"Then we'd better make for home. Breakfast will be ready. It's nearly six o'clock, and we've been out an hour and a half."
Dastral nods, and heads the machine for home, altering the controls again in order to get a good altitude ready for crossing the trenches.
As he does so he happens to look away to the eastward, as the machine banks.
"Great Scott, look there!"
Jock did look, and in a cloud, not a couple of miles away, he saw two specks racing for them with twice the speed of an express train.
Seizing his glasses he fixed them for one second upon the objects, to discover, if possible, the rounded marks of the Allies upon the newcomers. Instead, he saw the black cross in a white rounded field, showing distinctly upon both machines.
"Enemy 'planes!" he shouted to the pilot.
"Himmelman?" suggested Dastral in a half bantering tone. "We're up against it this time, old man. He's the 'star turn' of the enemy's corps, and he fights like the deuce. I would like to have met him upon even terms. As it is, if we cannot leave him and get back with this information, we must fight him."
"Open the engine out, Dastral, and I'll bring the machine gun to bear."
Fortunately, the hornet had not been hit in any vital part, and her engine was running splendidly. But she had lost her altitude to get the precious photograph, having dropped nearly six thousand feet, and, in fighting, altitude counts a great deal, for it is much the same as the "weather gage" for which our sea-dogs used to contend in the olden days.