"Was it an enemy—this airship, Jacques?"
"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds I could not tell. It might have been English. It must have been, I think—coming as it came from the sea. But I am troubled, Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an enemy's guns? Did the aëroplane come to earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of Laïs? I found no trace of it."
She said, tremulous perhaps from standing too long motionless and intent:
"Is it possible that the Boches would come into these solitary moors, where there are no people any more, only the creatures of the Laïs woods, and the curlew and the lapwings which pass at evening?"
He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a while; then:
"They go, usually—the Boches—where there is plunder—murder to be done.... Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose animates the Huns.... After all, Lorient is not so far away.... Yet it surely must have been an English aëroplane, beaten off by some enemy ship—a submarine perhaps. God send that the rocks of the Isle des Chouans take care of her—with their teeth!"
He drank his cider—a sip or two only—then, setting aside the glass:
"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to Laïs Woods. I called as loudly as I could; the wind whirled my voice back into my throat.... I am not yet very strong....
"Then I went into the wood as far as my strength permitted. I heard and saw nothing, Marie-Josephine."
"Would they be dead?" she asked.