Cautiously Jack raised himself and parting the stalks, peered out. He saw something he had not noticed before. The man, who doubtless owned the belongings which had alarmed Jack, lay stretched out at the foot of a tree. He was on his face sleeping.
But was he sleeping?
An ugly, dark stain discolored the ground around him. His shirt was dyed crimson. Jack saw, with a shudder, that he had nothing to fear here. The poor peasant was dead. Shot down by wandering Uhlans no doubt, as he was about to gather his harvest.
“Poor fellow, he’ll never need these now,” said Jack, as driven by thirst and hunger he investigated the stone jug and the basket. One held cider, the other the man’s dinner of black bread, onions and coarse bacon.
Too famished to mind the idea of eating the dead man’s dinner, Jack stuffed his pockets, took a long pull of the cider jug and then plunged into the wood. Here he flung himself down to rest and eat. Then, tired as he was, he forced himself to rise and travel on again.
Faint and far off the distant rumble of cannonading came to his ears, but here in the woods it was as calm and peaceful as if war, death and slaughter were forgotten things. At length he came to a place where the woods thinned out and there was a small clearing. He was about to advance across this when he saw something that caused his heart to give a quick leap and stopped him short in his tracks.
At one side of the clearing was an aeroplane!
It was a big monoplane with gauzy, yellow wings and a body painted the color of the sky on a gray day, no doubt to make it invisible at any considerable height.
Any doubt that it was a war machine was removed by the sight of a small but wicked-looking rapid-fire gun that was mounted on its forward part.
Jack was still looking at it, rooted to the spot as if he had been a figure of stone, when there was a sudden crackle on the floor of the wood behind him.