Ahead of them a beam of light stabbed up into the sky, swept slowly in widening circles, jerked back across and across. The big machine barely swung a point off her course, held steadily to a line that must take her almost over the spot from which the groping finger of light waved. A spit of flame licked upward, followed quickly by another and another, and next instant three quick glares leaped and vanished in the darkness ahead. A second search-light flamed up, and then a third, and all three began swinging their beams up and down to cover the path the bomber must cross. The bomber held straight on, but a quarter of a mile from the waving lights the roar of her engine ceased and she began to glide gently towards them. The lights kept their steady to-and-fro swinging for a moment; the Night-Flier swam smoothly towards them, swung sharply as one beam swept across just clear of her nose, dodged behind it, and on past the moving line of light. One moment Pilot and Observer were holding their breath and staring into a vivid white radiance; the next the radiance was gone and they were straining their eyes into a darkness that by contrast was black as pitch. The engine spluttered, boomed, and roared out again; the lights astern flicked round and began groping wildly after them, and spurt after spurt of fire from the ground, glare after glare in the darkness round and before them, told that Archie was hard at it again. The Observer leaned over to the Pilot's ear and shouted "Dodged 'em nicely." "Jacky's turn next," answered the Pilot, and began glancing back over his shoulder. "There he comes," he shouted, and looking back both could see a furious sputter of shell-bursts in the sky, the quick searching sweeps of the lights where the second Night-Flier was running the gauntlet. The leader went on climbing steadily in a long slant, and at the next barrier of lights and guns held straight on and over without paying heed to the rush and whistle of shells, the glare and bump of their bursts. Mile after mile of shadowy landscape unrolled and reeled off below them. The Observer was leaning forward looking straight down over the nose of the machine, unerringly picking up landmark after mark, signalling the course to the Pilot behind him. At last he stood erect and waved his arms to the Pilot, and instantly the roar of the engine sank and died. "Steady as you go," shouted the Observer, "nearly there. I can see the Diamond Wood."