Thrilling as all his adventures had been, was fate going to crown them all with one infinitely more thrilling—infinitely more dangerous?
The combat pilot shuddered as he pondered over the situation. Captain Baron Von Richtofen’s dreaded Squadron of Death seemed indeed puny and insignificant when compared with the tremendous forces of nature which he must eventually face.
A short reprieve from the terrible danger remained. He could not yet bring himself to make that great plunge—a plunge where all the elements of chance were dead against him—where he could expect no mercy—where no human power save his own could be availing.
Five minutes passed; then ten. He dared not delay much longer. With a tense and drawn face, Don Hale again peered over the side of the cockpit in an effort to discover some point where the storm had spent its force.
There was none.
“It’s as bad as staking one’s life on the flip of a coin,” he groaned. “Well, here goes!”
The boy firmly pursed his lips, operated the ailerons by means of the control lever, and, next instant, the plane was speeding downward. He could see the golden lights and purple shadows apparently flashing up to meet him; he could feel the plane, in the grip of the stronger currents of air, shivering and trembling.
And then a saying of the French pilots came into his mind: “The plane fell like a dead leaf to the ground.” Was his Nieuport, too, destined to “fall like a dead leaf to the ground”?
That question must soon be answered.
For one brief instant he pulled up the machine. During that interval of time, short as it was, he had a terrifying vision of a quivering, glimmering light which filled the whole surrounding air. The appalling boom and crash of thunder overwhelmed the sound of the motor. He seemed to be sailing just above some frightful inferno resembling nothing he had ever before encountered.