In spite of the tax upon his mental energies Barcroft watched the descent of the three. For nearly two hundred feet they dropped like stone, then they were hidden from his view by three umbrella-like objects. Before taking their desperate leap the Germans had provided themselves with parachutes. Apparently there was not one left for the remaining Hun. Suspended betwixt earth and sky he realised the horror of his position, until, seized by a forlorn resolve, he clambered over the side of the car and began to swarm down the wire rope that held it in captivity. It was hopeless from the first. In spite of the protection afforded by the leather gloves. The metal wire cut into his palms like hot iron. Before the luckless German had lowered himself fifty feet his grip relaxed. Like an arrow he crashed to the ground, a thousand feet below. "Don't fire!" ordered the flight-sub, realising that if merely perforated by small-calibre bullets the gas-bag would fall harmlessly to earth. "Stand by to drop a plum--now." The A.P. jerked the releasing lever. As he did so Barcroft set the seaplane to climb steeply. Ten seconds later the bomb hit the balloon fairly in the centre of its convex upper surface. The next instant there was a vivid flash, followed by a crash that was audible above the roar of the seaplane's engine. Sideslipping the machine dropped almost vertically. Not until she had passed through the outlying portion of the dense cloud of smoke from the destroyed balloon did the pilot regain control. A hurried glance showed that the flaming wreckage of his victim was plunging earthwards, leaving a fiery trail in its wake. It was falling upon the triple line of sheds in which German aeroplanes were stored. Like a swarm of ants the air mechanics scattered right and left to avoid--in many cases ineffectually--the gigantic falling firebrand. If Barcroft had any qualms concerning the fearful havoc he was about to create upon the throng of human beings he showed none. He remembered those bombs dropped upon the defenceless civil population of Barborough. "Let 'em have it hot!" he shouted. At that comparatively low altitude there was little chance of missing the expansive target. The ground was literally starred with diverging jets of flame. The burning sheds collapsed like packs of cards, the debris bursting into a series of fires. In half a minute the hangars ceased to exist save as a funeral pyre to the mechanical birds that would never again soar through the air. A severed tension wire, one end of which cut Billy smartly on the head despite the protection afforded by his airman's padded helmet, reminded the flight-sub that again the Archibalds were having a chip in. The planes, too, were ripped in several places, while jagged holes through the sides of the fuselage marked the accuracy of the shrapnel. It was, indeed, a marvel that either pilot or observer escaped injury.