Blumberger was lying dead under the mackintosh in the cornfield near Bar-le-Duc, and Dennis was wearing his outer garments; but the message had been understood, and was followed by the command: "L30 coming out now. Be careful until all is clear; then report, Blumberger!" "Yes, we will be very careful!" muttered Claude Laval, who had read off the message at the same time; and flying slowly at scarcely more than five hundred feet above the ground he steered towards the hangar. Out of the giant shed the great grey nose of the Zeppelin came gliding into view, shining like some silver thing in the light of the electric lamps, the army of men who guided its movements looking like so many busy ants as the searchlights switched off the Aviatik and focused on the airship, evidently for their own guidance. Suddenly the Aviatik dipped, and Laval made a gesture with his helmeted head. There was no Rolland releasing apparatus fitted to the machine, and the Frenchman's ten bombs were ranged on either side of the observer. He knew the moment had come, and with a rapid movement Dennis flung them over into space! As the sixth left his hand he felt the machine begin to mount steeply as Laval opened the throttle and put the engines to their fullest power, and the remaining four death-dealing missiles were dropped out at random. Peering down over the edge, three tremendous explosions reached their ears, followed by another and another; and then everything was drowned in the mightiest explosion of them all, as Zeppelin and hangar burst into a sheet of flame. Wider and wider it spread, and higher it rose, a great red and yellow roar of lapping tongues, sometimes hidden by dense black smoke, only to flare out brighter than before. And still the raider climbed at a perilous angle, and at such a speed that Dennis gave up all attempts to use his glasses. As he clung with one hand to a gun bracket, looking giddily down, something screamed past the aeroplane, missing the wings by only a few feet, and a shrapnel shell burst overhead. "I thought 'Archibald' would have something to say to us," muttered Dennis, as Laval banked away to the right, still rising. "Hallo! Now they've got us!" And three brilliant beams shot into the night sky, one of them focusing the Aviatik and the two others instantly joining it, to show the anti-aircraft gunners their target. Laval dived--a breathless, daring swoop down--as two shells burst above their heads; but, quick as he was, a shower of bullets rained through one of the wings. Dennis could see the holes when the searchlights got them again, and the side of the fuselage was pitted with dents.