They were scouting with powerful glasses, or directing the fire of the batteries.

One French machine circled directly over John, not more than two or three hundred feet away, but the man in it, keen of eye though he was, did not dream that one of the bravest of the Strangers lay asleep under the hedge beneath him.
The fleets of flyers were larger than usual, as if they were anxious to take the fresh air, after days of storm.

But the most daring and skillful of all the airmen, Philip Lannes, was not there.

He still lay in a hospital a hundred miles to the west, with a bullet wound in his shoulder, and while the time was to come when the _Arrow_ under his practiced hand would once more be queen of the heavens, it was yet many days away.
The sun rose higher, suffusing the frosty blue heavens with a luminous golden glow, but John slept heavily on.

He had not known how near to exhaustion was his nervous system.