“Bishop Alfred, you must go back to your friends,” I said. “Your idea is nonsense. There is no need to sacrifice yourself.” He shook his head and detached himself. I stumbled over a projecting root, and when I was on my feet again I saw the old man another fifty yards away. Once more I was approaching him. And then I halted suddenly and drew back among the trees, for just beyond the bend in the road lay the dark airplane, and the old man had stopped beside it, evidently waiting to be taken in. However, since he continued to wait there, I advanced noiselessly toward it, with the hope of rescuing him, until I realized that the dark airplane was empty. The occupant had left it, but for what reason, or where he had gone, I could not surmise. I was just where the old road joined with a small, twisting path that struck back among the trees. Some instinct cautioned me to silence. If I had spoken ... but I did not speak, and then, among the trees, following the crooked trail not fifty paces away, I saw the aviator, walking with head bent downward, evidently unconscious of human proximity. I held my breath in terror lest the old man should speak. But he stood motionless as a statue beside the dark airplane; he seemed wrapt in a reverie. The hope arose of saving him. That was Hancock’s airplane; his fate, then, lay with Hancock, and Lembken had told me that the Air-Admiral was a Christian. Surely he would take pity on the old, childish man. He knew me. I might appeal to him.... The twisting track, which had hidden him from my eyes, brought him into view once more, clear against the low moon that made the moving figure a silhouette against its circle. I crept up, until suddenly I reeled and nearly fell, overcome by the magnitude of my discovery. For this was not Air-Admiral Hancock, but Hugo Sanson, the madman who ruled the Federation! For a few moments I was powerless to stir. A raiding beast of night went rustling through the trees behind me. I heard an owl hoot. I lurked like some savage in the underbrush, and everything went from my memory, save Esther in peril, and Sanson, the evil genius of humanity, powerless in my hands if I could spring on him and strangle him before he had time to draw his Ray rod. Then the tracking instinct awoke in me. I began stalking him as stealthily as any moccasined redskin followed his quarry. He was now only twenty paces away, and his walk showed that he suspected no danger. It was a trail unknown to me, and I could only follow in patience. It wound to right and then to left, until at last it blended in a wider trail. And then I knew where I was. We were on the road that led to the cellar. The scattered bricks became the heaping piles. I crouched low. Almost upon this site Sir Spofforth’s house had stood. There, where the beeches waved their leafless arms had been Esther’s tea-roses. And here were briers, sprung, perhaps, from those. It did not need these remembrances to make my resolution firm.