Thirty seconds had not passed before an airplane such as he had never seen came shooting out of a large cloud to go darting across his path.
“Lost its propeller,” was his first thought. “It will crash into the sea.”
When suddenly the plane banked sharply, began to climb, and then came darting at him like a hornet, his astonishment knew no bounds.
He was a good pilot. There were few better, and he had a cool head. Giving his ship all the gas it would take, he shot down in a vertical dive.
With plenty of altitude between his plane and the water, he was safe for a second but what would happen after? A glimpse of the plane as it shot across the sky above him told that it carried no markings. “Nobody’s plane,” he thought. “A flying Dutchman of the sky.”
Hardly had he thought this than he realized that, circling like a darting humming bird, the ship was preparing to come at him again.
This time he resolved that in a way he should hold his ground. Dropping a few hundred yards he banked hard in an attempt to come up beneath the plane for a try at a burst of fire. But when he reached the spot the ship was some distance away.
“Such speed!” he muttered. “Wonder if she’s armed?”
Vain question. A burst of slugs swept across the sky. Holes appeared in his right wing.
“Declaration of war!” he shouted. “Well, then, I accept the challenge.” He began an all but vertical climb to get above them in the hope of dropping on their tail.