But now the steady tattoo of machine guns had become audible in the direction of the Ausone Forest, and the racket swelled swiftly into a roar of rifle fire and artillery—so rapidly, indeed, that every head in the vicinity was turned to listen—hussars, cyclists, infantry, the cannoniers lying beside their sky-guns, the military chauffeurs, the sentries, all looked toward the northeast.
Two more French aëroplanes took the air over the plateau, rose rapidly, and headed toward the Ausone Forest.
Down on the Saïs highway the slowly moving file of motor lorries drew out to the right-hand edge of the road, and past them galloped battery after battery, through a whirling curtain of dust—guns, caissons, mounted officers, flashing past in an interminable stream, burying the baggage vans out of sight under the billowing clouds. Columns of cavalry, also, appeared in the river meadows on both banks, trotting out across the stubble and splashing through the reeds, all moving toward the northeast.
The quarry road, too, was black with moving infantry; another column tramped across the uplands beyond; horsemen were riding over Vineyard Hill, horsemen crossed the Récollette by every ford, every pontoon—everywhere the French riders were to be seen swarming over the landscape, appearing, disappearing, in view again increased in numbers, until there seemed to be no end to their coming.
The uproar of the fusillade grew deafening; the sharper crack of the fieldpieces became dulled in the solid shocks from heavier calibers.
General Delisle came out on the terrace and stood looking across the valley just as the British biplane soared up over the trees—the Bristol machine, pointed high, racing toward the northeast.
Warner, looking up, realized that Halkett was up there. The roaring racket of the aëroplane swept the echoes along forest and hillside; higher, higher it pointed; smoke signals began to drop from it and unroll against the sky.
Looking upward, Warner felt a light touch on his elbow; Sister Eila had slipped her arm through his.
Gazing into the sky under her white coiffe, the Sister of Charity stood silent, intent, her gaze concentrated on the receding aëroplane.
When the first snowy puff ball appeared below it, her arm closed convulsively on Warner's, and remained so, rigid, while ball after ball of fleece spotted the sky, spread a little, hung, and slowly dissolved against the blue.