“Come on, fellows!” Whistler cried, starting away. “We can do no good here. But those Germans must not escape!”
“No chance!” exclaimed Ikey. “They won’t even try. If the English hung every member of the Zep crews they caught the Kaiser would soon have hard work finding men to man the bomb-droppers.”
“Right you are,” Frenchy agreed. “The baby-killers!”
He was still sobbing. Right then and there the Navy Boys would have been glad to take vengeance on the crew of the Zeppelin. The first man was descending out of the burning machine. The Americans saw the huge British sailor spring upon him.
“There was no kamerad stuff,” Torry observed. The two locked and went to the ground, disappearing in a wallow.
At this sight the boys uttered a cheer and leaped the hedge beside the road. They tore up the hill as fast as they could run. A shot sounded, and the spurt of flame and smoke marked the appearance of a farmer with a shotgun. He, however, was firing at the balloon of the Zeppelin, not at her crew.
From the machine a second figure dropped to the ground, and just as the farmer fired his second barrel. This second member of the crew darted away from the burning wreck and disappeared into the furze that covered the summit of the hill.
“That Heinie’s running away, Whistler!” cried Al, but kept on himself with the younger boys toward the airship.
Belding looked at Whistler. “Shall we let him beat it?” the former asked the Seacove boy.
“Not on your life!” Whistler cried. “Come on! If we’re not a match for one Heinie—we two—then——”