Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/28

 “D—n him!” growled Kipshaven quite audibly, a sentiment which echoed so truly in the hearts of those present that it passed without comment.

“The captain of a merchant steamer who saw it quite plainly reported that the power of the machine was simply amazing—that it flew at about six thousand feet and was lost to sight in an incredibly brief time. In short, my friends, the Yellow Dove is one of the miracles of the day—and its pilot one of its mysteries.”

“But our aviation men—can they do nothing?”

“What? Chase rainbows? Where shall their voyage begin and where end? He’s over the North Sea one minute and in Belgium the next. Our troops in the trenches think he’s a phantom. They say even the bombs he drops are phantoms. They are heard to explode but nobody has ever been hit by them.”

“What will the War Office do?”

Sandys shrugged expressively. “What would you do?”

“Shoot the beggar,” said the Honorable Cyril impassively.

“Shoot the moon, sir,” roared the Earl angrily. “It’s no time for idiotic remarks. If this story is true, a danger hangs over England. No wholesome Briton,” here he glanced again at Hammersley, “ought to go to sleep until this menace is discovered and destroyed.”

“The Yellow Dove is occult,” said Sandys, “like a witch on a broomstick.”

“A ,” returned Lady Joyliffe.

“There seems to be no joke about that,” said the Earl.