flyer ever saw his enemy going down in a flaming coffin without feeling compassion gripping him; that one moment had changed his heart from bitter hatred to a sense of pity; knowing as he must have done that the day might be near at hand when he too would share in a similar dreadful fate.
And so Perk found himself all in a nervous tremble as, laying down his gun, he managed once more to adjust the head harness, so as to be able to again hold communication with his fellow adventurer.
CHAPTER VI
PARACHUTE JUMPERS
Just then Jack hurriedly banked, and swung around as though to double back on their late course. This of course told Perk the pilot must be already aware of the terrible tragedy that was being enacted close at hand, and meant to see its finish with his own eyes.
With the abrupt change in their course he was in time to catch a glimpse of the flaming object still spiraling earthwards, a billow of fire that glowed suggestively in the darkness.
Then far below it seemed to strike the ground – they heard no sound whatever, but the fire became stationary; although increasing in fury, since the wind created by its passage no longer whipped the devouring flames. Evidently by the time the conflagration stopped for want of further material on which to feed, nothing inflammable would be left of the once haughty little Ryan masterpiece save the engine, and other metal parts.
“What’s the big idea, old hoss?”
Perk asked this as a leader, wishing to get a better grip on his own nerves, since they had been dreadfully shocked at the dire result of his random shot.
“Going to circle around a few times, and drop down a bit,” came the illuminating reply; “though I reckon it’s no use, since nothing could live in all that awful blast.”
“Mebbe not, Jack,” remarked Perk, a bit cheerily; “but there’s a fair chance neither o’ them guys got snagged in the flash o’ that gas.”
“See here, Perk, have you some foundation for saying that?” demanded the other, eagerly.
“Sure – they jumped all right, boss,” Perk told him.
“You saw them do it then, did you, boy?” continued Jack.
“They bailed out okay – I saw two take the jump right after the first flash came – went down like plummets in the bargain – smart lads those guys are, I’m tellin’ you, partner.”
No doubt Jack was glad to hear this bit of news, for it had filled him with horror to realize that in order to escape they had been compelled to ruthlessly take human life. He was much younger than Perk, veteran of the World War, who had grown more or less hardened to such happenings when staking his own life against that of a tricky German air pilot.
“Still goin’ down, are you?” asked Perk shortly afterwards, on finding that they were still swinging around in a wide circle, that burning pyre far below being the hub of the wheel of which their boat was the outer tire.
“Might as well,” came the ready answer, showing that Jack had made up his mind hurriedly.
“Guess now they’ll get down somehow, boss; a whole lot depends on what kind o’ landin’ they’ll be able to make – if its rocks, or trees, they got to strike it’s apt to be some hard sleddin’ for the boys. Say, ’taint possible now you’re fixin’ to try an’ lend ’em a helpin’ hand? I’d hate to know they’d been wiped off the map in that hot fire; but somehow I don’t feel like playin’ the part o’ the Good Samaritan to such man devils as them two.”
“No danger of my trying to make a landing where the chances are ten to one it just can’t be done,” explained Jack, seeing that his companion was almost ready to mutiny if any such mad proceeding were contemplated. “I’d just feel better if I knew they’d reached ground okay; then we could keep on our way, and it’d be up to them to get out of the scrape.”
“Huh! I get you, partner,” grunted the relieved Perk. “Don’t think I’m bitter about the thing, ’cause they’re sure hot stuff all right; but I’m a bit slow to accept that forgive and forget stuff, specially after any guy’s tried his level best to gimme a dirty deal.”
“We’ll try the thing out while on the job,” Jack announced. “Our own wonderful escape from meeting just that same kind of fate makes me kind of soft. Perhaps we’ll not be able to learn a single thing; you know how it often is when you’ve finally struck ground after quitting the ship by the chute route – all out of breath – sometimes knocked up a bit, if you escape broken bones – not any shape to shout, or do anything but just lie there, and suck in the air in big gasps.”
“Yeah, that’s right for you, old hoss,” Perk readily agreed. “Me, I once got a collar bone smashed that way. No harm in our makin’ a few swings around these diggin’s ’fore we put out for Orleans. That fire keeps burnin’ like things they got sprinkled right well with the juice when the tank blew up. Go to it, Jack, just as you please, never mindin’ a few squeals from a hard-boiled guy like Perk Perkiser.”
“I’m going to shut down on the engine, and take a little glide, so we can pick up anything like a yell,” announced the pilot a minute later.
“Go to it – duck then, boy!” snapped Perk, as he temporarily relieved himself of his ear-phones in order to catch anything bordering on a shout from the ground below.
The simple expedient was carried out successfully, and when once again they leveled out, to continue circling, Jack asked eagerly:
“Get anything, Perk?”
“Not a bleat, partner,” replied the other, who had hurriedly held his earphones in position so as to cover the emergency.
“Sorry for that, but we’ll try a couple more times before calling it all off,” suggested Jack, who could be more or less persistent when the occasion arose for such action, though never carrying it so far as to be reckless.
So a dozen seconds or so afterwards he again gave warning that it was time for another drop of a few hundred feet – not that they meant to take any chances by getting too close to the unknown terrain lying in the pitch blackness under the flying ship; but simply to be able to listen with the horrid clamor of the bustling engine momentarily stilled.
No better success followed this second maneuvre – all was deathly silent around, above, below, as though never a solitary living human being existed within miles of the spot where the destruction of the Ryan monoplane had taken place.
“We’ll give a third and last try,” was Jack’s announced decision, to which Perk added:
“Three times, and batter’s out – by then I rather guess we’ll be down close enough to the solid ground to make another drop dangerous. Either way I’m satisfied we’ve done the right thing, old hoss. Suit yourself when you see fit to coast,” whereupon he once more denuded his ears of the exceedingly useful and really indispensable phone harness, to await the occasion of the last try in the line of an aviator’s duty.
“How about it, Perk? – get a whisper?”
They had completed the glide, and were once more on a level course, with Jack even turning the nose of the ship a bit heavenward; since neither of them knew what the nature of the ground below must be – whether some hill lay directly ahead, against which they might smash for a complete wipeout.
“Huh!
