air too
was filled then with gigantic birds, enormous of beak and claw, from
which man could find refuge only in caves or thick, tangled woods, and
just such birds were seeking them now.

[Illustration] "Overhead the aeroplanes swooped lower and lower like
gigantic birds."

But two hundred yards to the grove and yet it seemed two miles! His
powerful imagination could already hear over his head the rush of the
aeroplanes, like the swoop of monster wings, and he felt himself bending
low in the saddle, lest his head be struck by an iron beak.

A rifle cracked in the air, and a bullet struck the ground between two
of the horses. Then came a sinister burr-r-r and shots rained near them.
It was a machine gun in one of the aeroplanes, flying so low now that
the angle at which it was fired was not acute.

John was brave and his will was so strong that it had great control over
his sensitive and imaginative mind. Yet he was never in his life more
terrified. That vivid picture of primeval man fleeing with all his might
from monsters of the air, grew more vivid every moment. He was fairly
drenched in terror, as his dim ancestor must have been in like case, nor
was he ashamed of it. He had one look each at his comrades, and their
faces were ghastly white. He knew that his emotions were theirs too.

The bullets flew thicker, but aim is uncertain, when one is flying from
a moving machine in the air, at speeding targets, and most of the
bullets flew wide. Carstairs was grazed on the shoulder, and Wharton's
horse was touched lightly on the flank, but gasping, both horses and
riders, they plunged into the wood, reckless alike of trees and
undergrowth, desperately seeking safety from the winged terrors that
pursued them.

It was fortunate for the three fugitives that it was not the ordinary
European wood, trimmed and pruned like a park. It was heavy with
foliage, and there was much undergrowth, in which the horse of Carstairs
tripped and fell, throwing him. But he did not begrudge that, as the
vines and bushes not only broke his fall, but meant safety.

"Since you're down Carstairs," said Wharton, "it's the duty of a comrade
to join you."

He sprang off his own horse and stood, rifle in hand, among the bushes.
John also dismounted, although in more leisurely fashion. His heart had
ceased to beat so heavily when they entered the wood. The immediate
anger of being snapped up by those giants of the air passed and the
revulsion of