Germans will surely attack
in the morning."

CHAPTER XIV

THE GERMAN HOST

John was turning away from the camp fire with his friends, when he saw
something drop out of the dark, and disappear in a little valley near
them.

"Another of those aeroplanes," said Carstairs. "I can't get wholly used
to the way they zigzag and spiral about at night like huge birds of
prey. They always give me a chill, even when I know they're our own."

John had secured one good look at the machine as it swooped toward the
earth, and he asked his friends to walk with him toward the improvised
hangar, where it would surely be lying.

They saw a man of slender but very strong build step from the aeroplane,
and throw back his visor, showing a tanned face, a somewhat aquiline
nose, and eyes penetrating and powerful like those of some bird that
soaring far up sees its prey on the earth below. It was an unusual,
distinctive face, and the red firelight accentuated every salient
characteristic.

"Lannes!" said John joyfully. "I thought it was the _Arrow_ when I saw
you descending!"

John stood in the shadow, and the young Frenchman took a step forward to
see better. Then he too uttered an exclamation of gladness.

"It's Monsieur Jean the Scott, my comrade of the great battles in the
air!" he said. "It was my hope rather than my expectation to find you
here."

He grasped the extended hand and shook it with great warmth. Then John
introduced him to his friends. Lannes and Carstairs surveyed each other
a moment.

"Frenchman and Englishman have been on the same battle fields for a
thousand years," said Carstairs.

"Usually the only ones there, and fighting each other," said Lannes.

"Whichever side won, the victory was never easy."

"You are a brave people. We French are the best witnesses of it."

"We are always slow to start. We are usually the last to reach the
battle field."

"Also, usually the last to leave it."

"It seems fitting to me that the enemies of a thousand years should have
exhausted all their enmity and should now be united against a common
foe."

"Without you we could not win."

Lannes' wonderful eyes were sparkling. There is something deep and
moving in the friendships of youth. Moreover it made a powerful appeal
to his strongly-developed dramatic side. Foes of a thousand years were
bound to acknowledge the merits of each other. Carstairs, less
demonstrative, felt the same appeal. Then they too shook