The Winslow mail., 1914-09-26
CHAPTER Nv.
"We'Il aive theo tit for -,

"Weyl give them tit FOR tat."
"' 7 was not a whole man there; II
was a piece of a man, the head
81 and shoulders of a man that
trailed down into a ragged dark
ness and pool of shining black
And even as she stared the mound
above her swayed and crumbled, and
a rush Of hot water came pouring over
her Then It seemed to her that she
was dragged downward
When the rather british young avia-
tor with the bullet head and the black
hair cropped zen brosse" who was in
charge Of the French special scientific
corps heard presently of this disaster
to the war control he was so wanting
in imagination in any sphere but his
own that he laughed. Small matter to
lin that Paris was burning, His
mother and father and sister lived at
Caudebec, and the only sweetheart he
had ever had-and it was poor love
making then-was a girl in Rouen. He
slapped his second in command ot the
shoulder "Now" he said, "there's
nothing on earth to stop MS going to
Berlin and giving them tit for tat
Strategy ana reasons Of state-they y're
over Come along, my boy, and we'l
just show these old women what we
can do when they let us have cur
heads.
He spent five minutes teleph0ning,
ana then be went out into the court-
yard OF the chateau in which he had
been Installed and shouted for his au
tomobile Things wopld have to move
quickly. because there was scarcely an
hour and a half before dawn. He look
ed 1T the sky and noted with satisfac-
ti0n Il heavy bank Of clouds athwart
the palIid east
re was a young man of infinite
shrewdness, and his material and aero
planes were scattered all over the
countryside stuck away in barns,
covered with hay, hidden in woods.
A hawk could not have discovered any
OF them without coming within reach
OF gun But that night he only
wanted one Of the machines. and it
was handy and quite prepared under
tarpaain between two ricks not n cou-
pie OF miles away He was going to
Berlin with that and just one other
man. Two men would be enough fog
what he meant to do
He had in his hands the black com
plement to all those other gifts science
was urging upon unregenerate man
kind, the Gift Of destruction, and he
was an adventurous rather than
sympathetic type
He was 81 dark young man, with
something negroid about his cleaning
face He smiled like one wbe is fa
vored and anticipates great pleasures.
There WAS an exotic richness, a chuc-
king flavor, about the voice in which
be gave his orders and he pointed his
remarks with the long finger of q
hand that was hairy and exceptional
ly big
'Well give them tit for tat" he said
'We'u give them tit for tat No time
TO lose. BOYS.
And presently over the cloud banks
that lay above Westphaia and Sax
ony the swift aeroplane, with it's
atomic engine as noiseless as a dane
ing sunbeam and It's nhosphorescent
gyr0scopic compass, flew like an arrow
to the heart of the central European
hosts
It did not soar very high. It skim
med few hundred feet above the
banked darknesses Of cumulus that hid
the world ready to plunge Mt once
into their wet obscurities should some
hostile Hier range into vision The
tense young steersman divided his at
tention between the guiding stars
above and the level tumbled surfaces
Of tile vapor strata that hid the world
below. over great spaces those banhs
lay as even as Il frozen lava aow and
almost as STILL and then they were
rent by ragged areas of transiucency,
pierced by clear chasms, SO That dina
patches Of the laud below cleaned re-
moteIy through abysses Once he saw
quite distinctly the plan ct big rail
way station outlined in lamps and sig
mails and once the flames of burning
rick showing Iiyid through o boiling
DRIFT of smoke on the side Of some
great hill. But il The world was mask
ed it was alive With sounds. UP
through that yapor hoor came the deep
roal Of trains. the WHISTLES OF horns OF
M0torcars. a sound Of rifle Gre away