“It was the anniversary of her brother’s death, and a quarter to three in the morning had just struck from the clock on a kind of tower that rises over the chapel and which has a circular stairway running down into the middle of a small lady-chapel where her brother’s body (which had finally been found after the engagement in which he had been killed) had been buried. She and the other members of her family were keeping vigil beside the tomb by turns while masses were being said, during the twelve hours that were passing, and she was just mounting the stairs to go to her room for a little rest, being nearly exhausted with fatigue and emotion, when suddenly the tower and stairway, which had been in inky darkness before, became as light as day. She knew in an instant what it was, and, looking up, straight over her head she saw a Zeppelin hovering exactly above where she stood and so low that it seemed to her that she could see the crew and their preparations for the hideous work afoot. Then she looked down and a single shaft of the search-light fell directly on the heads of those who were gathered on their knees about the tomb. They were praying, with their heads bent and their eyes closed, for not one of them seemed to be aware of it, and the priests, whose chanting came up to her fearfully from the altar, were protected from it by the high reredos. There was something so dreadful and so uncanny about it all that she was petrified, for she knew that annihilation was hanging over her and all her family, without the shadow of a doubt, for the aim was at the tower—which was a landmark for miles around—and that it would fall before she could warn one of her people to safety, when, as in a flash from nowhere, flying at a most terrific rate of speed yet without a sound and straight at the Zeppelin, there appeared an aeroplane. It approached almost within hailing distance of the great thing without firing, and then, as the Zeppelin started a little, the aeroplane began swirling about it. She could not tell how long a battle went on between them without a single shot from either. It seemed as if the aeroplane was winding the monster in some intangible net, in which it turned and twisted and writhed, trying to get away into the free air; and then, again without a single shot, it fell to earth. “Every one of the crew had been killed when the men went out to it, and while she and her sister watched from the top of the tower they saw the aeroplane skim down and land just below them. Hastening below she threw back a little door that opened to the ground, and there she came face to face with the aeronaut. He wore no helmet, and, in this very early light, for it was in the first days of the year, he looked as if he stood in a shining black armor. His hair was golden, and the rising sun touched it, and he was the most beautiful creature that she had ever seen—so beautiful that she fell back against the wall behind her.