The French spy listened to the account of Erard's brave end with reverence.
"Ah!" he said, "we French—even the dregs of us—are patriots. A fine finish for Monsieur Rabbit-mouth. And a greater rascal in the old days before the war never infested the skirts of Montmartre."
"Whatever he was," the aviator said warmly, "we know he passed out a hero. I honor him."
"And I—and I!" murmured the nurse. "Oh, how much! Poor little Erard! There was much to forgive in his life; but the germ of greatness lay always hidden in his dwarfed nature."
"Mademoiselle is a philosopher," Renaud returned, with a kindly glow upon his plain face.
He led them into the center of the wood where there was an open lawn—not the clearing into which Sanderson had tumbled in his duel with the German flying-man, August Gessler. Here the spy had hidden a flash-signal which he recovered, and likewise some food and a bottle of wine.
He advised, too, after they had refreshed themselves, that Belinda try to sleep, and offered the peasant's smock which he had removed to cover her. But the Red Cross nurse was too excited and anxious to close her eyes. She sat leaning against a tree, listening to the talk of the aviator and Renaud as the long hours of the night passed.
At dawn came the returning of a squadron of bomb-dropping machines accompanied by several Nieuports. One of the latter descended swiftly at Renaud's signal. As it volplaned and then was redressed with nicety, Belinda seized Sanderson's arm in newborn excitement.
"Look! The flag!" she cried.
On the wings of the airplane, where before the tri-color of France had been painted, the pilot of the Nieuport—himself in the khaki and buttons of the United States Army—had repainted the wings of his airplane with the Stars and Stripes. The first Yankee airman to carry his country's flag over the German lines!