He bent down under pretence of examining the shaft of the steering-wheel to collect his thoughts and compose his features, and then a thought came to him. Had they been on the ground he would have pleaded that his engines were still wrong, but it was too late now. "I will take you willingly, Herr Colonel," he said. And, sitting down, he passed the two ends of the securing strap round his waist, and drew the buckle tight. "You are a long time, young man," said the colonel's companion. "We are off now," replied Dennis, starting the engines to avoid any awkward questioning, and breathing a silent prayer that they were all right. He thought of Laval, too, and wondered what he would think when he heard the whir; and it was as well that he did not know what was happening to his French friend, or possibly he would have failed to keep his nerve for the task he had set himself! The horses shied, and bolted across the plain, but no one thought of them as the Aviatik ran uneasily forward over the soft ground and rose like a bird. For a few minutes they mounted skyward, climbing slowly, and the stout General tried to make his companion understand by much gesticulation that the blockhead was taking the wrong direction. But the "blockhead" knew what he was about, and after a half circle to test the working of the engines, he opened the throttle and shot her upwards at a terrific speed. Well might his two passengers cling desperately to the gun brackets and to each other, but their shriek of terror was drowned as the machine gained an altitude of fifteen hundred feet and deliberately _looped the loop_! For a moment Dennis braced himself and clutched the wheel like a vice, but the strap held, the circle was completed, and the Aviatik, righting herself, skimmed over the pine-topped hill behind the hunting lodge, and planed majestically down towards the starting-point. Dennis's face was as white as a sheet of paper as he turned and glanced back over his shoulder. He was alone! "I hope it was playing the game," he muttered, as he brought the machine to a stand. "At any rate, it was the only game I could play under the circumstances." He jumped down and ran towards the lodge, feeling shaken and trembly, wondering what he would find. It struck him as odd that the garrulous old forester had not returned. Was Laval dead or dying? As he crossed the stream and mounted the slope he stopped, for the old man's voice was bellowing furiously, and the old woman screamed in concert. "What on earth is going on?" thought the lad, and seeing that the shutters of the ground-floor room in which he had left his friend had been opened, and it being very nearly broad daylight, instead of entering the hall he sprang to the window and looked in.