THE BLACK FLIER
227
Englishman as he watched the woman he loved being carried to almost certain death. He saw the planes tilt and the machine rise from the ground. It was a good take-off—as good as Lieutenant Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick could make himself but he realized that it was only so by chance. At any instant the machine might plunge to earth and even if, by some miracle of chance, the black could succeed in rising above the tree tops and make a successful flight, there was not one chance in one hundred thousand that he could ever land again without killing his fair captive and himself.
But what was that? His heart stood still.
