"I've had a thundering good run for my money. Now try and get even with me, you blighters—if you can!"
[Illustration: THE BIPLANE HAD GOT INTO A SPINNING NOSE-DIVE]
It was a brief and passing pageant of British character: indomitable even in disaster. Then, surrounded by the fixed bayonets of his guards, the prisoner passed out of Seton's sight.
"The best thing I've seen since I've been in this rotten hole," soliloquized Alec. He spoke aloud. It was a habit he had deliberately acquired during his incarceration, in order that he could hear English spoken. "Jolly lad, the airman fellow; wasn't done in after all!"
Shortly afterwards the soldier told off to give Seton his meals came in with the Sub's meagre breakfast. As the Hun left, either by accident or design, a folded newspaper slipped from underneath his field-grey tunic.
Directly the door was closed and locked, Alec pounced upon the paper like a hungry dog at a bone. Half-expecting to find a journal printed in German, which would be practically useless to him, Seton was delighted to discover a soiled and crumpled edition of a Belgian newspaper, partly in French and partly in Flemish.
Flemish he knew nothing of, but he was a tolerable French scholar. As he read, his face grew long. Every scrap of news was nothing more nor less than a record of German triumphs. Paris was on the brink of capitulation; the British were thrown back upon a narrow strip of Picardy, bordering on the English Channel; the Ypres salient was flattened out; while the small American army had suffered a heavy reverse, and its surrender was but a matter of a few hours. The naval news recorded a succession of U-boat triumphs, the bombardment of several British seaports, and lastly, the failure of a determined attempt to blockade Zeebrugge.
"We know with absolute certainty," he read, "that a few nights ago strong English forces left Dover with the object of making an attack upon Zeebrugge. Large bodies of troops were embarked for the purpose. The fleet was met a few miles off Dover by a flotilla of U-boats, with the result that the English were compelled to retreat in disorder, with the loss of several of their large cruisers."