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 and pontoons put on. One by one, separately always to avoid show of many machines, the seaplanes rose, were tested and returned.

Single-seaters and two-seaters with machine guns, they were. The great weight-carriers for the ton bombs were not hangared here. This place specialized in the combat and pursuit types—and radio controlled machines run by automatons.

These were the escorts and protectors of the bombing biplanes being mustered elsewhere—just over the hills, perhaps, upon another lake or on waters a hundred miles away. Or perhaps they were being prepared singly, not to be gathered and squadroned until tomorrow's dawn when they would be drawn, by radio commands, to the determined positions in the path of the Wotan, on her maiden voyage, with her great passenger list, her cargo of paintings, diamonds, emeralds, platinum and gold.

How simply the airplanes could strike, with no warning given!

I thought, now, not of mere robbery and the seizure of the ship under the threat of