"Get ready!" he shouted to Kenneth at last. "A twenty-second fuse!"
Kenneth grasped the bomb, leaning over his seat ready to drop it at the word. He had lost all sense that this was warfare, and throbbed with the same excitement as stirs the batsman or the three-quarter.
"Now!" cried Pariset.
The bomb fell plumb, but at the same instant the Zeppelin checked, and the bomb burst many yards ahead, though whether above or below the airship he could not tell. Pariset at once wheeled round, and within a few seconds brought his machine once more above the enemy. At the critical moment Kenneth dropped a second bomb. There was a flash and a burst of smoke and metal between the two vessels, momentarily hiding the lower from view. But that no harm had been done was proved by the Zeppelin shooting ahead on another tack.
"A little too far away," cried Pariset. "No time to descend. Throw the next, don't drop it."
In its efforts to escape the fate which threatened it the Zeppelin was now keeping a straight course. Its skipper evidently realised that in moving from side to side it enlarged the area of possible disaster. A third time the aeroplane soared over it, and though its engines were instantly stopped, its length was fatal. Kenneth threw the bomb with all his force. The result evoked from Pariset a shout of exultation. The bomb burst a few yards to the right of the airship. For a second or two the effect of the explosion was, as it were, in suspense. Then there was a burst of flame; the body of the enormous vessel beneath them slowly crumpled up; with incredible rapidity it lost all shape; the formless mass became smaller to their sight; and in a few seconds a cloud of dust at an incalculable distance below showed the now horrified airmen where the wreck had struck the earth.
THE END OF THE ZEPPELIN
[CHAPTER XIII--THE GREAT GUNS]
After the fight Pariset steered over the town at a great altitude, and Kenneth employed his field-glasses in the hope of picking up some information.