"How on earth are we to mend this?" said Burton, looking at it ruefully.
"Why not stuff it up with mud?" said Hunter. "This stuff at the edge of the lake seems to be clayey, and it will harden in no time."
"Good! It may last for the few miles we have still to cover. Just keep a lookout while I work at it."
Hunter went up the bank. A rough bridle-track skirted the lake and disappeared in a plantation that came down to within about a hundred yards of the water. To the south the view was shut in by a wooded knoll. There was neither man nor house in sight.
Burton had just kneaded some clay for stopping up the crack when they heard shouts in the distance, apparently from a southward direction. He ran up and joined Hunter, and they went together to the knoll some hundred and twenty yards away, from which they expected to get a view of the southern shore and perhaps of the men from whom the cries came. They were careful to keep under cover, and, on arriving at the knoll, lay flat on the ground. As they had hoped, they could now see a large portion of the lake which had previously been hidden from them, and caught glimpses, on the western side, of the bridle-track here and there among the trees. At intervals it disappeared behind slight hillocks or denser stretches of the plantation.
For a minute or two they saw no human beings. The sounds had ceased. But presently, about a third of a mile away to the south, they caught sight of a party of half a dozen horsemen searching the shore of the lake, now trotting into the wood, now riding at the edge of the water, now cantering along the bridle-track in the direction of the Englishmen.
"Turks!" murmured Burton.
"They must have seen the machines fall," said Hunter. "This is awkward, Teddy."
"It is, by Jove! and there are more of them. Look at that lot behind there. They'll be here in three or four minutes--no time to plaster the crack and get away."
"We had better scuttle our plane and dive into the woods. There's just a chance of our getting across the Maritza into Bulgaria."