Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/245

 at my altimeter showed that I was up eleven thousand feet, therefore I pushed straight along in the direction of that red glare.

That it was an incendiary one I saw, because the flare continued far down in the misty workaday world below.

The Zeppelin was executing its evil work upon the harmless civilian inhabitants.

I craned and peered around on all sides, but could see nothing else—only the glare from the incendiary fire.

The night was rapidly growing brighter, and we could see the stars. Again we heard a violent cannonade, and once more half a dozen beams of searchlights swept the sky from several points evidently much nearer to London. More than once the searchlights picked us up and examined us with suspicion, blinding us with their glare the while.

Once more from below there came up two loud detonations high explosive bombs—yet we could see no Zeppelin, though we peered into the darkness again as soon as the searchlight left us.

Blinded by the glare, I had banked a little too steeply, and nearly had another bad nose-dive. Teddy noticed it, and said something, but what it was I could not hear for the roar. That an enemy airship was about, and that it had dropped incendiary bombs was proved by the three or four red glares we could distinctly see beneath us.

No doubt the Zeppelin was moving fast, dropping her bombs preparatory to rising and escaping beyond the zone of our anti-aircraft guns. I