He dozed a short while, and then awoke with a start and an effort of the will. Lannes still slept like one dead. He felt that the young Frenchman and the Arrow were in his care, and he must fail in nothing. He stood up and walked about in the pocket, shaking the dregs of sleep from his brain. The sun doubled in size from that height, was sweeping toward the zenith. The radiant sky contained nothing but those tiny clouds floating like white sails on a sea of perfect blue. The gold on the snow of the far peaks deepened. He was suffused with the beauty of it, and, for a little space the world war and the frightful calamities it would bring fled quite away.
Lannes awoke about noon, stood up, stretched his limbs and sighed with deep content. He cast a questing glance at the heavens, and then turned a satisfied look on John.
"No enemy in sight," he said, "and I have slept well. Yea, more, I tell you, Yankee that you are, that I have slept magnificently. It was a glorious bed on that grass under the edge of the cliff, and since I may return some day I'll remember it as one of the finest inns in Europe. Have you seen anything while I slept, Monsieur Jean the Scott?"
"Only the peaks, the hills, the blue sky and three or four big birds which I was unable to classify."
"Let their classification go. When we classify now we classify nothing less than armies. Do you think the Arrow has had sufficient rest?"
"A plenty. It's a staunch little flying machine."
"Then we'll start again, and I think we'll have an easy trip, save for the currents which are numerous and varied in high mountains."
"What country are we in now?"
"A corner of Switzerland, and I mean for us to descend at a neat little hamlet I've visited before. They don't know war has begun yet, and we can get there provisions and everything else we need."
They launched the Arrow, and once more took flight, now into the maze of mountains. Their good craft frequently rocked and swayed like a ship at sea and John remembered Lannes' words about the currents. Reason told him that intervening peaks and ridges would make them break into all forms of irregularity, and he was glad when they hovered over a valley and began to descend.