It was a situation wherein the tragic and the terrible held full sway. No man alive could have stood it without fear and trembling; for, at any instant, one of the bombs might have fallen into their very midst.
And then, while they stood there, motionless, silent, their pulses quickened by the emotions within, they saw something which brought husky exclamations from their lips.
It was the sight of a German plane, spectral and ghostlike, sailing serenely along in a dazzling sea of light. Flying this way and that, it now and then almost disappeared in the obscurity beyond, but, inexorably, it was pulled back into the field of vision by the ever-moving rays. And then a second and a third plane sprang into view, all appearing as pale, ethereal and ghostlike as the other.
And as the pilots kept their eyes fixed upon this wonderful and singular spectacle, which seemed to combine the elements of the supernatural and unreal, they became witnesses to a scene which is given to but few in this world to see.
Suddenly, just beneath the foremost machine, now in the full glare of light, there appeared a tiny flash of fire, a tiny burst of smoke—the circling flight was ended. Almost simultaneously with the explosion of the shrapnel shell the battleplane began to fall, at first slowly, as though the airmen near the clouds were desperately seeking to regain control.
What was going to happen? A few seconds would tell.
They were thrilling seconds, too, to the little shivering knot of spectators by the bureau.
“Ah—ah!”
A long-drawn, shrill exclamation came from Don Hale.
The plane, after wobbling and staggering for the briefest instant, began a spinning dive toward the earth; and before it had gone many hundred feet a portion of one of its wings was seen to become detached. Almost instantly came a little burst of ruddy flame, rapidly increasing in intensity, until, at last, the airplane was blazing from end to end. Like a flaming meteorite, the doomed machine, still bathed in the dazzling white glare, continued its frightful plunge.