Once a shell came up from the ground, and burst between pursuer and pursued, and a gleam of fierce hope shot through the lad's heart as he saw the French "75" making good practice against the vicious little gadfly.
Higher and higher mounted the Fokker to get out of range, and still Dennis kept on, remembering his appointment with the French Generalissimo, and glancing alternately from the chart to the little clock beside the aneroid barometer, whose registration was useless at that height.
"Twenty-five minutes! Great Scott! can I do it?" he muttered, clutching the control wheel with his frozen fingers.
"Well, messieurs, it is a pity, and I am afraid something must have happened to that young officer," said General Joffre, consulting his watch for the last time. "I must find another messenger to carry my reply to the Commander-in-Chief of our Allies."
And then he stopped as a murmured exclamation broke from the group of officers, and everyone looked up to the grey sky across which some rainclouds were drifting.
"It is an aerial combat, mon Général," said one of them. "Ma foi! I should not care to travel at that speed, let alone fight with nothing under one's feet!"
Two dots scarcely larger than flies on a window-pane had suddenly detached themselves from the rain clouds, and were manœuvring curiously in the direction of the village. Larger and larger they grew, the smaller dot obviously trying to gain the advantage of height, and mingling with the throb of the engines they could now hear the rattle of a machine-gun.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the Generalissimo, fixing them with his glass. "These machines are German. I can see the Iron Cross painted upon them both. Send word to the battery yonder to make ready. It is a raid, and they are adopting those manœuvres to deceive us."
By the wall of the restaurant the young French chauffeur, Martique, who had driven Dennis to that place, waited with a smile dancing in his eyes, hoping against hope that the thing of which he alone knew was the thing that was taking place up yonder!