s, will be shot
five days from now."

"What!" Cowan stormed. He wheeled to the sergeant. "Sergeant, where did
this man--"

"The sergeant doesn't know," von Herzmann put in. "He is the third man
in whose charge I have been placed. Perhaps you had better let me tell
you, Major. Your planes are quite wretched and inferior, sir, and when
the engine of the one I was making use of died suddenly, we were forced
to land quickly and take what the Fates had in store. We struck an old
shell hole, turned over, and my pilot was killed, poor fellow! Too bad
it wasn't the other way round. He wore his own uniform, and could hardly
have been shot as a spy."

Cowan sank into a chair, rather heavily. His poise was no match for von
Herzmann's, who seemed to be getting a keen delight out of the Major's
discomfiture.

"I was not at the controls," von Herzmann continued, "but the engine
sputtered as though it were out of fuel."

Major Cowan nodded his head sadly. "It was. Poor Siddons was right," he
mused, seemingly unconscious for the moment of the presence of the
others.

"Only half right," von Herzmann corrected, smiling.

"No," Cowan replied with spirit, "_all_ right. He feared you might
become suspicious and double-cross him, and with that in mind he put
just enough gas in the tank to carry the plane there and part way back.
He made rather careful tests. But he installed another tank, with a feed
line that he could cut in--_in case he were flying the plane_. If
not--well, you see what happened."

Count von Herzmann merely shrugged his shoulders at this piece of news
which must have been irritating in the extreme. "Ah, well," he said
easily, "one cannot think of everything. In our haste to get away,
neither I nor my pilot thought of that possibility. Very clever fellow,
this man Schwarz. We both made good guesses, and we both lose. Kismet!
We both serve our country, and we both get shot. So be it. Wars are very
old, Major; death quite as common as life; and the old Hebraic law still
operative--'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!' In this case, an
ace for an ace and a spy for a spy. Even up, and the war rolls on. I
wonder, Major, just when it will close?"

Seemingly, as in answer to his question, from toward the front came the
sudden roaring of thousands of guns. Doors rattled, the ground quivered,
and through the window the sky was alight with a pulsating red-white
glare.

For a few minutes every man in the room stoo