rather large
man who sat his horse easily, his gloved hand resting on his thigh. He
saw distinctly that his face was very ruddy and covered with beads of
perspiration. Then man and horse together fell to the ground as if
struck by a bolt of lightning. The man did not move at all, but the
horse kicked for a few moments and lay still.

There was a shout of mingled amazement and horror from the other Uhlans,
and it found its echo in John's own mind. He saw one of the men look up,
and he looked up also. A dark shape hovered overhead. Something small
and black, and then another and another fell from it and shot downward
into the group of Uhlans. A second man was hurled from his horse and lay
still upon the ground. Again John felt that thrill of horror and
amazement.

"What is it? What is it?" he cried.

"I think it's the steel arrow," said Fleury, pressing a little further
forward and standing on tiptoe. "As well as I can see, the first passed
entirely through the head of the man and then broke the backbone of the
horse beneath him."

John saw one of the Uhlans, who had dismounted, holding up a short,
heavy steel weapon, a dart rather than an arrow, its weight adjusted so
that it was sure to fall point downward. Coming from such a height John
did not wonder that it had pierced both horse and rider, and as he
looked another, falling near the Uhlan, struck deep into the earth.

"There goes the aeroplane that did it," said John to Fleury, pointing
upward.

It hovered a minute or two longer and flew swiftly back toward the
French lines, pursued vainly a portion of the distance by the German
Taubes.

"A new weapon of death," said Fleury. "The fighters move in the air,
under the water, on the earth, everywhere."

"The Uhlans are off again," said John. "Whatever their duty was the
steel arrows have sent them on it in a hurry."

"And we're about to move too. See, these batteries are limbering up
preparatory to a withdrawal."

Inside of fifteen minutes they were again marching eastward, though
slowly and with the roar of battle going on as fiercely behind them as
ever. John heard again from some of the talk of the guards that the
Germans had five armies along their whole line, but whether the one with
which he was now a prisoner was falling back with its whole force he
had no way of knowing. Both he and Fleury were sure the prisoners
themselves would soon cross the Marne, and that large detachments of the
enemy would go