“Ah! That contingency I’ve already provided for, darling,” I assured her. “Have you not seen that my new petrol-tank is a wooden barrel held by wooden bands, so that there is no metal over which to spark?”
“I know. But electricity is such a mysterious force, one never knows what it will do, or how it will take effect.”
“You are going a little wide of the mark, Roseye,” I laughed. “We know pretty well the limitations of electricity—or rather we three know as much—and perhaps a little more, than the enemy does. My discovery is quite simple, after all. I have found out the means by which to create and to direct a flash of intense electrical current, a kind of false lightning. And that current, sparking over the interstices between the aluminium lattice-work and envelope of a Zeppelin, must certainly ignite the inflammable gas with which the ballonets are filled and which is so constantly escaping.”
“Yes, I know,” was her answer, as she allowed me to place my arm tenderly about her slim waist.
Then she seemed unduly thoughtful and apprehensive.
“Well?” I asked. “Why are you worrying, darling? I am striving to do my very best for my country. I am going to fight—or attempt to fight—just as valiantly as though I were dressed in khaki, and wore the winged badge of the pilot of the Royal Flying Corps. Indeed, my chance is better. I have no Flight-Commander to look to for orders. I am simply a handy man of the air who has, I trust, thought out a feasible plan.”
“Your plan is most excellent, Claude,” she admitted. “But what I fear is the great personal risk and peril to yourself.”
“There’s none,” I laughed. “You, my dear, have no fear when you are flying—even at high altitudes. Neither have I. Both of us are used to being up, and our machines are part of ourselves. I never think of danger; neither do you, Roseye. So don’t let us discuss it further,” I urged.
Then, in order to turn our conversation into a different channel, while I still held her hand as she sat upon that old black horsehair couch with me at her side, I said:
“I’ve just been reading what is termed a hot-aircraft poem in the Aeroplane. I wonder if I recollect the concluding lines. They run something like this:—”