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It was a good aeroplane, and Delaunois was a good aviator, but John missed the Arrow and Philip. He knew that the heavens nowhere held such another pair. Alas! that Lannes should be laid up at such a time with a wound! But he quickly called himself ungrateful. Delaunois had come at a most timely moment, and he was doing him a great service.
Several officers were examining them through glasses, but Delaunois sailed gracefully over the line, circled around a slender peak where he was hidden completely from their view, and then dropped down in a forest of larch and pine. "So far as I know," he said, when the plane rested on the snow, "nobody has seen our descent.
"That he had recovered fully of his wound, Mademoiselle, and that he and the Arrow were once more in the service of his country. He knows of your abduction by Prince Karl of Auersperg. A friend, an aviator, Delaunois, furnished him with many facts, and I cannot doubt that he will come over Austria in the Arrow to seek your rescue."
Modesty kept him from accepting Delaunois' tribute in full, but it had warmed his heart and strengthened his courage anew. Delaunois had considered it not a reckless quest, but high adventure with a noble impulse, and John's heart and spirit had responded quickly. Great deeds come from exaltation, and that mood was his.
"You know then that Lannes is in a hospital with a bullet wound in his shoulder?" "I heard it two days ago. A pity! A great pity! He'll be as well as ever in a month, but France needs her king of the air every day. My own name is Delaunois, and I'll put you down in those hills at whatever point you wish, Monsieur Jean Castel of America." John smiled. Delaunois was a fine fellow after all.
"I can't give you an extra suit for flying," said Delaunois, "but your two blankets ought to protect you in the icy air. I'll not go very high, and an hour or a little more should put us in the heart of the hills." "Good enough, and many thanks to you," said John. They gave the machine the requisite push, sprang in and rose slowly above the snowy waste.
Again the two strong hands met. A minute later the aeroplane rose in the air, carrying but one of the men, while Jean Castel, peasant of Lorraine, was left behind, standing in the snow, and feeling very grateful to Delaunois. John watched the aeroplane disappear over the peak on its return journey, and then he walked boldly eastward toward the German lines.
He was coming straight toward their pits and so they awaited him with some curiosity. John presently caught the shimmer of sun on bayonets, and he knew now that he would soon reach the German earthworks. His first care after Delaunois left him, had been to destroy the passport that General Vaugirard had given him and there was not a scratch of writing about him to identify him as John Scott.
"Yes, monsieur." "Then it's up and away with us. Here are Caumartin, Méry and Castelneau, old friends of yours, John, but it was Delaunois who brought me the last news of you. Caumartin has the Omnibus, and in it the bridal pair must travel. I can't take you with me in the Arrow now, John, as it admits of only a single passenger. But do you, Picard, take the rifles and come with me.
He knew that trenches or other earthworks ran among the hills also, but the nature of the ground compelled breaks, and it would be easier anyhow to pass through a forest or a ravine. "Where do you wish me to put you down?" asked Delaunois. "At some place in those low mountains there, where the German lines are furthest from ours." "I think I know such a point.
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