He had seen and heard a second motor-car, dashing along the nearer Alderwick road, followed by a couple of motor-bicycles. Presently there was an upward spurt of fire from the car and the crackle of a machine-gun.
"They're firing up at the Zeppelin!" cried Vera. "Oh, I hope they'll hit it!"
A thin streak of brilliant light flashed downward from the airship. Something seemed to fall with a thud, a dull explosion, and immediately there was a blaze of fire in the midst of the withered gorse and brambles about a mile in front of the armoured motor-car.
"They've dropped an incendiary bomb," Mark explained, "but nowhere near the road. The car can get past."
The firing from the anti-aircraft gun continued; but soon the Zeppelin steered round and went westward over the land, and the armoured car dropped out of range. More bombs were launched; but they fell harmlessly in ploughed fields where there were no houses. The pilot car by this time had disappeared.
The military car was returning, led by the motor cyclists. Just as the latter emerged from the woodland on the near side of Alderwick village, the Zeppelin again turned towards the sea and sailed outward immediately above the machine-gun, which again opened fire with a prolonged stream of bullets.
"I believe our men have hit it!" Mark declared. "Look at that long jet of smoke! And the whole thing is wobbling like a winged pheasant."
Whether the airship was struck or not, neither Mark nor the men in the armoured car could tell with certainty. They watched the ponderous vessel flying out to sea until it faded from sight, mingling with the blackness of a heavy cloud in the far east. Going downstairs again, Mark telephoned to the naval base and got into communication with Mr. Bilverstone, from whom he learnt that the worst material damage done by the bombs was at a timberyard near the harbour. Some big stacks of timber had been set on fire, and a company of Territorials were helping the seamen of H.M.S. Kingfisher in the work of subduing the flames.
So far as Mr. Bilverstone had yet heard, no one had been seriously injured. Two horses had been killed at the railway goods station, and a great many window-panes had been smashed.
News had been received, however, that there had been a second Zeppelin. The pair of them had come across the North Sea in company until land had been sighted, when they had separated, one coming to Haddisport, the other making a much wider circuit, dropping both explosive and incendiary bombs on three coast towns in succession.