Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/65

 'Probably,' I replied, as I stood beside her Duperdussin watching her man adjusting one of the stays which he seemed to think was not quite tight enough. Then, a few moments later, she shot from me with a fierce blast of the exhaust, and in a few seconds had left the ground, rapidly rising in the air.

I watched her for some minutes as she skimmed over the tree-tops and rose higher and higher, then satisfying myself that her engine was running well, I turned and crossed to the shed wherein stood my own bus, with the ever-patient Theed awaiting me.

The Breguet was brought out, and with a few idlers standing about me, as they always do at Hendon, I climbed into the pilot's seat and began to test my big engine. It roared and spluttered at first, but gradually, with Theed's aid—and he was a splendid mechanic by the way—I got it to run with perfect evenness and precision.

Why, I don't know, but my bus usually attracted some onlookers. About the aerodrome we always have a number of idle persons with a sprinkling of the eternal feminine silk-stockinged hangers-on to the pilots and pupils who, not being able to fly, do the next best thing, become friends of flying-men. In that little knot of people gathered about my machine—probably on account of the Zeppelin sensation—I noted, in particular, one podgy fat-faced little man.

As I strapped myself into the pilot's seat, after examining my altimeter, compass, etc., and adjusting my self-registering thermometer, I chanced to glance at the people around, and had noticed the man in question. His strange-looking bead-like eyes fascinated me. Upon his round white face was a