And the circle grows narrower and narrower, infernal, pitiless.
Everyone looks; there is nothing to see up there; bullets are elusive and invisible, but we make out the drama.
From his rapid evolutions, his sharp darts back and forth, his irregular and hurried spirals, we understand that the aviator has already been reached but is trying to baffle the fire which pursues him.
The tac-tac continues. It is incessant, implacable, ferocious. The silence of death hovers over men and things. All Nature seems to await the issue of the combat which is no longer doubtful.
I look at Grizard. Hand on the handle of the gun, he follows the evolutions of the aeroplane; his eyes shine as at a good trick he is playing on the acrobat up there, and softly, with all the desired expressions, as if he were before his audience at Belleville or at the Gaîté-Montparnasse, he hums:
Rêve de valse, rêve d’un jour,
Valse de rêve, valse d’amour.
“He’s hit,” Sergeant Lace cries suddenly.
And indeed he is hit.