But Bronson, so far from being at the wheel, at that moment was lying bound hand and feet beneath a bush in the field below, and had Villa looked carefully through his field glasses he would not have failed to see the figure of the man wearing Jim’s muddy clothes. Villa could not suspect that the pilot was Jim Steele, the airman whose exploits in the abstract he had admired, but whose life he would not at this moment have hesitated to take.
“It is lovely!” gasped Eunice, but her voice was drowned in the deafening thunder of the engines.
They were soaring in great circles, and above were floating the scarves of mist that trailed their ravelled edges to the sun, which tinted them so that it seemed to her the sky’s clear blue was laced with golden tissue. And beneath she saw a world of wonder: here was spread a marvellous mosaic, green and brown and grey, each little pattern rigidly defined by darked lines, fence and hedge and wall. She saw the blood-red roof of house and the spread of silver lakes irregular in shape, and to her eye like gouts of mercury that some enormous hand had shaken haphazard on the earth.
“Glorious!” her lips said, but the man who sat beside her had no eye for the beauty of the scene.
Communication between the pilot and his passengers was only possible through the little telephone, the receiver of which Jim had mechanically strapped to his ear, and after awhile he heard Villa’s voice asking:
“What are you waiting for? You know the way?”
Jim nodded.
He knew the way back to London just as soon as he saw the railway.
The girl looked down in wonder on the huge chequer-board intercepted by tiny white and blue ribbons.
They must be roads, and canals, she decided, and those little green and brown patches were the fields and the pastures of Warwickshire. How glorious it was on this early summer morning to be soaring through the cloud-wisps that necked the sky, wrack from the storm that had passed overnight. And how amazingly soothing was the loneliness of wings! She felt aloof from the world and all its meanness. Digby Groat was no more than that black speck she could see, seemingly stationary, on the white tape of a road. She knew that speck was a man and he was walking. And within that circle alone was love and hate, desire and sacrifice.
Then her attention was directed to Villa. He was red in the face and shouting something into the telephone receiver, something she could not hear, for the noise of the engines was deafening.
She saw the pilot nod and turn to the right and the movement seemed to satisfy Villa, for he sank back in his seat.
Little by little, the nose of the aeroplane came back to the south, and for a long time Villa did not realize the fact. It was the sight of the town which he recognized that brought the receiver of the telephone to his lips.
“Keep to the right, damn you, Bronson. Have you lost your sense of direction?”
Jim nodded, and again the machine banked over, only to return gradually to the southerly course; but now Villa, who had directed the manoeuvre, was alert.
“What is wrong with you, Bronson?” and Jim heard the menace in his voice.
“Nothing, only I am avoiding a bad air current,” he answered, and exaggerated as the voice was by the telephone. Villa did not dream that it was anybody but Bronson to whom he was speaking.
Jim kept a steady course westward, and all the time he was wondering where his destination was supposed to have been. He was a raving lunatic, he thought, not to have questioned Bronson before he left him, but it had never occurred to him that his ignorance on the subject would present any difficulties.
He was making for London, and to London he intended going. That had been his plan from the first, and now, without disguise, he banked left, accelerated his engines and the Scout literally leapt forward.
“Are you mad?” It was Villa’s voice in his ear, and he made no reply, and then the voice sank to a hiss: “Obey my instructions or we crash together!”
The barrel of an automatic was resting on his shoulder. He looked round, and at that moment Eunice recognized him and gave a cry.
Villa shot a swift glance at her, and then leapt forward and jerked at Jim’s shoulders, bringing his head round.
“Steele!” he roared, and this time the pistol was under Jim’s ear. “You obey my instructions, do you hear?”
Jim nodded.
“Go right, pick up Oxford and keep it to your left until I tell you to land.”
There was nothing for it now but to obey. But Jim did not fear. Had the man allowed him to reach London it might have been well for all parties. As Villa was taking an aggressive line, and had apparently recognized him, there could be only one end to this adventure, pistol or no pistol. He half twisted in his narrow seat, and looked back at Eunice with an encouraging smile, and the look he saw in her eyes amply repaid him for all the discomfort he had suffered.
But it was not to look at her eyes that he had turned. His glance lingered for awhile on her waist, and then on the waist of Villa, and he saw all that he wanted to know. He must wait until the man put his pistol away; at present Villa held the ugly-looking automatic in
