in England. The little road they had taken was a sort
of blind alley. It had brought them to a meadow, whence the hay had already
been cut. At the far side of this ran a little brook, and all about them
were trees. Except for the calls of birds, and the ceaseless hum of
insects, there was no sound to break the stillness. It was a scene of
peaceful beauty that could not be surpassed anywhere in the world. And yet,
only a few miles away, at the most, were men who were planning deliberately
to bring death and destruction upon helpless enemies--to rain down death
from the skies.

By very contrast to the idyllic peace of all about them, the terrors of war
seemed more dreadful. That men who went to war should be killed and
wounded, bad though it was, still seemed legitimate. But this driving home
of an attack upon a city all unprepared, upon the many non-combatants who
would be bound to suffer, was another and more dreadful thing. Harry could
understand that it was war, that it was permissible to do what these
Germans planned. And yet--

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden change in the quality of the
noisy silence that the insects made. Just before he noticed it, half a
dozen bees had been humming near him. Now he heard something that sounded
like the humming of a far vaster bee. Suddenly it stopped, and, as it did,
he looked up, his eyes as well as Dick's being drawn upward at the same
moment. And they saw, high above them, an aeroplane with dun colored wings.
Its engine had stopped and it was descending now in a beautiful series of
volplaning curves.

"Out of essence--he's got to come down," said Harry, appraisingly, to Dick.
"He'll manage it all right, too. He knows his business through and through,
that chap."

"I wonder where he'll land," speculated Dick.

"He's got to pick an open space, of course," said Harry. "And there aren't
so many of them around here. By Jove!"

"Look! He's certainly coming down fast!" exclaimed Dick.

"Yes--and, I say, I think he's heading for this meadow! Come on--start that
motor, Dick!"

"Why? Don't you want him to see us?"

"I don't mind him seeing us--I don't want him to see the car," explained
Harry. "We'll run it around that bend, out of sight from the meadow."

"Why shouldn't he see it?"

"Because if he's out of petrol he'll want to take all we've got and we may
not want him to have it. We don't know who he is, yet."

The car was moving as Harry explained. As soon as