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himself with a splendid display of self-control and sheer courage, Captain Vauquelin concentrated upon the management of the biplane.

The drone of its motor thickened again, its speed became greater, and the machine began to rise still higher, tracing a long, graceful curve.

Lanyard glanced apprehensively toward the girl, but apparently she remained unconscious of anything out of the ordinary. Her face was still turned forward, and still the wind-veil trembled against her glowing cheeks.

Thanks to the racket of the motor, no audible reports had accompanied the sharp-shooting of the man in the monoplane; while Lanyard's cry of horror and dismay had been audible to himself exclusively. Hearing nothing, Lucy suspected nothing.

Again Lanyard looked back.

Now the Valkyr seemed to have crept up to within the quarter of a mile of the biplane, and was boring on at a tremendous pace, its single spread of wings on an approximate level with that of the lower plane of the Parrott.

But this last was rising steadily. …

The driver's seat of the Valkyr held a muffled, burly figure that might be anybody—De Morbihan, Ekstrom,