His followers manifestly did not mean either to upset
or shoot him, but inexorably they drove him down, down. At last he was
curving and flying a hundred yards or less over the level fields of
rice and maize. Ahead of him and dark against the morning sunrise was
a village with a very tall and slender campanile and a line of cable
bearing metal standards that he could not clear. He stopped his engine
abruptly and dropped flat. He may have hoped to get at the bombs when he
came down, but his pitiless pursuers drove right over him and shot him
as he fell.
Three other aeroplanes curved down and came to rest amidst grass close
by the smashed machine. Their passengers descended, and ran, holding
their light rifles in their hands towards the debris and the two dead
men. The coffin-shaped box that had occupied the centre of the machine
had broken, and three black objects, each with two handles like the ears
of a pitcher, lay peacefully amidst the litter.
These objects were so tremendously important in the eyes of their
captors that they disregarded the two dead men who lay bloody and broken
amidst the wreckage as they might have disregarded dead frogs by a
country pathway.
'By God,' cried the first. 'Here they are!'
'And unbroken!' said the second.
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