"I trust you are right," he rejoined, "but you do not realise the big task in front of us. These Englishmen are only just beginning to bestir themselves. We hoped to have beaten them long ago. Time is no longer on our side, and----" Then, realising that his digression was bordering upon dangerous lines, he broke off. "And now, von Eitelwurmer, we are homeward bound. In four hours I hope to shake hands with you on German soil." The spy merely grunted. He was thinking regretfully of his lost chance in the share of the twenty thousand marks. CHAPTER VIII 'MIDST THE SCENE OF RED RUIN FIVE minutes before the fall of the first bomb, Flight-Sub-lieutenant Barcroft alighted from a tram-car in the market square of Barborough. The stopping of the railway service had upset his calculations, for instead of the train running into Barborough Station it had come to a stand still at Wolderton, a little town five miles from his destination. "Can't go no further yet awhile, sir," replied a porter in answer to the flight-sub's enquiry. "They say as 'ow Zeps is about, though I fancy they won't come to Lancashire, sir. Don't hold wi' these silly scares mysen." "Where are we?" asked Barcroft, striving vainly to read the name of the unlighted station. "Wolderton, sir; if you're for Barborough you can get a car just outside. They are runnin', Zep, or no Zep." The young officer alighted, made his way out of the station and boarded the first northbound car, which in due course deposited him at Barborough--a stranger in a strange land. "For Tarleigh, sir?" rejoined a policeman to his question. "Matter o' four or six miles. No, sir, you'll not be findin' a taxi to-night, I fancy. Just you go along yon road, take first on your right then straight on till you come to Chumley Old Road. There you'll find a car that'll take you as far as Black Pit Brow, and it'll be forty minutes sharp walking to Tarleigh." Somewhat bewildered Barcroft set out to follow the constable's directions. He found himself slipping on the rough and greasy setts, jostling people in the darkened streets, and barking his shins against obtrusive door steps. The road was a mean and narrow one--a short cut to a main thoroughfare. A dank unwholesome smell permeated the misty air. It struck the young officer as being worse than the atmosphere of the lower deck of a battleship battened down during a three-days' gale. Suddenly the darkness was rent by a terrific flash. The light was so dazzling that Barcroft was under the impression that it came from the centre of the street. Stunned by the deafening crash he felt himself lurching against a wall, amidst a shower of broken glass.