nd dirigibles have gone to the ground, but they'll keep
enough above to watch. The clouds may enable us to slip by."

"If I had my way I'd wrap myself in the thickest and blackest of the
clouds and float westward with it."

"We'll have to go slowly to keep down the drumming of the motor. Now a
big push and a long push. So! There! Now we're rising!"

The Arrow, the strength and delicacy of which justified all of Lannes'
pride, rose like a feather, and floated gracefully above the trees,
where it hung poised for a few minutes. Then, as they were not able to
see anything, Lannes took it a few hundred yards higher. There they
caught the gleam of steel beyond the wood, and looked down on the camp
of Uhlans.

With the aid of the glasses they saw most of the men asleep on the
ground, but twenty on horseback kept watch about the field.

"One look is enough," said Lannes. "I hope I'll never see 'em again."

"Maybe not, but there are millions of Germans."

"That's the worst of it. Millions of 'em and all armed and ready. John,
I've chosen our road. We'll go north by west, and I think we'd better
rise high. During the night the German machines are likely to hang low,
and we may be able to pass over 'em without detection. What do you think
of those clouds?"

"They're not drifting much. They may hide us as a fog hides a ship at
sea."

The _Arrow_ began to soar. The Uhlans and the grove soon faded away, and
they rode among the clouds. John's watch showed that it was about three
o'clock in the morning. He no longer felt the chill of the air in those
upper regions. Excitement and suspense made his blood leap, warm,
through his veins.

Lannes, after his long sleep, was stronger and keener than ever. His
hand on the steering rudder knew no uncertainty, and always he peered
through the clouds for a sign of the foe, who, he knew well, was to be
dreaded so much. John, glasses at eye, sought the same enemy.

But they heard and saw nothing, save the sights and sounds of the
elements. A cold, wet wind flew across their faces, and the planet below
once more turned in space, invisible to eye.

"One could almost think," said John, "that we don't turn with it, that
we hang here in the void, while it whirls about, independent of us."

"I wish that were so," said Lannes with a laugh. "Then we could stay
where we are, while it turned around enough beneath us to take the
Germans far away. But don't you hear a faint buzzing there to the