I was going through the most horrible nightmare that can be conceived. And yet, I instinctively sensed the possibility of saving Penoch, as he reached the right wing and started crawling along it.
Then Ralph brought the burning ship level; that blew the fire right back on him. I was close, and for that horrible minute I guess I ceased to think of my own safety. I knew that there was one desperate chance to save one of the two, and Penoch, of course, was the one, because Kennedy had willed it so.
Penoch was out of the fire now, at the edge of the right wing. He was hanging from the edge of it by his hands as I flew my ship up into position, my left wing underneath the other’s right one. And Kennedy—I don’t know by what transcendent power he was able to do it, as he burned to death—kept his ship level. Penoch dropped—his only chance for life—and he landed on my left wing. He grabbed the cabane strut, the little metal horn at the edge of the wing to which the control wires for the ailerons are attached, and passed out.
An instant later, Kennedy, a human bonfire, leaped from his burning ship. He fell out—blessed surcease from pain. And the ship, like a flaming coffin, seemed to follow his body down.
Penoch eventually got back into the rear cockpit, of course, and we’re both here to tell the tale.
Sometime I hope that a burning ship will cease to trace a crimson path across my dreams. Probably it won’t.
Anyway, if Ralph is a spook in some spiritual village, teaching the Twelve Apostles how to play poker, I hope he has time to tip his halo in acknowledgment of the salute of Slim Evans to a crook and a hero, a scoundrel and a man.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 1, 1927 issue of Adventure magazine.