Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/230

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

TAM O' THE SCOOTS

circulation. Then he climbed back into the fuselage and tinkered at the engine. He knew what was wrong and remedied the mischief in a quarter of an hour. Then he inspected his petrol supply and whistled. He had made a rough calculation and he knew within a few miles how far he was in the interior of Germany, and by the character of the country he knew he was in the marshy lands of Oosenburg, and there was scarcely enough petrol to reach the Rhine.

He left his machine, slipped an automatic pistol into the pocket of his overall and went on a voyage of exploration.

Half a mile from where he landed, he struck what he gathered was a high-road and proceeded cautiously, for the high-road would probably be patrolled, the more so if the noise of his machine had been correctly interpreted, though it was in his favor that he had shut off his engines and had planed down for five miles without a sound.

There was nobody in sight. To the left the road stretched in the diffused moonlight,

212