“Have patience, Comrade,” the man answered, sullenly. “I must circle now, to come again into the wind. I have no wish to break my neck.”
Valeria Petrovna had seen Simon slip off. In a second she was beside him, helping him to his feet. “Run, Simon — run,” she urged. “Your frien’ will come back and it will be less far for ’im to come.”
“Say, there he is!” cried Rex, suddenly, pointing from the other ’plane. “Good old Simon — run, boysie — run!” Almost at the same moment Richard and the Duke saw him too, a small dark figure running hard in their direction — a field away already from the meadow, with Valeria Petrovna urging him on some hundred yards behind.
“What bravery!” exclaimed the Duke. “He must have dropped off purposely when it seemed that we should crash into the barn.”
Richard wheeled again, and headed for the frontier, his mouth set tight. It was useless now to try and land again to pick Simon up. He must unload the others first.
A rifle cracked below them, then another. It was the frontier guards. They had realized that something must be amiss; they fired again, the flash of their rifles could be seen distinctly, but the bullets went wide.
Richard did not attempt to reach the field where he had left Marie Lou, he came down in the first he could find on the Rumanian side — that was a decent distance from the frontier guards. His landing was sheltered from their view by a small wood.
“Out you get,” he said, sharply. “Marie Lou’s in a field about half a mile away over there.” He pointed as he spoke. “I’ll join you, if I can.”
“Okay,” Rex sang out, “all the luck,” but Richard was already mounting into the air again.
The big troop-carrier bumped and bounded over the uneven ground of the meadow. The pilot brought it to rest with a jerk, only thirty feet from the barn that had so nearly proved the end of Richard. Leshkin sprang out — a sharp order and his men followed.