jammed and his exultation became maddening disappointment. The chased became the chaser, and Tim was now on the defensive.
His plane had withstood one attack of the death ray but a second time the bandits might find a vulnerable spot. The pilot of the black ship quickly realized that Tim’s guns had jammed and that his nervy pursuer was at his mercy. He lost no time in banking swiftly to make quick work of Tim.
The flying reporter, a desperate plan in his mind, cut his motor and drifted. It was his only chance and Tim staked the success of his midnight venture on a slender possibility. The bandit plane was storming down on him.
Again Tim ducked, again the breathless moment and again the thin covering of lead and zinc saved him from death.
The bandits, completely bewildered by the plane and pilot who defied destruction, slowed down. It was Tim’s chance. Savagely he jammed the throttle on full. The Lark leaped and quivered, a roaring, pulsating king of the air. It was eating up the space separating the two planes. Tim’s brain was in a whirl. Did he dare, would he succeed, what would happen if he failed? But the die was cast; he was almost on the black destroyer.
Hastily he loosened his safety belt, climbed to the edge of the cockpit and before the startled bandits could aim their death ray gun at him, leaped into space.