"I’m not absolutely sure.... I’ll be back in a moment——" He turned and went swiftly into the house.
Philippa, leaning on the balustrade beside the Countess, said very quietly:
"I know what that sound is. I have heard it before from the outer boulevard in Ausone, when the grand maneuvers were going on."
Studying the horizon, he spoke at intervals in his pleasant, undisturbed voice:
"They have cleared the Ausone Fort; the flag, the semaphore, the signal tower—all are gone; there is nothing to be seen there except trees.... It looks like any hill now; nothing is stirring on it.... This glass brings the smoke much nearer, but it is impossible to guess what is on fire.... I don’t think it’s a forest.... I’m afraid it is a village."
He offered the glass to the others; each took a turn and made out nothing new until Philippa, gazing above the discoloring stain of smoke, spoke to Warner in a low voice and handed him the glasses.
For a few moments he stood rigid, his field glasses poised at an angle; then, still watching at the same angle, he said:
"You are perfectly right, Philippa; two aëroplanes are soaring between the smoke and the Ausone Fort."
One by one the others searched for the distant sky craft and discovered them.
They were still at it when tea was served, and, by that time, the deadened drumming sound had become unmistakable, increasing in volume with every lightest puff of wind, and, when the breeze died out, still filling the ears with its steady thudding.
Also, the dirty smoke-smear had spread, polluting the tender northern sky, and new centers of infection had appeared here and there amid the green landscape—dark spots of smoke which, at first, appeared insignificant and motionless, which were bigger in ten minutes, which in half an hour had become volumes. Yet their actual growing process was not perceptible, so gradually the looming spots assumed the threatening proportions of gloom.
Warner, his teacup on his knees, bracketed the field glasses on the aëroplanes once more, and was startled at their nearness.
Almost at the same instant a dry crack, like the breaking of a stick, sounded, coming from the direction of the distant fort—another, another, others following in quicker succession. And, watching, he saw below the aëroplanes a dotted line of tiny white spots, growing in length for a while, then maintaining its length as the rearward dots vanished and new dots of cottony white were added to the other end.