Dolores marched indefatigably by his side, sometimes even in front.
She had taken off her shoes and stockings. He watched her bare feet
making their light imprint in the sand. Her hips swayed as she walked,
as with American girls. She was all grace, strength and suppleness.
Less distracted, paying more attention to external things, she probed
the horizon with her keen gaze. It was while doing so that she cried,
pointing with outstretched hand:
"Look over there, the aeroplane!"
It was right at the top of a long, long upward slope of the whole
plain, at a spot where the mist and the ground were blended till they
could not say for certain whether the aeroplane was flying through the
mist or running along the soil. It looked like one of those
sailing-ships which seem suspended on the confines of the ocean. It
was only gradually that the reality became apparent: the machine was
motionless, resting on the ground.
"There is no doubt," said Simon, "considering the direction, that this
is the aeroplane that crossed the river. Damaged by Mazzani's bullet,
it flew as far as this, where it managed to land as best it could."
Now the figure of the pilot could be distinguished; and he too--a
strange phenomenon--was motionless, sitting in his place, his head
almost invisible behind his rounded shoulders. One of the wheels was
half-destroyed. However, the aeroplane did not appear to have suffered
very greatly. But what was this man doing, that he never moved?
They shouted. He did not reply, nor did he turn round; and, when they
reached him, they saw that his breast was leaning against the
steering-wheel, while his arms hung down on either side. Drops of
blood were trickling from under the seat.
Simon climbed on board and almost immediately declared:
"He's dead. Mazzani's bullet caught him sideways behind the head.
. . . A slight wound, of which he was not conscious for some time, to
judge by the quantity of blood which he lost, probably without
knowing. . . . Then he succeeded in touching earth. And then . . .
then I don't know . . . a more violent hemorrhage, a clot on the
brain. . . ."
Dolores joined Simon. Together they lifted the body. No foot-pads had
passed that way, for they found the dead man's papers, watch and
pocket-book untouched.
His papers, on examination, were of no special interest. But the
route-map fixed to the steering-wheel representing the Channel and the
old coast-lines, was marked with a dot in red pencil and the words:
"Rain of gold."
"He was going there too," Simon murmured. "They already know of it in
France. And here's the exact place . . . twenty-five miles from where
we are . . . between Boulogne and Hastings . . . not far from the Banc
de Bassurelle. . . ."
And, quivering with hope, he added:
"If I can get the thing to fly, I'll be there myself in half an hour.
. . . And I shall rescue Isabel. . . ."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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