Like most Germans his faith in Count Zeppelin's cowardly and diabolical invention was unshaken--so long as he could remain on terra-firma. But whereas the stay-at-home Hun satisfied himself by reading of the colossal achievements of the German aerial fleet, von Eitelwurmer knew by actual observation that the raids failed to justify one-tenth, nay, one-thousandth part of the claims put forward by the authorities at Berlin. In pre-war days he had seen experimental Zeppelins dashed to pieces in a vain attempt to regain the shed. He had seen others destroyed by fire. He remembered seeing a "leader" in a British newspaper in which it was solemnly declared that the sympathies of the civilised world will go out to the aged Count in the hour of his grief at the failure of his life's work. And now, in addition to the ordinary risks of aviation the returning airship was liable at any moment to the attack of the "hornets" that were known to be on the look-out for the raiders. Here he was, carried off against his will, suspended like Mahomet's tomb 'twixt heaven and earth, and faced with the prospect of a swift journey to a place not included in the above category. Ober-leutnant von Loringhoven left his passenger severely alone. For one thing the commander's attention was almost entirely taken up with the work of navigating his cumbersome craft back to the Fatherland; for another he mistrusted spies, even when they were Germans and notwithstanding the fact that he himself had indulged in that dangerous pastime. But there was this difference. Von Loringhoven was a naval officer while von Eitelwurmer was a civilian. He had heard of German spies renouncing their allegiance and acting for the country in which they were to be working on behalf of the authorities at Berlin. The spy had been accommodated with a camp-stool. On either side of the narrow compartment was a window fitted with double plate-glass windows. The for'ard bulkhead was pierced by a door leading to the cat-walk or suspended bridge communicating with both the 'midships and for'ard gondolas. Aft was another bulkhead separating a portion of the compartment from that containing the motors actuating the two rearmost propellers. The floor was in a state of continual tremor under the pulsations of the engines and the rattle of the two endless chains that transmitted the power to the two outboard propellers.