"Aeroplanes!"
"Aeroplanes? Perhaps that was the sound that woke me."
"There're at least a dozen. I saw one a few moments ago dead against
the moon. The guard back by the cliff fired his rifle and that's what
roused father. We're going to open on them right away."
"Are they here on purpose?"
"Yes--it's that Italian who got away---"
Simultaneously with her last word, a succession of sharp cracks
tumbled in through the open window. Kismine uttered a little cry, took
a penny with fumbling fingers from a box on her dresser, and ran to
one of the electric lights. In an instant the entire chateau was in
darkness--she had blown out the fuse.
"Come on!" she cried to him. "We'll go up to the roof garden, and
watch it from there!"
Drawing a cape about her, she took his hand, and they found their way
out the door. It was only a step to the tower lift, and as she pressed
the button that shot them upward he put his arms around her in the
darkness and kissed her mouth. Romance had come to John Unger at last.
A minute later they had stepped out upon the star-white platform.
Above, under the misty moon, sliding in and out of the patches of
cloud that eddied below it, floated a dozen dark-winged bodies in a
constant circling course. From here and there in the valley flashes of
fire leaped toward them, followed by sharp detonations. Kismine
clapped her hands with pleasure, which, a moment later, turned to
dismay as the aeroplanes, at some prearranged signal, began to release
their bombs and the whole of the valley became a panorama of deep
reverberate sound and lurid light.
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