If this had been all, I might have borne it somehow in my pride of Eagle. But there was always something more. I read of his monoplane being struck by a fragment of bursting shell over the enemy's lines, and his volplaning with a disabled engine, to drop into safety and a French stone quarry with important information to give concerning the disposition of German forces. When Paris was threatened and almost despairing, Mars flew over the sad city letting fall leaflets with the inspiring message, "Prenez courage, tout va bien." Over Brussels also he maneuvered, dropping his leaflets, and while angry German soldiers took aim at him and his monoplane he "looped the loop" far above their noses. His cool remark after this exploit was said to have been: "These Germans do shoot badly!" He had more than one duel in the air with hostile war planes, having vowed with the Belgian airmen to ram all enemy aircraft whenever possible. There was a fearsome account to read, one morning, of his bringing down an aeroplane which had dropped bombs on the heads of French troops, helping out the wounded aviator and military observer, and then setting fire to their machine. In this adventure the _Golden Eagle_ was injured, and another monoplane was lent the airman while his own was being put to rights. The "Elusive Mars," newspapers began to name him, because in the face of almost certain destruction he invariably escaped in the nick of time and within an inch of his life. At last, however, one October day of good news for the Allies, there was bad news for me. They had put it in big headlines on the most important page: "Mars, the Belgian Airman, Caught at Last. While Reconnoitring His Machine is Disabled, and Falls in Enemy's Lines. He is Believed to be Wounded, and is Certainly a Prisoner." I had no heart to rejoice in the tidings which made the rest of my world happy that day. And for many days afterward--days each one of which seemed a lifetime of suspense--there was no other news of Eagle March. I felt as if the future were a very long, dim corridor, in whose chill twilight I groped, my eyes straining toward the distance. So a month dragged itself away, and then came news at last. CHAPTER XXI