At intervals the lieutenant turned to reassure himself that the British airman was following, making signs to him to keep close. Proceeding thus they covered about two hundred yards, when suddenly the spy turned and grappled Athol by throwing both arms round the lad's body and pinning his arms to his sides. At the same time Athol saw numbers of German troops emerging from behind the trees.
Like a flash of lightning the lad realised that Fauvart was a spy. With a sudden wrench he freed his right arm, and drew his revolver, and fired at his captor. Only by adroitly ducking his head did Fauvart escape the bullet. As it was his forehead and hair were singed by the blast from the muzzle.
With a muttered curse the spy hurled the lad violently against the trunk of a tree, at the same time ordering some of the soldiers to secure the prisoner. Since Athol's shot had given the alarm, the question of an effective surprise no longer held good. Led by the officer in Belgian uniform the Germans, who had quite prepared for the contingency, rushed through the wood towards the British battleplane.
Bruised and shaken by his fall, Athol found himself roughly pulled upon his feet. With a burly Prussian on either side and a sergeant following, holding a revolver—Athol's own—against the prisoner's head, the lad was forced onwards, further and further away from his comrades.
Then came the sharp reports of a dozen rifle-shots followed by the well-known sound of the battleplane's motors running "all out," and the angry shouts of the foiled Huns.
Soon Athol and his guards were overtaken by the soldiers who had hoped to capture the British aircraft. Knowing the German language tolerably well, the lad overheard their conversation, although the disappointed mien of the Huns would have been sufficient to tell him that their efforts had been foiled.
To the accompaniment of the firing of the anti-aircraft guns Athol was hurried along. Presently the party arrived at another clearing. Here the Huns halted, looking skywards to see if the battleplane was still in sight. Athol followed their example.
What they saw did not help the Huns' good temper, for even as they watched they saw the battleplane loop the loop in the misty twilight, shedding several dark forms as she did so. Two of the bodies of the luckless Germans fell with a sickening crash within fifty yards of their watching comrades, while to Athol's intense satisfaction, notwithstanding the horror of the scene, he saw the Belgian-uniformed spy dashed to the ground almost at the feet of the men he had so treacherously summoned to seize the secret battleplane.
"Himmel!" ejaculated one of the Prussians. "They'll be dropping bombs on us soon. Let us hasten."
Still gripping their prisoner the men hurried off into the depths of the woods, where under the trees it was hardly possible to see one's hand before one's face. Stumbling over exposed roots, cannoning into tree trunks, the Huns continued their way. Athol overheard one of them say that the Zeppelin sheds were not a safe place for them, and that they had better make off in a different direction until the English aircraft had disappeared.