Two minutes later the young pilot climbed into the 'plane, gave a final look round, waved a good-bye to Tim, whose pale face, now working with intense excitement, he discerned in the darkness. "All ready, sir?" asked the Flight-Sergeant. Dastral gave him a nod, and prepared to switch on the the current. "Swing the propellor!" came next, and as the cool, calculating pilot pulled a switch, the mighty engine broke into its terrible song. "Rep-p-p, rep-p-p! Whir-r-r!" "Stand clear!" and away went the monoplane like a bullet out of a gun. As she started, a searchlight was deflected in a long beam along the ground, to give the daring young aviator the direction for his take-off, for the dangers of night-flying are many, as more than one brave pilot has found to his cost before now. At a hundred yards the "Bullet" sprang into the air, and soared upward at a tremendous speed, being quickly lost to sight, as the searchlights tried once more to find the raider, which had found things too warm, and had sought again the shelter of the clouds. By short and rapid spirals, Dastral soon reached a thousand feet. Every now and then he turned his little shaded electric lamp on to the indicator, which seemed to vibrate merrily, and almost to smile, as its little rounded dial told the altitude. Up and up they went, and the indicator almost laughed with joy as it clicked out the figures: "Two thousand, two thousand five hundred, three thousand feet!" Still they seemed to be climbing all too slowly for the pilot. He had caught sight of the Zeppelin when she showed herself for a moment, and he had said to himself: "Twelve thousand feet, and then there'll be a chance! But nothing less than that will do." He was impatient therefore to get higher and higher, for he feared the raiders would discharge or jettison their cargo of bombs before he could get at them. They certainly would have done, had they known that at that very moment Himmelman's rival was climbing to meet them, on a Buckstead Bullet, which could do one hundred and thirty miles an hour when pushed. Already a number of bombs had been dropped, and away to the northward several fires could be seen where the night-raiders had left their victims behind, in the shape of burning homesteads, where the victims were women and children, old men and invalids; but the avenger was at hand, and the hour of reckoning had come. "Eight thousand, nine thousand feet!" clicked the indicator, though its voice was lost in the roar of the engine and propellor. At eight thousand feet Dastral passed several of the 'planes which had preceded him, and at nine thousand he left the last of them behind him and entered into a bank of clouds. Never once had he ceased his rapid, climbing spirals, and now, through the misty, clinging vapour of the clouds he still soared heavenwards. Once or twice he stopped his engines just to listen for a few seconds, but he heard nothing except the whir-r-r-r of the 'planes beneath him.