For ten desperate seconds he skimmed over the sea. Then he hit it—bump—bump—bump. He taxied along at last. Having shut off his motor before his plane was at a standstill, he pushed back his hood and plunged into the sea.
He was not an instant too soon, for again came the rattle of the machine-gun fire. The enemy was shooting up his plane on the sea, trying to kill him while he was down. Ted, for the moment, was safe enough. He had gone beneath the surface.
When he came up blowing, he saw the screamer circle for another try. Then an amazing thing happened. Some heavy object came hurtling down from the enemy plane.
“What is it?” he asked himself. Then, “Good grief! It’s a man!”
The body hit the water with killing force, if indeed the man was not already dead. It sank from sight.
“The dirty dogs!” Ted exclaimed, when his head had ceased whirling. “They tried to kill me after I’d made a crash landing! Looks like one of them got paid off, though.”
CHAPTER XXI
MARY BROWN FROM THE U. S. A.
Jack and Stew had heard Ted’s battle with the jet plane without seeing it. They had become tremendously excited but were unable to do anything about it.
Before Ted’s adventure began, Jack was just sitting up, rubbing his eyes sleepily after only three hours of rest. He said:
“Life on this island has become impossible. There are five of those beasts against us. They have machine guns and plenty of ammunition. We have automatics with just the slugs that were in their chambers when we arrived.”