"Hist!" exclaimed Hans, raising his forefinger, and looking guardedly around. "It is the phantom-bird!"
"The phantom-bird?" echoed the two airmen, who could scarcely believe their eyes and ears, as they earnestly regarded this solemn, frightened, half-childish man, who had evidently seen the very thing they had come so far to find, but who believed it to be something supernatural.
The two Englishmen glanced at each other. Had they really found someone who could enlighten them about this mysterious aeroplane, for he could certainly be referring to nothing else? And at that moment Keane blessed his lucky star, which had led him to choose these wild forest regions for their jumping-off ground. Still, they must not appear too curious, lest they should betray the reason of their presence here.
Keane shook his head as, with an apparently incredulous laugh, and a sympathetic motion of the hand, he would banish all tales of ghostly visitants to the realm of limbo. This only had the effect of egging on the speaker to tell his tale, however.
"Ach, Himmel!" he exclaimed. "Es war geistlich!"
"Did you see it, then?"
"Ya, das hab ich!" returned the other.
"Was it in the day or the night-time when you saw it?" asked Sharpe.
"It was night, about this time, and there was but a half-moon above the tree tops."
"Were you very much frightened, Hans?"