"And that reason is?"
"To find out about the Scorpion," snarled the mathematician.
"Ach!" exclaimed the other; "the Scorpion is two thousand miles away."
"Then their next business is to find the aerodrome," said the professor.
"Blitz! that they'll never do except by accident. Think of those live wires waiting for them if they get within a hundred yards of it. We have found six dead men there already; I don't want to dig any more graves," returned Strauss.
They had continued the search for fully ten minutes, and the professor, occasionally flashing his pocket torch, was carefully examining the long grass within a radius of some twelve of fifteen feet of the spot where the fire had been. Wise man that he was, he carried out his final investigation to the leeward of the fire, trusting that the breeze might have carried some paper fragment, used in lighting a pipe or starting the fire, in that direction. Nor was he disappointed. He was just about to conclude his search, however, when his sharp eyes caught sight of a piece of half burnt and twisted paper hidden away amongst the longer grass.
"Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed under his breath, as he flashed his torch upon the paper for a second. "I thought so; here is evidence enough for an execution."
"What is it, mein herr?" asked the mechanic, hastening to his side.
"Do you see that?" said his companion, untwisting the paper once again and flashing a light upon it.
"Ja! ja!" replied the other as he strained his eyes in the attempt to decipher the handwriting on the half-burnt sheet. "But I cannot understand it, for it is in a foreign language."