Behind that central searchlight, Henri had said, lay the entrance to the powder magazine. That passageway was the vital spot of the fortress. An explosion there would ignite the ammunition and shatter the entire centre of the fortifications.
A searchlight came wheeling across the sky and shot past just behind the monoplane. The flash of the guns on the hill were now just beneath him, and their roar formed a surging background of sound to the whirr of the machine. He swept in a huge curve toward a position back of the fortress. The searchlight was circling the sky again. For a fraction of a second the aeroplane was silhouetted in its full glare. The beam wavered and returned zigzagging to pick him up again. This time it caught and followed him. A shell burst below him. If one fragment of shrapnel should strike the nitroglycerine which he carried France would profit little from this last ride of his.
The fortress was not far behind him. He swept about and pointed the nose of the monoplane downward straight toward the base of the central searchlight. Its beam had ceased to play on the battleship and was lifting swiftly toward him. Suddenly its glare caught him straight in the eyes. He gripped the controls and steered tensely for that dazzling target.
“The French Government declines to accept your services.” He smiled grimly. They could not well decline them now. The air rushed past him so swiftly that it seemed stiff like a stream of water under high pressure. Below him at that point of light death stood smiling. The crash of a shell bursting behind him was lost in the gale of wind in his ears. The light grew swiftly larger and the outlines of the battlements became distinct. “The French Government——” the world ended in a crash of blistering whiteness.
“He was pointed directly at the magazine,” said Abdul, the gunner. “If the shell from the French cruiser had not struck him we should all by now have been with Allah.”
LOYALTY
By Clarence Herbert New
They had been playing “cut-in” Bridge until the Charltons went home, at midnight. Instead of following them Norris returned to the library with Steuler and his wife. In the old days Barclay Norris had asked Barbara to marry him; but Steuler’s impetuous love-making appealed to her imagination, and Norris had remained their loyal friend. In the library, Steuler yawned—without apology. Extracting a suit-case from the coat-closet, he started for the stairs.
“You and Barbara may sit up all night, my friend; but me—I haf been travelling, I cannot keep my eyes open! Good-night!”
Norris stopped him with a slight motion of the head, nodded to a chair by the table, lighted a cigar rather deliberately, and sat down.