repared as the Germans
were, but we've the tools, and we know how to use them."

He corrected the course of the _Arrow_ and again dropped down slowly
toward the Zeppelin. John's eyes, used to the darkness, caught a glimpse
of Lannes' face, and he was surprised. He had never before seen one
express such terrible resolution. Some dim idea of his purpose entered
the American's mind, but he did not yet realize it fully.

But his sense of the weird, of acting in elements, hitherto unknown to
man, grew. The Arrow, smooth, sleek and dangerous as death, was feeling
its way in the darkness among a swarm of enemies. Its very safety lay in
the fact that it was one among many, and, wrapped in the dark, the
others could not tell its real character, fifty feet away.

John could truthfully say to himself afterwards that he did not feel
fear at that time. He was so absorbed, so much overwhelmed by the
excitement, the novelty and the cloud of darkness hiding all these
actors in the heavens that no room was left in him for fear.

Lower and lower they dropped. The Zeppelin, evidently not far above the
earth, was moving slowly.

John was reminded irresistibly of an enormous whale lounging in the
depths of the ocean, which here was made up of heavy clouds. In another
minute by the aid of the powerful glasses he made out two captive
balloons, and a little farther westward three aeroplanes flying about
like sentinels pacing their beats. He also saw beneath them lights which
he knew to be the fires of a great camp, but he could not see the men
and the cannon.

"The German camp is beneath us," he said.

"I thought you'd find it there," returned Lannes bitterly. "It's where
our own camp ought to be, but our men were defeated in that battle which
we heard, and here the Germans are."

John did not see him this time, but the look of pitiless resolve in the
eyes of the young Frenchman deepened. That the Germans should come upon
the soil of France and drive the French before them overwhelmed him with
an agony that left no room for mercy.

"There goes another of the Taubes," he whispered, as a shadow flitted to
the right "They're cruising about in lively fashion. If anybody hails us
don't answer. I'll turn away in the darkness, pretending that we haven't
heard."

The hail came almost as he spoke, but the Arrow veered to one side again
at an angle, and then, after a few minutes, came back to a point, where
it hovered directly over the Zeppe