"Listen! … They were to blow the bugles when the Zeppelins came…
Perhaps…"
There were other noises rising from the streets of Paris. Whistles were blowing, very faintly, in far places. Firemen's bells were ringing, persistently.
"L'alerte!" said the man. "The Zeppelins are coming!"
The lamp at the street corner was suddenly extinguished, leaving absolute darkness.
"Fermez vos rideaux!" shouted a hoarse voice.
Footsteps went hurriedly down the pavement and then were silent.
"It is nothing!" said the woman; "a false alarm!" "Listen!"
Paris was very quiet now. The bugle-notes were as faint as far-off bells against the wind. But there was no wind, and the air was still. It was still except for a peculiar vibration, a low humming note, like a great bee booming over clover fields. It became louder and the vibration quickened, and the note was like the deep stop of an organ. Tremendously sustained was the voice of a great engine up in the sky, invisible. Lights were searching for it now. Great rays, like immense white arms, stretched across the sky, trying to catch that flying thing. They crossed each other, flying backwards and forwards, travelled softly and cautiously across the dark vault as though groping through every inch of it for that invisible danger. The sound of guns shocked into the silence, with dull reports. From somewhere in Paris a flame shot up, revealing in a quick flash groups of shadow figures at open windows and on flat roofs.
"Look!" said the man who had a view across the Boulevard St.
Germain.
The woman drew a deep breath.