ng, Mars flew over the sad city letting fall leaflets with the
inspiring message, "Prenez courage, tout va bien." Over Brussels also he
maneuvered, dropping his leaflets, and while angry German soldiers took
aim at him and his monoplane he "looped the loop" far above their noses.
His cool remark after this exploit was said to have been: "These Germans
do shoot badly!" He had more than one duel in the air with hostile war
planes, having vowed with the Belgian airmen to ram all enemy aircraft
whenever possible. There was a fearsome account to read, one morning, of
his bringing down an aeroplane which had dropped bombs on the heads of
French troops, helping out the wounded aviator and military observer,
and then setting fire to their machine. In this adventure the _Golden
Eagle_ was injured, and another monoplane was lent the airman while his
own was being put to rights. The "Elusive Mars," newspapers began to
name him, because in the face of almost certain destruction he
invariably escaped in the nick of time and within an inch of his life.
At last, however, one October day of good news for the Allies, there was
bad news for me. They had put it in big headlines on the most important
page:

"Mars, the Belgian Airman, Caught at Last. While Reconnoitring His
Machine is Disabled, and Falls in Enemy's Lines. He is Believed to
be Wounded, and is Certainly a Prisoner."

I had no heart to rejoice in the tidings which made the rest of my world
happy that day. And for many days afterward--days each one of which
seemed a lifetime of suspense--there was no other news of Eagle March. I
felt as if the future were a very long, dim corridor, in whose chill
twilight I groped, my eyes straining toward the distance.

So a month dragged itself away, and then came news at last.

CHAPTER XXI

"Escape of the gallant Mars," were the words that seized my eyes as I
opened the front door of "The Haven" to snatch the morning papers. Rain
was pouring down, but I halted in the porch to read, oblivious of the
rivulet that streamed over my hair. "Mars, the elusive" had been true to
his name once more. It was an almost miraculous story, or would have
seemed so in less stirring times than these, which are teaching us that
brave men can do anything they set their minds to do. Mars, with a few
English prisoners, and some Russians from General Rennenkampf's force
captured in East Prussia, had been sent to work in the fields outside