Again Voissard took up the homeward flight. The plane was still behind the Boche lines when a well directed shell from a German Archie grazed it, causing it to pitch violently. The shock of the explosion, coupled with the wild rocking, would have thrown Jimmy out of the plane had he not been securely strapped in. He saw Gaston clap a hand to his breast and crumple. Splinters flew from one of the struts. The plane continued to stagger. It was dropping now. Yes, Voissard was still at the controls, working like a madman to keep the plane under guidance. Still the rushing descent continued. Jimmy felt a queer giddiness sweep over him in long, sickening waves. This was the end. CHAPTER XXII THE UNSPEAKABLE CRIME Within the next two minutes Jimmy reversed his opinion that the end had come. True, they were still dropping, but at the instigation of a master hand on the controls, the Voisin was once more obeying its pilot and volplaning easily earthward. Now they were not more than two hundred feet from the ground and hanging over a ruined farmhouse. Some distance behind it stood a dilapidated barn. A little below the barn was an orchard of apple trees which sloped gradually down to open meadow land. At a point in the meadow close to the orchard, the plane finally made harbor. As it touched ground Jimmy peered anxiously about for signs of human beings. German soldiers could not be far away. Behind the German lines, as they were, they could not hope to escape being seen and fired upon. Strangely enough, no shots were fired as the plane made a landing. Over all hung the mystery of dawn, broken only by the pounding of the guns on the battle lines. Jimmy had fully expected to fight for his life the instant he reached terra firma. It dazed him to find himself behind the German lines, for even a moment, unmolested. "We are in a most dangerous locality, _mon cher_ Blaise." Voissard had already left the machine and was circling it, making a hasty examination as he went. "We must leave here at once!" he continued. "It was either this or perhaps a fall when over the Boche lines. I knew not the extent of damage done by that Archie. It has lost me my good Gaston. That is, indeed, a loss. I am deeply grieved. Yet this is not the occasion for the grief. A moment and I shall know how quickly we may ascend. I knew this spot and determined thus to take the risk of one little moment's landing." "Is there anything I can do, sir?" Jimmy eagerly offered. "Perhaps I can help----" "Wait." Voissard dived into the car, returning with a pair of revolvers and a box of cartridges. "Take these and stand guard," he ordered, offering one of the revolvers to Jimmy. "Should a Boche soldier appear, shoot him on sight. It is yet early and we are some distance from the enemy trenches. Still there is always the outpost guard or the patrol to reckon with. Again, this is of a truth a fitting spot for an early morning execution."