For answer the chief turned a withering look upon the last speaker and said:--
"Max, you have faced death a hundred times in the air, and over the British lines. You have thirty enemy machines to your credit, and yet you ask me what can we do?"
"What of it, Rittmeister? Tell us what is in your mind."
"Listen, then, both of you, and I will tell you what still remains for brave men to do. All is not lost while courage and hope remain," and whilst he spoke the German chief drew his two friends away from the half-dismantled aerodrome on the southern edge of the Schwarzwald, to a narrow path that led amongst the trees.
When the aerodrome was hid from view he began to speak once more, huskily at first, as though restraining some pent up excitement.
"I am in possession of a secret," he said, "which I may not tell even to you unless you first swear to follow me on some great adventure."
They both looked at him, not a little amazed and bewildered, and neither spoke for a moment.
"I have chosen you," continued Spitzer, "because I know you to be men of daring and resource. You are both dissatisfied with the condition of things in the Fatherland. Ach Himmel! This occupation of the sacred German soil by the Britisher, the Frenchman and the American is breaking my heart. I will endure it no longer, but I will strike a blow at the enemy before I die."
As he spoke thus, he almost hissed out the words which he uttered, for his voice had now lost its strange huskiness, while his eyes gleamed like the fierce glittering orbs of the tiger about to make its spring from the hidden jungle. Nor was his present madness without its visible effect upon his two companions, for he had strange powers of magnetic influence, this Prussian Junker.
"Donner and Blitz, but you are right, Rittmeister!" exclaimed Carl, the blood mounting to his temples.