He lay very close, but the rifle fire quickly passed to other portions of the wood, and then died away entirely. John straightened himself out and saw the biplane becoming smaller, as it flew off in the direction whence it had come.
"I hope you'll come to no good," he said, shaking his fist at the disappearing plane. "You've scared me half to death with your shots, and I hope that both your rudders will get out of gear and stay out of gear! I hope that the wheel controlling them will be smashed up! I hope that the top plane will crash into the bottom one! I hope that a French shell will shoot your tail off! And I hope that you'll tumble to the earth and lie there, nothing but a heap of rotting wood and rusty old metal!"
"Well done, Mr. Scott!" said Weber. "That was quite a curse, but I think it will take something more solid to disable the biplane."
"I think so too, but I've relieved my feelings, and after a man has done so he can work a lot better. What are we to look for now, Weber? We don't seem to have success in attracting anything but Germans. If Lannes is coming at all, as you think he will, he'll get a pretty late ticket of admission to our reserved section of the air."
"You must remember that the sky above us is a pretty large place, and at any rate we're a drawing power. We're always pulling something out of the ether."
"And our biggest catch is coming now! Look, Weber, look I If that isn't one of Herr Zeppelin's railroad trains of the air then I'll eat it when it gets here!"
"You're right, Mr. Scott. There the monster comes. It can't be anything but a Zeppelin! They must have one of their big sheds not far east of us."
"We'll hear its rattling soon. Like the others it will surely see our flag and make for it. But if they take a notion to shoot up the wood, as the men on that biplane did, we'd better hunt holes. A Zeppelin can carry a lot of soldiers."
The Zeppelin was not moving fast. It had none of the quick graceful movements of the aeroplanes, but came on slowly like some huge monster of the air, looking about for prey. It turned southeast for a moment or two, then some one on board saw the flag and coming back it lumbered toward the tree.
"Ugly things," said John. "Lannes and I blew up one once, and I wish I had the same chance against that fellow up there. But they're in the same puzzled state that the other fellows were. Men on both platforms are examining the flag through glasses, and the flag doesn't give a rap for them. It's standing out in the wind, now, straight and stiff. It seems to know that old Noah's ark can't make it out."