morning sunrise was a village with a very tall and slender

campanile and a line of cable bearing metal standards that he

could not clear. He stopped his engine abruptly and dropped flat.

He may have hoped to get at the bombs when he came down, but his

pitiless pursuers drove right over him and shot him as he fell.

Three other aeroplanes curved down and came torest amidst grass

close by the smashed machine. Their passengers descended, and

ran, holding their light rifles in their hands towards the debris

and the two dead men. The coffin-shaped box that had occupied

the centre of the machine had broken, and three blackobjects,

each with two handles like the ears of a pitcher, lay peacefully

amidst the litter.

Theseobjects were so tremendously important in the eyes of their

captors that they disregarded the two dead men who lay bloody and

broken amidst the wreckage as they might have disregarded dead

frogs by a country pathway.

'By God,' cried the first. 'Here they are!'

'And unbroken!' said the second.

'I've neverseen the things before,' said the first.

'Bigger than Ithought,' said the second.

The third comer arrived. He stared for a moment at the bombs and

then turned his eyes to the dead man with a crushed chest who lay

in a muddy place among the green stems under the centre of the

machine.

'One can take no risks,' he said, with a faint suggestion of

apology.

The other two now also turned to the victims. 'We must signal,'

said the first man. A shadow passed between them and the sun,

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