ming over clover fields. It became louder and the
vibration quickened, and the note was like the deep stop of an organ.
Tremendously sustained was the voice of a great engine up in the
sky, invisible. Lights were searching for it now. Great rays, like
immense white arms, stretched across the sky, trying to catch that
flying thing. They crossed each other, flying backwards and forwards,
travelled softly and cautiously across the dark vault as though groping
through every inch of it for that invisible danger. The sound of guns
shocked into the silence, with dull reports. From somewhere in Paris
a flame shot up, revealing in a quick flash groups of shadow figures
at open windows and on flat roofs.

"Look!" said the man who had a view across the Boulevard St.
Germain.

The woman drew a deep breath.

"Yes, there is one of them! ... And another! ... How fast they travel!"

There was a black smudge in the sky, blacker than the darkness. It
moved at a great rate, and the loud vibrations followed it. For a
moment or two, touched by one of the long rays of light it was
revealed--a death-ship, white from stem to stern and crossing the sky
like a streak of lightning. It went into the darkness again and its
passage could only be seen now by some little flames which seemed
to fall from it. They went out like French matches, sputtering before
they died.

In all parts of Paris there were thousands of people watching the
apparition in the sky. On the heights of the Sacre Coeur inhabitants of
Montmartre gathered and thrilled to the flashing of the searchlights
and the bursting of shrapnel.

The bugle-calls bidding everybody stay indoors had brought Paris out
of bed and out of doors. The most bad-tempered people in the city
were those who had slept through the alerte, and in the morning
received the news with an incredulous "Quoi? Non, ce n'est pas
possible! Les Zeppelins sont venus? Je n'ai pas entendu le moindre
bruit!"

Some houses were smashed in the outer suburbs. A few people had
been wounded in their beds. Unexploded bombs were found in
gardens and rubbish heaps. After all, the Zeppelin raid had been a
grotesque failure in the fine art of murder, and the casualty list was so
light that Paris jeered at the death-ships which had come in the night.
Count Zeppelin was still the same old blagueur. His precious airships
were ridiculous.

A note of criticism crept into the newspapers and escaped the
censor. Where were the Fren