"We can't hang in here. If we do they'll explore for us, and if we go on and through it they'll follow. Yet we can hope for a gain. Isn't it a beautiful machine, John, and hasn't it behaved nobly?"
He patted the Arrow as a man would a horse that had saved his life with its speed.
"We'll go slowly here, John. Have you got good ears?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Then uncover them and listen. In case one of the Taubes draws near you can hear its humming and throbbing. My hearing may be deadened a little for the time by my tension in sailing the Arrow, so you're our reliance."
John listened intently, and in a few minutes the sound they feared came to his ears.
"I hear it," he said suddenly, "and as sure as we live it's directly over our heads!"
"Then we must mount at once!"
Up shot the Arrow, and passing through the vapor it flew again with nothing above it but the clear, cold stars. John looked down, but his vision was lost in the mass of floating mist. He exulted. They had lost the Taubes! But joy lasted only a moment. Out from the bank shot a dark shape. It was one of the machines, and in two minutes the other appeared.
"They've come through the mist, too, and they see us," he said to Lannes. "They seem to be trying to rise above us."