ther war, though--ah, see there, now! Here
comes one lone, last attacker!"

He pointed. Far at the edge of empty cloudland, now less blood-stained
and becoming a ruddy pink under the risen sun, a solitary aerial
jouster had grown visible.

The last attacker appeared a feeble gnat to dance thus alone in the
eye of morning. That one plane should, unaided, drive on at _Nissr's_
huge, rushing bulk, seemed as preposterous as a mosquito trying
to lance a rhinoceros. The major directed a careful lens at this
survivor.

"He has his nerve right in his baggage with him," announced the Celt.
"Sure, he's 'there.' There can be no doubt he's seen the others fall.
Yet--what now? He's turning tail, eh? He's on the run?"

"Not a bit of it! He's driving straight ahead. That was only a dip and
turn, for better air. Ah, but he's good, that fellow! There's a man
after my own heart, Major. Maybe there's more than one, aboard that
plane. But there's one, anyhow, that's a real man!"

The Master pondered a moment, then again picked up the phone.

"Enemark?" he called. "That you?"

"Hello! Yes, sir! What orders, sir?"

"Cut off the ray! Quick, there!"

"Yes, sir!" And through the phone the Master heard the _snick_ of a
switch being hastily thrown.

"What's the idea, now?" demanded the major, astonished. "Going to let
that plane close in on us, and maybe riddle us?"

The Master smiled, as he made answer:

"I'll chance the bullets, this time. There's a _man_ on board that
plane. A _man_! And we--need men!"

The Master smiled, as he made answer:

"I'll chance the bullets, this time. There's a man on board that
plane. A man! And we--need men!"

CHAPTER XVI

LECLAIR, ACE OF FRANCE

Swooping, rising, falling like a falcon in swift search of quarry, the
last plane of the Azores squadron swept in toward the on-rushing Eagle
of the Sky.

Undismayed by the swift, inexplicable fall of all its companions, it
still thrust on for the attack. In a few minutes it had come off the
port bows of the giant air-liner, no more than half a mile distant.
Now the watchers saw it, slipping through some tenuous higher
cloud-banks that had begun to gather, a lean, swift, wasplike
speedster: one of the Air Control Board's--the A.C.B.'s--most rapid
aerial police planes. The binoculars of the Master and Bohannan drew
the machine almost to fingers' touch.

"Only one man aboard her, with a machine-gun," commented the Master,
eyes at glass, as