"Can it be the woodcutter or the clockmaker, do you think, for Hans is sure to have called at Jacob Stendahl’s cottage and told him the news." But Keane shook his head, as he remarked: "Neither Hans nor yet the woodcutter could possibly have told the professor our names. This evil genius must have other sources of information at his command. Possibly he has an agent at Mulhausen aerodrome, or even at Scotland Yard. To a man like this, a thousand ways are open. I cannot say, but this I know, we are on the edge of the biggest mystery I have ever encountered." "And we might easily have shot him. Bah! it would have been better to have fired, Keane," added Sharpe somewhat bitterly. "Cannot we follow him now?" "No!" replied his companion, firmly. "It is better as it is." "Why?" demanded the other. "Rest content, Sharpe," said Keane. "To-day we have discovered the aerodrome; to-morrow we will capture it." *CHAPTER XIX* *THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP* Patiently, now, the two Englishmen waited for the dawn. Till then it would not be safe to move in any direction. As they lay in the long bracken and ferns, however, they were able to converse quietly, and to discuss their plans for the coming day. The spot they had come so far to seek was now before them. The live wires, just a few feet ahead of them, had been duly located, and now that the danger was known, it was not insuperable. It was an added mystery to them, nevertheless, how this wizard secured sufficient voltage to make these wires so deadly. They assumed, however, that powerful dynamos, worked by this same silent energy that propelled the aeroplane, were at work somewhere near this spot. Dawn came at last; a faint yellow streak lit up the horizon away to the east. Then a crimson flush revealed the distant tree-tops, and the moon and stars faded away. A hundred songsters awoke the stillness of the forest, for another day had dawned, and the sable curtain of night rolled westward. "See, there is a clearing fifty yards ahead," were Keane’s first words to his companion. "It is the aerodrome, the secret aerodrome!" replied Sharpe, peering through the trees. "Let us work round a little way and find the workshop or hangar. I fancy we shall find it on the other side of the glade." "Mind those beastly wires, then!" replied Sharpe, as he began to crawl through the dense undergrowth after his companion, who had already started to make a circuit of the outer defences on his hands and knees.