Allowing for the slight breeze, Hans Leutter telephoned for the Zeppelin to steer ten degrees to the nor'ard. Slowly Z64 carried out the instructions, and seesawing gently the observation basket moved in a slightly different direction from its previous line of drift until the crucial moment arrived.
Hans Leutter released the bomb. For three seconds the observer could follow its downward passage; then it vanished into the darkness. Five seconds later the missile hit its objective.
There was no need for a second bomb. The airship shed was blazing fiercely.
The Hun in the basket spoke into the telephone.
"Direct hit," he reported. "Haul me up."
Z64 had once more stopped her motors and was rising rapidly above the bank of clouds. At the same time a motor winch was winding in the cable, and Hans Leutter's rate of progress as the basket whirred through the air brought back all his fears concerning his hazardous position. What if there were a flaw in the wire? It was ex-Government stuff, he recalled--material that might have been left lying in a neglected condition for months before von Sinzig acquired it for its present purpose. And supposing the wire slipped off the drum and got nipped in the cogs of the winch? A score of thoughts of a similar nature flashed across the observer's mind. He broke into a gentle perspiration. He trembled violently as a mental vision of himself hurtling through space gripped him in all its hideousness.
But the wire held. Hans Leutter was assisted into the nacelle, where he promptly fainted. By that time Z64 was several miles away from Fremantle, but a dull red glare on the horizon unmistakably indicated the extent of the conflagration.
Throughout the night Z64 flew at an altitude of not less than fifteen thousand feet. Dawn found her far to the south'ard of the Great Australian Bight.
Von Sinzig had good cause for keeping out of the beaten steamer tracks; nor did he intend to pass within a hundred miles of the southern part of Tasmania. He counted upon arriving at Napier, New Zealand, at daybreak on the day following, and until then he meant to be most careful not to be reported by any vessel.
The commander of Z64 had just sat down to breakfast when one of the crew entered his cabin.