the other. Literally a dead line.
Benson had it now. He spread his map and charted his exact position. Meanwhile he glided lower and lower, back and forth across the line.
It was eerie. The motor went dead, caught again when he retraced his flight, went dead on the return. It was as if he passed through an invisible wall and into a spot where other-world conditions prevailed, and electricity, among other commonplace phenomena, did not function.
During a “live” period he tried to raise the others on the radio. There was no answer from any of the other four planes. It looked as if all had been caught in the fatal diamond.
Then, abruptly, his motor caught while he was to the south of the line. At the same moment, lights burst out in a formerly black area far ahead on the horizon, as a town that had been plunged in darkness began receiving power again.
The strange blackout was over.
But whereas the first one had only lasted between fifteen and twenty seconds, this one had endured for over eight minutes!
Dick’s radio chattered. It was Mac.
“Motor and radio dead for eight minutes, Muster Benson,” came the Scot’s burring voice. “I had enough altitude to keep in the air with a dead motor. Now, radio and motor okay.”
The rest radioed in, too, one by one. All but Dick had been too far within the diamond and had been caught when their ignitions failed.
One by one, The Avenger told them the same thing.
“Meet me at the Portland flying field immediately.”
Smitty was the only one whose curiosity caused him to question his chief’s orders.
“Portland it is. Heading for it now at three-eighty an hour. But why Portland, chief?”
“Because,” said Benson, “the power line, as I charted it, slants down from the north magnetic pole at an angle bringing it directly to or through Portland, Maine.”
Dick Benson and his associates knew every landing field in the country, plus a great many emergency landing spots known to few pilots. In a very short time The Avenger’s plane nosed down on a long slant toward the distant lights of Portland.
Stars like diamonds on a midnight-blue velvet background. Stars that twinkled in the clear night but gave off very little light. The night was so dark, indeed, that even the pale, infallible eyes of The Avenger didn’t see the things for quite a while—till the plane was almost unavoidably upon them.
The first thing he saw was a star, low on the horizon, blink mysteriously out like a light that has been turned off, and then blink on again. After that, he saw a section of night-light design of Portland ahead of him similarly blotted out.
And with that he brought the nose of the plane up in a screaming zoom and gave the motor everything it would take.
His face was calm and expressionless; his eyes were unwinking in their deadly coldness. Yet, with the brief blinking out of the star and the ground lights, he knew at once what faced him.
Balloons—with, no doubt, net or cable between to catch him. Someone had heard his radio command to the rest to come to Portland airport. Someone had instantly managed to get hold of some test balloon-barrage equipment, with which the army had been experimenting near Portland, and had sent the death trap up into the black night sky. A short notice of that army test with balloons and netting similar to London’s aerial defense had been in the papers recently.
Probably no other man could have caught the fleeting hints of the deadly bags so soon in the blackness of a moonless night and could have acted on it so swiftly.
Benson leveled off high above the altitude at which he had barely raked the top of the net. His pale eyes were like agate with cold embers behind them as he debated a calmly considered bout with death.
Mac’s plane had been nearest him along the mythical power line. Mac would be in here, on the same side of the field, in a few minutes. And there was that aerial death trap in his way.
By a thousand-to-one chance, he
Benson had it now. He spread his map and charted his exact position. Meanwhile he glided lower and lower, back and forth across the line.
It was eerie. The motor went dead, caught again when he retraced his flight, went dead on the return. It was as if he passed through an invisible wall and into a spot where other-world conditions prevailed, and electricity, among other commonplace phenomena, did not function.
During a “live” period he tried to raise the others on the radio. There was no answer from any of the other four planes. It looked as if all had been caught in the fatal diamond.
Then, abruptly, his motor caught while he was to the south of the line. At the same moment, lights burst out in a formerly black area far ahead on the horizon, as a town that had been plunged in darkness began receiving power again.
The strange blackout was over.
But whereas the first one had only lasted between fifteen and twenty seconds, this one had endured for over eight minutes!
Dick’s radio chattered. It was Mac.
“Motor and radio dead for eight minutes, Muster Benson,” came the Scot’s burring voice. “I had enough altitude to keep in the air with a dead motor. Now, radio and motor okay.”
The rest radioed in, too, one by one. All but Dick had been too far within the diamond and had been caught when their ignitions failed.
One by one, The Avenger told them the same thing.
“Meet me at the Portland flying field immediately.”
Smitty was the only one whose curiosity caused him to question his chief’s orders.
“Portland it is. Heading for it now at three-eighty an hour. But why Portland, chief?”
“Because,” said Benson, “the power line, as I charted it, slants down from the north magnetic pole at an angle bringing it directly to or through Portland, Maine.”
Dick Benson and his associates knew every landing field in the country, plus a great many emergency landing spots known to few pilots. In a very short time The Avenger’s plane nosed down on a long slant toward the distant lights of Portland.
Stars like diamonds on a midnight-blue velvet background. Stars that twinkled in the clear night but gave off very little light. The night was so dark, indeed, that even the pale, infallible eyes of The Avenger didn’t see the things for quite a while—till the plane was almost unavoidably upon them.
The first thing he saw was a star, low on the horizon, blink mysteriously out like a light that has been turned off, and then blink on again. After that, he saw a section of night-light design of Portland ahead of him similarly blotted out.
And with that he brought the nose of the plane up in a screaming zoom and gave the motor everything it would take.
His face was calm and expressionless; his eyes were unwinking in their deadly coldness. Yet, with the brief blinking out of the star and the ground lights, he knew at once what faced him.
Balloons—with, no doubt, net or cable between to catch him. Someone had heard his radio command to the rest to come to Portland airport. Someone had instantly managed to get hold of some test balloon-barrage equipment, with which the army had been experimenting near Portland, and had sent the death trap up into the black night sky. A short notice of that army test with balloons and netting similar to London’s aerial defense had been in the papers recently.
Probably no other man could have caught the fleeting hints of the deadly bags so soon in the blackness of a moonless night and could have acted on it so swiftly.
Benson leveled off high above the altitude at which he had barely raked the top of the net. His pale eyes were like agate with cold embers behind them as he debated a calmly considered bout with death.
Mac’s plane had been nearest him along the mythical power line. Mac would be in here, on the same side of the field, in a few minutes. And there was that aerial death trap in his way.
By a thousand-to-one chance, he
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