"That you, ladies?" Byers turned suddenly, then his eyes sought his glass again. "Why, it is quite evident that the machine is a Fokker and disabled. He'll make it all right, I guess."
"That is a German machine, isn't it?" asked Avella anxiously.
"Mightn't it be a hostile one?" queried Andra.
"The plane is of hostile make, Miss Walsen, but the chap inside is one of us, you may be sure. There! I fear he is going to drop."
Byers, followed by the orderly, was already running down the steps, almost colliding with the Senator who arrived at this moment. After the two aviators hurried the girls, meeting their father, and telling him what was occurring.
"And Captain Byers said that airman was about to drop - or fall out; I don't know which." This from Andra. "Let us hurry after them, father, and see what has happened."
Senator Walsen, evidently used to these sudden whims on the part of his daughters, turned and followed them, still in pursuit of the captain. If he objurgated the haste, he did it silently.
By the time the girls caught up with Byers, what had been a trim airplane came thumping to the ground not more than two hundred yards off in an unused corner of the big enclosure, its wings a mere mass of tattered rags, its body riddled by many perforations of machine gun bullets, fragments of shrapnel and so on. It was a marvel how it had stayed up for so long, but it happened that neither the engine nor petrol tank were vitally harmed.
Still lashed to his seat, his arms hanging loosely, his head resting on the rim of the small manhole, was the pilot, to all appearances lifeless or else in a swoon. It was Stanley, Blaine's observation man.