Page 108 - A Hero of Liége

The parts were now reversed. The aeroplane became the hunter, the airship
the hunted. Still rising, Pariset gradually reduced the horizontal distance

between them, gaining assistance from the manoeuvres of the Zeppelin,
which yawed now and again in order to bring its guns to bear more

effectively, thus losing pace. The aeroplane began to close in with it, and
Pariset suddenly became aware that he was closing in too rapidly, for the
airship either stopped her engines or reduced their speed. Before he had

time to meet the manoeuvre he had come within effective range. Bullets
pattered around like hail, and only by a swift wheeling movement did he

escape destruction.

Learning caution, he rose still higher, until he estimated that he was at least

3000 feet above the enemy. At this elevation the swelling bulk of the
envelope rendered the machine guns useless, and there was indeed little

chance of the aeroplane's being hit even by the rifles.

Pariset's object was now to get as nearly as possible vertically above the

Zeppelin, which the Zeppelin could only prevent by constantly changing its
course and its speed. But Pariset was an adept in the handling of his

machine. He watched every twist and turn of the enemy, and seemed to
Kenneth to anticipate them, as a skilful boxer anticipates the feints and
rallies of his opponent.

"Get ready!" he shouted to Kenneth at last. "A twenty-second fuse!"

Kenneth grasped the bomb, leaning over his seat ready to drop it at the
word. He had lost all sense that this was warfare, and throbbed with the

same excitement as stirs the batsman or the three-quarter.

"Now!" cried Pariset.

The bomb fell plumb, but at the same instant the Zeppelin checked, and the

bomb burst many yards ahead, though whether above or below the airship
he could not tell. Pariset at once wheeled round, and within a few seconds

brought his machine once more above the enemy. At the critical moment
Kenneth dropped a second bomb. There was a flash and a burst of smoke