Craning his neck over the shoulders of the men serving the belt-ammunition von Eitelwurmer saw a sight that caused his agonies of mind to return with redoubled violence. Just visible against the loom of the starlit sky was a huge biplane that, climbing steeply, seemed to be steadily overhauling the airship. Serenely unmindful of the hail of bullets aimed at her the seaplane held on with the obvious intention of getting astride her prey. Mingled with the detonations of the machine-guns were the clanging of telephone bells, the clank of machinery and the excited voices of the crew. Then with a jerk that threw the spy violently against the after bulkhead the Zeppelin leapt skywards. Simultaneously dense volumes of black smoke eddied in through the open windows. Sprawling in the intense darkness upon the ice-encrusted floor of the gondola the spy vainly strove to shriek, but only a gurgled sound came from his lips. He had not the slightest doubt but that the airship was on fire and on the point of crashing to her doom. Hearing the stifled cry, for again the motors were stopped, one of the crew gripped him roughly by the arm, and set him on his feet. "Silence!" he hissed. "A noise like that may betray us." A seemingly interminable interval followed. The Zeppelin, floating motionless in a dense and opaque bank of clouds, was endeavouring to evade her comparatively small but highly dangerous antagonist, the loud buzzing of whose engine could be distinguished with all too forcible certainty. With every light switched off the crew of the unwieldy gas-bag waited in breathless suspense, knowing that at any moment a bomb might explode with annihilating result in the midst of the vast store of highly inflammable hydrogen above their heads. For how long this state of almost unbearable suspense and nerve-racking tension lasted von Eitelwurmer had not the slightest idea. In Cimmerian darkness he sat, shivering with cold and fear, his eyes fixed upon the motionless form of one of the machine-gunners who, leaning out of one of the open apertures, was striving to locate the presence of the unseen but audible British seaplane.