Out of the tails of his eyes Matt saw Ben Ali rising groggily to his feet. He flung up his arms and shouted.
Crack!
From behind came a bullet, ripping through the canvas of the upper plane, but, fortunately, doing no damage to the machinery. Aurung Zeeb was doing the firing.
And this same Aurung Zeeb had failed Ben Ali once in a dangerous pinch. This had caused a rupture of the friendly relations between the two men, but their differences had evidently been patched up. Now Aurung Zeeb was doing his utmost to help Ben Ali—and, perhaps, to land himself in the same trouble in which Dhondaram had been entrapped.
Another bullet was fired, but Aurung Zeeb must have been shooting as he ran, for his aim was poor.
Faster and faster raced the aëroplane, and Matt kept measuring the distance between the machine and the trees on the farther side of the opening. The Hindoo, in the road ahead, was running out of the aëroplane's path like a frightened hare.
By then, Ben Ali had joined in the chase, but the speed of the Comet was too great for the pursuers.
They were close to the edge of the timber, very close, when Matt felt the wings beginning to lift. A dozen feet farther and they were in the air.
In a flash the power was switched from the wheels to the propeller. The aëroplane dropped a little before it yielded to the thrashing blades of the screw; then it picked up the lost headway and arose.