"Ah, messieurs," he said, "this is lamentable."
"What do you mean?" asked Harry.
"Your comrade, messieurs, he is gone. I fear he is a prisoner. He made signs that he was thirsty, and I left him there at the aeroplane while I returned here to fetch him some little refreshment. Ma foi! I was just uncorking the bottle when I heard a whirr. I rushed out with the bottle in one hand and the corkscrew in the other, and voila! there was the aeroplane already in the air."
"But how?--what..."
"I do not know," said the farmer, with a shrug. "I only guess. The man who ran away must have hidden until your backs were turned, then come back and overpowered your comrade and flown away with him."
"That's very rummy," said Kenneth to Harry. "Ginger isn't a man to be caught napping easily. What do you make of it, sir?" he asked the lieutenant in charge of the omnibus party, who had followed them.
Kenneth repeated the farmer's story.
"Very curious," said the officer quietly. "The man wasn't himself a flier, I suppose?"
"No."
"Well, I think we'll run your farmer back to headquarters. It looks rather fishy: there are spies all over the place. You speak French? I don't, more's the pity. Just tell this fellow he's to come with me."