eronometer pointed to twenty
thousand feet. By this time it was necessary to employ the apparatus
which he possessed for sustaining himself at this altitude. It was
amazing that the clouds should be so high, and he began to think that
his aeronometer was out of order when he suddenly dived up into the
light of a cold moon.

He looked around, seeking the pole-star, and found it on his left. So
all the time he had been running eastward.

And then his engine began to miss.

Tam was a philosopher and a philosopher never expects miracles. He
understood his engine as a good jockey understands his horse. He pushed
the nose of his machine earthward and planed down through an
interminable bank of clouds until he found a gray countryside running up
to meet him. There were no houses, no lights, nothing but a wide expanse
of country dotted with sparse copses.

There was sufficient light to enable him to select a landing-place, and
he came down in the middle of a big pasture on the edge of a forest of
gaunt trees.

He unstrapped himself and climbed down, stretching his limbs before he
took a gentle trot around the machine to restore his circulation. Then
he climbed back into the fuselage and tinkered at the engine. He knew
what was wrong and remedied the mischief in a quarter of an hour. Then
he inspected his petrol supply and whistled. He had made a rough
calculation and he knew within a few miles how far he was in the
interior of Germany, and by the character of the country he knew he was
in the marshy lands of Oosenburg, and there was scarcely enough petrol
to reach the Rhine.

He left his machine, slipped an automatic pistol into the pocket of his
overall and went on a voyage of exploration.

Half a mile from where he landed, he struck what he gathered was a
high-road and proceeded cautiously, for the high-road would probably be
patrolled, the more so if the noise of his machine had been correctly
interpreted, though it was in his favor that he had shut off his engines
and had planed down for five miles without a sound.

There was nobody in sight. To the left the road stretched in the
diffused moonlight, a straight white ribbon unbroken by any habitation.
To the right he discerned a small hut, and to this he walked. He had
taken a dozen steps when a voice challenged him in German. At this point
the road was sunken and it was from the shadow of the cutting that the
challenge came.

"Hello," said Tam in English, and a