The minutes dragged.
Then once more Jack bent his head, and put a hand up to his ear to listen. He laughed to himself with glee.
"That's Tom coming!" he muttered joyously. "I knew Tom wouldn't fail me. All the same I'll be mighty glad when I'm aboard the plane and on the air route to Bar-le-Duc and my own cot."
Louder grew the sounds. There could not be the slightest doubt about it now, Jack decided. A plane was coming at top speed, and keeping not a great distance above the treetops of the little valley in which the house of Carl Potzfeldt and the road to Metz lay.
Louder grew the insistent drumming. Jack wondered whether some of those at the château might not also hear the racket, and, guessing what it would mean, hasten out to the field in time to give Tom and himself a volley of shots.
Now the plane was coming, like a great condor of the Andes about to alight on a mountain peak. Jack gauged full well where it would land. He ran with all his might to be close to the spot. The less time wasted in getting him aboard the better for their safety, he believed, remembering what cause Carl Potzfeldt now had for being suspicious when a plane visited his meadow.
