THE YELLOW DOVE
idly by easy steps, down which she marked a well-worn footpath. The bottom of the gorge was of rock and sand shelving gradually toward the sea and fairly in its middle, built strongly of rough lumber, she saw a shed with wide doors which even now were open—a large hangar from which as she looked several figures wheeled forth a huge aëroplane—to a platform of planks which extended for a long way toward the sea. From a distance it was difficult to judge its measurements, but by comparison with the heights of the men Doris knew that she had never seen a machine so large. As the east grew lighter she could see Cyril plainly. He came out of the hangar dressed in leather, gave some orders which made the other figures hurry and a series of deafening explosions from the engine as they “tuned it up,” gave Doris a sense of immediate departure. For a while she watched, fascinated, her interest in the size of this huge toy and its possibilities making a separate mind-picture which superseded all those that had gone before. But as the light grew stronger and she made out the color of the wide yellow planes, she started up with a cry which would have been heard by the men below her had it not been for the racket that the engine was making. “A huge machine with yellow wings,” she remembered Jack Sandys’ description, “a thousand horsepower at least.” The Yellow Dove—this was the Yellow Dove and the man of mystery, its driver, was—Cyril.
Spellbound and trembling with excitement, she watched Cyril climb up into one of the seats. Cyril was going to fly to the Germans, she knew it now, to obey the commands which had been brought last night by the German officer, commands to come to Germany and explain his failure to deliver his secret message to
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