Meanwhile, as it approached, the door of Chandler’s Farm was opened by the tall, lame man, who stood outside until the machine, by its noise, was almost over them. Then to the amazement of the watchers, four points of light suddenly appeared at the corners of the grass-field on their left.
“By Jove! Why, he’s coming down!” cried Ronnie astounded. “There was petrol placed at each corner yonder, and it’s simultaneously been ignited by means of the electric wire to show him his landing-place! It’s an enemy machine got up to look like one of ours! This is a discovery!”
“So it is!” gasped Beryl, standing at her lover’s side, listening to the aeroplane, unseen in the darkness, as it hovered around the farm and slowly descended.
The man at the farm had brought out a blue lamp and was showing it upward.
“Look!” exclaimed Pryor. “He’s telling him the direction of the wind—a pretty cute arrangement, and no mistake!”
Lower and lower came the mysterious aeroplane until it skimmed the tops of the trees in the wood in which they stood, then, making a tour of the field, it at last came lightly to earth within the square marked by the little cups of burning petrol.
The pilot stopped his engine, the four lights burnt dim and went out one after the other, and the lame man, hurrying down, gave a low whistle which was immediately answered.
Then, on their way back to the farm, the pair passed close to where the watchers were hidden, and in the silence the latter could distinctly hear them speaking—eagerly and excitedly in German!
Beryl and Ronnie watched there until dawn, when they saw the two men wheel the monoplane, disguised as British with rings upon it, into the long shed at the bottom of the meadow, the door of which the lame man afterwards securely locked.
An hour later Pryor was speaking on the telephone with Cranch in London, telling him what they had discovered. Soon after midday Beryl and Ronnie were back at Harbury, where in the library window they stood in consultation.