smiled oddly.

No answer. A certain swelling of the Frenchman's throat became
visible, and his lips twitched slightly, but no sound was audible. A
dull flush mounted over his bronzed cheek.

"Ah, you do not answer?" asked the other, with indulgent patronage.
"I assume, however, that you have the authority to accept my surrender
and that of my crew. I assume, also, that you are willing to sign for
the airship." He opened a drawer, took a paper, and on it wrote a few
words. These he read over carefully, adding a comma, a period.

Leclair watched him with fixed gaze, struggling against some strange
paralysis that bound him with unseen cords of steel. The Frenchman's
eyes widened, but remained unblinking with a sort of glazed fixity.
The Master slid the paper toward him on the desk.

"_Voilà, monsieur!_" said he. "Will you sign this?"

A shivering tremor of the Frenchman's muscles, as the ace sat there so
strangely silent and motionless, betrayed the effort he was making
to rise, to lift even a hand. Beads of sweat began to ooze on his
forehead; veins to knot there Still he remained seated, without power
to speak or move.

"What? You do not accept?" asked the Master, frowning as with
puzzlement and displeasure. "But, _allons donc!_ this is strange
indeed. Almost as strange as the fact that your whole air-squadron,
with the sole exception of your own plane, was dropped through the
clouds.