Evidently the cockpit had become unbearable, for the watchers on the ground descried a figure creeping piteously out on a smoking wing stretch.
Charred bits began to float down. Raynor was circling in, shortening his wide spirals, dodging to the windward of flaming, floating particles.
Why didn’t he hurry? Why didn’t he swoop in—now? Ah-h-h, the agony of it! The doomed machine would be falling apart. It shot flaring through the skies like a bird of fire.
Crouched on its furthest wing tip rode the hapless young aviator, head bent away from the searing heat that was creeping out and out to him.
CHAPTER XI
AN AERIAL MESSAGE
Raynor seemed to have drawn as near as he could to the burning plane; he hovered a little above it.
The next instant a coil of rope shot down, fell across the wing below. In a flash the victim of the fire-trap had it in a noose under his arms and swung himself clear of the already crackling wing.
As Raynor gently eased upward to take up any slack in the rope, the flying death below him burst into flame and began to collapse. Some of the struts burned through and pieces flew into the radius of the propeller, which instantly smashed to pieces. Three seconds later the machine began to fall. It staggered, wheeled sideways and dived. Like a stone it hurled groundward on the edge of the aviation field.
The crowd scattered in all directions, fleeing from sparks, charred wing pieces, explosion of fuel tank. A hangar roof caught fire and the chemical guns had to be turned on to put out the blaze.
Raynor was coming down now, with his dangling burden swinging beneath the plane.