So the third morning came, and Keane, whose anxiety regarding the still sleeping prisoners had been allayed by Sharpe, who smilingly confessed what he had done, now became fearfully uneasy as to the condition of affairs. "For heaven’s sake light that beacon again!" he ordered. "If assistance does not arrive to-day, all these secrets I have endeavoured to rescue will be lost." "What will you do?" asked his companion, who was already applying a match to the pile of dried tinder and sticks. "Blow the whole place up," he replied. "And shoot the prisoners?" ventured his friend, slyly. "No." "What then?" "Rouse them up, somehow, handcuff them together and take them away." "Some job that," remarked Sharpe, looking up at the long thin trail of smoke, for there was still an absence of wind currents. Even as he gazed into the sky, however, he caught sight of a tiny speck hovering at twelve thousand feet, and he almost shouted, "Aeroplane!" "Where?" asked his startled comrade, whose nerves had undergone some strain during the past few days. "Right up in the blue. There, can you see her?" "Yes, I have her now, but she’s very high. Can it be the _Scorpion_, do you think?" asked the senior. "Cannot say yet. I’ll fetch the glasses." "Run for them, quickly! I cannot hear her engines at all. It must be the brigand." "Ah, there, I hear the engines now, very faintly, though. Rolls-Royce engines too, thank God!" exclaimed Keane fervently, as he recognised the well-known sound, and knew that assistance had arrived at last, in the shape of at least one Bristol Fighter. "It’s all right, Sharpe. Cut off that beastly current. Tempest will be here in a minute." "Are you sure it’s Tempest?" "Yes. Listen to that! Now he’s cut his engine out again, and he’s coming down. It’s the chief right enough; I should know his flying amongst a score of aeroplanes." The wires were cut off, a temporary landing-tee quickly rigged up on the ground, and frantic signals were made to the pilot, who was now rapidly coming down in sharp spirals. A few minutes later the intrepid pilot flattened out above the tree tops, dipped again, banked steeply, and sideslipped almost to the ground, in order to get into the confined and narrow space which served the _Scorpion_ for an aerodrome. Scarcely had he landed when another machine, which had followed him from England, performed the same highly-skilled manoeuvre, and taxied up to the little group. *CHAPTER XXI* *THE COMING FIGHT* "Good-morning, Colonel!" cried the two airmen, saluting their chief smartly, as he still sat in the aeroplane, looking not a little crabbed and sour, as he secretly swore at the infamous stretch of ground misnamed an aerodrome; then turned his gaze upon the two airmen who had appealed for assistance.