Buck arrived at the ruined church just as the first pallid gray of morning light was smudging the eastern sky line. The air was cold and damp. It bit to the bone. Shivering, the reporter drew his coat more tightly around him, made sure for the eleventh time that his supply of revolvers was all loaded and in good working order, and then tramped up and down on that side of the crumbling wall which best sheltered him from the wind.

The hush of dawn pervaded the entire landscape. Not a single human being was to be seen.

Gradually the dull light on the horizon spread up into the sky and widened. It changed color from yellow to pink, and finally the sun rose through the mist of the deserted fields like a great round globe of fire.

A quarter of a mile distant the chimes of the cathedral in Muhlbruck could be faintly heard, calling the people to early mass. Somewhere far off to the right a cock crew lustily, welcoming the sunlight. Little birds began to chirp and hop through the grass.

It was the time!

Waiting in that way was unbearable to Buck. The strain on his nerves drove him nearly frantic. Once more he took out his revolvers for examination, paced restlessly up and down, up and down, and wished that they would come.

A distant rumble far down the highway warned him of other travelers. He crouched down behind the wall, fingering his weapons with heart-strings taut—waiting, watching.

Finally a vehicle hove in sight, but it was only a farmer’s cart drawn by two big black dogs, and loaded with vegetables for sale in town. The blue-smocked peasant striding alongside was whistling a little song, all unconscious of the grim-faced figure behind the old church.

The cart vanished around a bend in the road towards Muhlbruck. Then all was silence again. The sun rose higher, dissipating the mist before its warmth. It was not fully daylight. Then it was that Buck’s straining ear caught the distant rhythmic footbeats of marching men. It was the firing squad with Bob.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!

Around the bend in the road they came, a dozen soldiers whose uniforms and spiked helmets were a dull gray, like the dust they stirred up underfoot. They marched in a little column of twos, with a corporal in command at one side. In their midst was the condemned prisoner.

The watching Buck was moved to great pity at his old friend’s haggard and unkempt appearance. There were great bluish hollows under his eyes, his cheeks were unnaturally pale, and the growth of a two-weeks’ beard made his face almost unrecognizable. But, although he knew that they were taking him to his death, Bob marched with shoulders squared and his head thrown back. It would never do for an American to show fear before foreigners.

“Zum Recht! Halt!” (Wheel to the right! Halt!) snapped the corporal.

The firing squad was now on the other side of the wall from Buck, standing like so many statues, with their rifles stiffly presented.

The corporal grasped Bob roughly by the arm and backed him up against the wall.

“If you wish to pray, do so now,” he said in German. “Make it brief.”

Bob closed his eyes for a few moments, while he thought of his old friends away back in New York, wondering what had become of him.

“I am ready, corporal,” said he, shortly.

His hands were bound tightly together behind his back and a bandage tied over his eyes.

“Pace your distance,” the officer ordered his men.

They retreated for about thirty paces, the corporal counting gruffly: “Hup! hup! hup!” as they marched.

It was at that instant that Buck Stewart darted around the corner of the old wall with a sharp knife in his hands. He was at Bob’s side and in a trice had slashed the rope free of his hands. The blindfold followed in less time than it takes to tell it.

Just then the firing squad reached their appointed position and wheeled machine-like about. They saw in a flash their prisoner about to escape.

“Donnerwetter!” roared the corporal, brandishing his sword. “Fire, men! Shoot them down!”

The roar of a dozen German muskets crashed out just as the boys turned the corner of the wall. The bullets shattered the masonry in a cloud of flying debris. Buck shoved two big revolvers into Bob’s hands as they dashed behind the wall.

“Stand guard there at the other end of the wall, Bob,” he shouted. “I’ll take care of this end.”

Then, before the Germans had scarcely recovered from their surprise, each boy was peppering away at them in deadly fashion from opposite ends of the protecting masonry. Their first fusillade brought down three groaning soldiers, one of them the corporal. The rest made for cover, the nearest shelter—the tumbled masonry of the church itself.

“Spread out on each side of the young devils!” yelled the raging German corporal from where he lay. “Scatter and surround them! Work up on them from behind!”

His commands were quickly obeyed, and even such a rapid fire as the boys were able to pour into the enemy could not prevent three or four of them from running far around on either side, where, lying flat in the long weeds, they opened a dangerous flank-fire that immediately made the wall of no further protection to its gallant defenders.

“It’s all up with us now,” called Bob, as he took another ineffective shot at one of the sharp-shooters.

“If only the Ocean Flyer would come!” groaned Buck. “I can’t understand why it hasn’t arrived before this!”

At that moment, as if in answer to his desperate cry, there came the ominous roar of a powerful motor, high up in the air, and there came the great airship, swooping down with its seventy-two feet of planes magnificently outspread, and Alan Hope standing out on the lower runway, swinging deadly bombs in his hand.

The Germans saw the approach of the strange aircraft at the same instant, and startled cries of: “Ein Flieger! Ein Flieger!” (an airship) broke from them as they diverted part of their fire upon it.

The Flyer swept on down in gradually narrowing circles and lessened speed until it hung almost directly over the hard-pressed boys by the wall. Then a hundred-foot rope ladder, one end of which was attached to an opened port, was tossed down to them and Alan, making a megaphone of his hands, shouted:

“Climb up! Quick! There is a whole division of cavalry dashing down the road!”

Buck caught the loose end of the ladder first, and ran up the tough spruce rungs like a monkey, despite the sway of the rope supports. Bob did his best to weight down the end of the ladder with one hand, while with the other he emptied his remaining pistol at the Germans who now came at him in a body and on the run. Chips of masonry from the wall were flying all around his head as the bullets struck it.

Buck reached the top of the ladder and was dragged safely inside through the porthole, while Bob made a flying leap, caught the fifth rung and began to climb as fast as he could. German bullets whizzed past his ears, but fortunately none hit him. As he climbed, he yelled:

“Tell Ned to shoot her on up into the sky! Full speed! I’ll be up there with you in a minute or two!”

Buck rushed to the engine room, while Alan hurried to tell Ned. The porthole was left open so that Bob could crawl in. Ned was excited; with his right hand he jammed the long starting-lever down as far as it would go; with his left he tugged at the lever of the lateral control rudder. It stuck. With both hands he gave one desperate pull. The sudden give, and the quick swerve upward of the Flyer threw him off his balance. He lunged heavily against the rod. It broke off short in his hands.

The sudden burst of power shot the big airship suddenly skyward on an angle of almost eighty degrees and with a suddenness which nearly threw both Ned and Alan off their feet. The huge propeller began to whirl with dizzying velocity, and the wind screeched and whined through the propellers like an animal in pain.

With blanched cheeks both boys bent low over the broken lever, but though they broke their finger-nails trying to loosen it, they were unable to pry it up even with such tools as they could lay their hands on.

Horror showed in each face. With a ghastly attempt at composure Ned turned to Alan.

“Well, I’ve certainly done it now!” he groaned. “There seems to be no hope of being able to pry that broken lever up. And I don’t dare to shut off the speed; no telling what would happen going at this angle. At present it is driving the Flyer at maximum speed almost straight upwards into the sky!”

Alan was speechless, and could only gulp; his eyes were bulging in mortal terror.

At that moment a frantic call came up through the tube from Buck.

“Great heavens, boys!” he screamed, “look down below! There is Bob clinging sixty feet down the ladder, beaten nearly insensible by the terrible wind, and unable to climb further because the current is sweeping that light rope ladder straight out behind us like a ribbon. If we don’t stop in a minute or so, he is as good as dead!”