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. Perhaps it was less physical
exhaustion than emotion, which can make huge drains upon the system. Now
he was in the keeping of nature which was restoring all his powers of
both mind and body, and keeping him there until he should again have all
his strength and all the keenness of his faculties, needful for the
great work that lay before him.
It was halfway toward noon when he awakened, remembered dimly in the
first instant, and then comprehending everything in the second.
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