CHAPTER XXXVI.
A MYSTERIOUS CAPTURE
But the disaster de Garros had feared more than admitted did not happen. Between two patches of wood lay an open field, readily distinguished even in the dark by its lighter color. In the stubble of a mown crop the aeroplane alighted, not without a considerable jolt to its occupants.
Their main anxiety now was the great Zeppelin they could hear, but not see, above them. Jack trusted they were equally invisible and that the searchlight would not reveal them, for high explosive bombs in a deadly rain from above would certainly follow.
De Garros, while wringing his wounded hand with pain, was helped out of the machine by Jack.
“Malediction, and I not get zee chance to fire on zat chien of a Zeppelin,” lamented the Frenchman. “Some day I pay zem back.”
“Is your hand badly hurt?” asked Jack anxiously.
“I do not know and we dare not yet use zee electric torch I ’ave on zee machine.”
“Why not?”
“It would show zee Zeppelin where we ’ide.”
“Then you don’t think they guess that we have descended?”