As the machine took the uplift, Billy and Henri were so close, and the fire-flow so vivid, that they plainly saw the faces of both the saver and the saved.
The man who had jumped into the machine was Anglin; the aviator was Gilbert Le Fane, the noted airman of Rouen, whom our boys had once followed in flight from Havre to Paris.
From the fire zone there was coming a hurrying body of men, and rifles began to spit lead at the swiftly rising aircraft. Too late, though, to reach the height attained by the biplane. A shrill yell of defiance floated back on the breeze of the morning, and deep and heavy were the expressions of baffled rage by those grouped in the road below.
Roque and the sandy-haired assistant could be heard above all the rest.
The boys were again in the rôle of innocent bystanders.
When the sun later replaced the flames in lighting up the sky, not a trace of the French airmen could be sighted, save the marks of their raid—the blackened ruin of the castle and smouldering remains of the adjoining buildings.
Investigation instituted by Roque related solely to the escape of the prisoner. To put a quietus on his rival had drawn him from afar, and here again the elusive Frenchman had been jerked out of his clutches, this time into the very sky.
With the fall of the first bomb the single night guard over the captive had drawn the bolts that he might be ready to quit his post upon first order with the Frenchman in close custody. The second bomb so stunned the guard that he knew no more until regaining consciousness in the rear courtyard outside. He could only account for his presence there by the belief that the man over whom he had held watch had picked him up and carried him out of danger. There was a back way that could be traveled, smoke hidden, without observation.
"But how about the aëroplanes dipping just at the right time and place to carry him off?"