ened. The Boche pilot, at the very first burst of fire from us,
either jumped out of his seat or fell out.

"I could hardly believe my eyes. Yet there could be no mistake. He
went over the side of his fuselage and dropped like a man who
intended dropping just a few yards. I could see that he fell feet
first, head up, and arms stretched up above his head, holding his
body rigidly straight. Neither I nor my observer saw him the moment
he left his seat, but both of us saw him leave the side of his machine
and start down, down, down on that long four-mile drop.

"He disappeared, still rigidly straight, with something about his
position that made us both remark afterwards that he looked as though
he was doing it quite voluntarily and had planned it all out just that
way. It was weird.

"Of course it all happened in a twinkling. The big plane in front
of us went on uncannily, without a tremor, apparently. An instant
afterwards my observer and I exclaimed loudly together. The observer
in the enemy plane had not fired a shot, probably for the reason that
his gun was fixed and we were never in range of it. Suddenly we saw
him climb out of his seat on to the tail of the plane. My observer
had a good target, but his gun was silent. Perhaps that Boche
observer had an idea of climbing into the seat vacated so curiously
by the pilot, dropping, dropping, dropping, down that trackless
four mile path we had come up. If he had such a plan it failed
almost before he started to put it into execution.

"He had no more than climbed out on the tail proper than he lost
his hold and plunged headlong after his comrade. He went down pawing
and clutching into the void below like a lost soul, in horrible
contrast to the rigid figure of the pilot. Then the aviatik turned
its nose down with a jerk and fell after its human freight, all the
long twenty thousand feet to the earth below.

"We did not say a word to each other till we landed. It gave me a
nasty shock. I had seen enemy planes go down with enemy fliers in
them, but that rigid figure got me. The struggling chap I forgot
long before I did the other. We more than once discussed what might
have happened to him, and what his idea might have been---but without
being able to frame any explanation. It was just weird. We let
it go at that."

As Will ended his story he pulled out his khaki handkerchief and
wiped the perspiration from his forehead. The night was anything
b