The Last Shot | Page 5

of novelty to us moderns, who soon make our new wonders
commonplace and clamor impatiently for others.
"He flies! A man flies!" Marta exclaimed. "Look at that--coming
straight for your tower, baron! You'd better pull up the drawbridge and

go on your knees in the chapel, for devils are abroad!"
How fast the speck grew! How it spread to the entranced vision! It
became a thing of still, soaring wings with a human atom in its centre,
Captain Arthur Lanstron, already called a fool for his rashness by a
group of Brown officers on the aviation grounds beyond the Brown
range.
Naturally, the business of war, watching for every invention that might
serve its ends, was the first patron of flight. Lanstron, pupil of a pioneer
aviator, had been warned by him and by the chief of staff of the Browns,
who was looking on, to keep in a circle close to the ground. But he was
doing so well that he thought he would try rising a little higher. When
the levers responded with the ease of a bird's wings, temptation became
inspiration and inspiration urged on temptation. He had gone mad with
the ecstasy of his sensation, there between heaven and earth. Five
seconds of this was worth five thousand years of any other form of life.
The summits of the range shot under him, unfolding a variegated rug of
landscape. He dipped the planes slightly, intending to follow the range's
descent and again they answered to his desire. He saw himself the eyes
of an army, the scout of the empyrean. If a body of troops were to
march along the pass road they would be as visible as a cloud in the sky.
Yes, here was revolution in detecting the enemy's plans! He had
become momentarily unconscious of the swiftness of his progress,
thanks to its hypnotic facility. He was in the danger which too active a
brain may bring to a critical and delicate mechanical task. The tower
loomed before him as suddenly as if it had been shot up out of the earth.
He must turn, and quickly, to avoid disaster; he must turn, or he would
be across the white posts in the enemy's country.
"Oh, glorious magic!" cried Marta.
"A dozen good shots could readily bring it down," remarked Westerling
critically. "It makes a steady target at that angle of approach. He's
going to turn--but take care, there!"
"Oh!" groaned Marta and Mrs. Galland together.

In an agony of suspense they saw the fragile creation of cloth and
bamboo and metal, which had seemed as secure as an albatross riding
on the lap of a steady wind, dip far over, careen back in the other
direction, and then the whirring noise that had grown with its flight
ceased. It was no longer a thing of winged life, defying the law of
gravity, but a thing dead, falling under the burden of a living weight.
"The engine has stopped!" exclaimed Westerling, any trace of emotion
in his observant imperturbability that of satisfaction that the machine
was the enemy's. He was thinking of the exhibition, not of the man in
the machine.
Marta was thinking of the man who was about to die, a silhouette
against the soft blue holding its own balance resolutely in the face of
peril. She could not watch any longer; she could not wait on the
catastrophe. She was living the part of the aviator more vividly than he,
with his hand and mind occupied. She rushed down the terrace steps
wildly, as if her going and her agonized prayer could avert the
inevitable. The plane, descending, skimmed the garden wall and passed
out of sight. She heard a thud, a crackling of braces, a ripping of cloth,
but no cry.
Westerling had started after her, exclaiming, "This is a case for first
aid!" while Mrs. Galland, taking the steps as fast as she could, brought
up the rear. Through the gateway in the garden wall could be seen the
shoulders of a young officer, a streak of red coursing down his cheek,
rising from the wreck. An inarticulate sob of relief broke from Marta's
throat, followed by quick gasps of breath. Captain Arthur Lanstron was
looking into the startled eyes of a young girl that seemed to reflect his
own emotions of the moment after having shared those he had in the
air.
"I flew! I flew clear over the range, at any rate!" he said. "And I'm alive.
I managed to hold her so she missed the wall and made an easy bump."
Marta smiled in the reaction from terror at his idea of an easy bump,
while he was examining the damage to his person. He got one foot free
of the wreck and that leg was all