The course of the Ocean Flyer was altered slightly so as to avoid passing over England and risking pot-shots from a people who were already in a semi-hysteria over the threatened invasion by German Zeppelins. The next land they saw was the coast of northern France. They followed the Norman coast for a short distance and then once more headed inland.

The flying speed had been reduced to thirty miles per hour, when the airship first sank to a three thousand foot level, and, traveling thus slowly, the boys had a pretty good chance to observe the country beneath them through their powerful binoculars.

Normandy, the district where the Airship Boys first began flying over France, had not yet been touched by hostile invasion, and, save for the absence of the usual fleets of fishing smacks along the coast, was to all appearances the same quaint, sleepy region as ever. Farther inland, however, the ravages the war had made were more plainly visible. Few trains could be seen, and in many cases railway bridges or the tracks themselves had been torn up. Fields lay, for the most part, untilled; smoke no longer belched from the long, finger-like chimneys of busy factories. Nantes, Angiers, Le Mans and Chartres, all huge cities over which the Flyer passed, showed little activity save that even at this early hour crowds were congregated in the principal squares and in front of the government offices where daily returns from the battle front were posted.

The appearance of the Ocean Flyer was invariably the cause of intense excitement. People scurried frantically about, church bells rang the alarm and soldiers ran to their posts on the fortifications. Observed from the boys’ elevated position, the scene greatly resembled an ant-hill disturbed with a stick.

The city of Chartres was only a comparatively short flight, even at their reduced speed, for the boys from Paris, the capital of France. Twenty minutes after passing over the former city, the Eiffel Tower, tallest structure in Paris, appeared, and soon other world-famous landmarks were easily discernible through the glasses. There arose the imposing, ages-old towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral, set on an island in the middle of the river Seine, which, under its many handsome bridges, wound like a silver ribbon through the gray expanse of buildings which go to make up the fourth largest city in the world. There lay the Palais Royal, with its celebrated shops and restaurants; there the Louvre, Luxembourg and the Tuileries, stored with priceless art treasures and famous in history as the palaces of great kings. There was the green shrubbery of the public parks and the white, ribbon-like lines which marked the Bois and the Champs Elysees, those famous boulevards and promenades of fashion, radiating from the Tuileries like the points of an immense star.

But what a vast change from the gay, teeming metropolis of less than a year previous. The streets were nearly deserted, the pleasure seekers were fled before the hot, scathing blast of war, like chaff in a strong wind; the tables before the gay little cafes lining the boulevards were turned bottom-side up and dusty with long disuse. There was no roar of traffic, no shrill cries, no rumblings of passenger-filled omnibuses. The Avenue de l’Opera was as quiet and deserted as a village street. Automobiles had disappeared; only here and there meandered ancient cabs driven by doddering grandfathers and drawn by skeleton horses with sprung knees. A mournful, oppressive silence brooded over the lightest-hearted city in the world.

The grass in the Tuileries gardens was unkept and stood ankle high. The wooded shades of the Bois de Boulogne had been turned into a great pasture for herds of cattle, goats and sheep, to provide food in case the Germans again succeeded in actually besieging the city. Palaces and celebrated public buildings were converted into hospitals. The young men were all at the front fighting; only the aged and wounded remained in Paris.

The city had not yet recovered from its fright of four months previous when the conquering regiments of the Kaiser trampled Belgium underfoot and advanced almost within cannon range of the walls. Even then the battle was raging and bayonet charges were daily occurrences in the trenches less than an hour’s automobile drive to the northeast.

Lookouts were stationed on all of the higher buildings to give warning of the approach of bomb-dropping German aviators in their wide, white, flat-winged “Taube” aeroplanes.

The coming of the huge, shining Ocean Flyer was seen while it was yet a considerable distance from the city and a whole flock of French military aeroplanes arose birdlike into the sky to meet it. They resembled hornets defending their nest. As the big airship planed down towards them with its seventy-two feet of planes, extended like wings on each side, the flock of smaller French aircraft shot suddenly apart in different directions, realizing their helplessness to combat this new threatening monster of the air. Some planed down like arrows into the city again seeking safety. Others began to sweep in wide circles around the Ocean Flyer, not daring to approach nearer. The harsh roar of their motors and propellers could be heard even within the pilot house where Ned stood guiding the Flyer’s course.

Then the alarmed Parisians unlimbered their much-talked-of aerial cannon on this new menace from the clouds. As each ugly black nozzle was tilted skywards, there came a puff of greenish smoke, flame spat forth and a huge shell was hurled straight at the approaching airship. Most of these terrible missiles fell far short of their mark, but the gunners of a battery stationed in the top of the Eiffel Tower were quick in getting a better range and made it very dangerous for the Airship Boys to continue their descent.

“Holy smoke!” gasped Alan, as one cannon shell burst with a terrific detonation less than one hundred feet to the left of the Flyer and almost keeled it over sidewise. “This is getting too hot for me. They think we’re a new type of German Zeppelin. Shoot her up higher, Ned. Let’s get out of here quick.”

“I’ll raise her higher, of course,” answered Ned, at the wheel, “but it’s a shame that we can’t get a closer view of Paris in wartime. That would be something to tell the folks about when we get back home.”

Cr—cr—cra-sh! Boom!

The whole metal-plated frame of the Flyer shook violently and careened wildly to one side from the concussion of another lyddite shell. Only quick action on Ned’s part prevented their capsizing.

“We won’t ever get home to tell anybody about anything if you don’t drive the ship higher pretty soon,” yelled Alan.

Ned was the cooler of the two.

“All right,” said he, “but I do wish that you could manage to signal some of these aeroplanes skimming around us that we are friends instead of enemies, and that we want to alight down there in the city.”

Alan looked doubtful, but finally agreed. As Ned jammed the elevation lever down hard in its socket and forced the Ocean Flyer slowly forward on a decided up-slant, his chum made his way out onto the runway which encircled most of the Flyer’s hull, and there, clinging firmly to the iron taffrail with one hand, wig-wagged pacific signals with a white flag gripped in the other.

Either the circling French aviators did not understand his signals, or thought that the white flag was merely intended to deceive them, for all save one of them totally disregarded it. That single dare-devil bird-man drove his monoplane—like a flea going against an elephant—straight, head-on, at the Ocean Flyer the moment Alan made his appearance outside. His face was set in frantic determination.

A startled cry of warning escaped the boy clinging in the terrific wind there on the narrow runway, who thought that the madman intended to crash into the bigger airship and so sacrifice his own life in the attempt to disable the supposed enemy.

But that was not the daring Frenchman’s intent. When the roar of his whirling tail propellers deafened Alan’s hearing and it seemed as if in another second the little monoplane would be dashed against the Flyer, the Frenchman tilted his planes sharply, swerved on a perilous angle that almost overturned his light craft, and, as he swept past in a rush of wind, jerked a revolver from his belt with one hand and fired full into Alan’s blanched face. A second later he swooped down towards the watching city below.

Alan felt a sudden stinging sensation on his cheek and could not suppress a cry of pain. Something warm began to trickle down his cheek. A sudden giddiness made his head swim. His eyes blurred and he felt that he might topple over the narrow taffrail at any moment.

Blindly he groped behind him for the handle of the door leading back into the ship—found it, tried to call for help—then stumbled forward and sank huddled to the airship floor unconscious.