And, with that, he dived under the air-fiend, and emptied his seventh and last drum into him from beneath. It, was the end of the great fight, for with his fuselage ablaze from end to end--for his petrol tanks had been pierced--and with a bullet through his brain, Himmelman went down in a spinning nose-dive to the earth. Even then the chief of the air nearly took down his opponent with his wreckage, for Dastral being underneath, only just slithered, rather than banked, in time to let the blazing mass hurtle by. Another dozen feet, and the heroes would have gone down together. The next moment the daring young pilot gazed almost ruefully down upon the tangled wreckage far below. He was amazed at his own work, riding up there alone, for he was now the Master-Pilot of the Skies. Even so, somehow, his chivalrous young heart was sad, for a brave man never finds pleasure in the death of another brave man, and your true hero has always a gentle soul. Then touched by a gust of sudden pity, he circled down to within three hundred feet of the burning mass in which the remains of the brave pilot lay, and, heedless of the risk he ran, he detached from its place, where he had secured it that morning, unknown to all but himself and Jock, a wreath of laurel, with these words attached to it, penned in his own hand:-- "_To Himmelman--the bravest of the brave--_ _the Pilot of the Western Skies. A tribute of_ _respect from his Conqueror._ Dastral of the Flying Corps." Then he climbed back again, joined the remnant of his squadron, which with broken struts and wires, and bearing strong evidence of the great fight in every part of their delicate frames, struggled back to the aerodrome near Contalmaison. Thus did Himmelman meet his end, going down bravely, and, with Himmelman, the Germans lost the mastery of the air. But Dastral himself was wounded in that last fight, and his machine, the new "wasp," was so badly damaged that even his wonderful skill could not save her, and she crashed behind the British lines, quite close to Contalmaison. CHAPTER XI "BLIGHTY" AFTER the fall of Himmelman the supremacy of the air was wrested from the Germans; the enemy's advance was definitely stopped. Thus was the way paved for the final victory, which was to end in the defeat of militarism, the restoration to Europe of her liberties, and to civilisation of her freedom. There is only one more incident to record, before this story of adventure and heroism is finished. It concerns one of those unfortunate persons whose heroic soul had been confined, by some mysterious dispensation of Providence, to the narrow limits of a misshapen and deformed body.