Several shots were fired at the aeroplane. Lawrence was somewhat surprised that the men were not struck with panic, like their horses, at the appearance of this strange booming monster of the air. It did not occur to him until afterwards that rumours of it must have been carried far and wide through the country for months past. Men who had seen it in its flights had described it to their neighbours or to wanderers whom they met in the hills; and although few, perhaps, of these tribesmen now present had actually seen it before, doubtless many of them had heard more or less veracious accounts of it. The frantic terror of the ponies suggested to Lawrence an idea on which he acted immediately. He abandoned his original purpose of making a preliminary reconnaissance of the whole position and then retiring to a distance to work out a plan. To a mounted force there is nothing so demoralizing as the loss of their horses. Lawrence knew this, and in a flash saw also that the Major, if he should escape from the tower, would have little to fear from an enemy pursuing on foot. He resolved therefore to attempt to stampede all the horses, and take advantage of the resulting confusion. By the time he had come to this determination he was some distance past the nullah. Telling Fazl to drop a bomb among the horses when he again crossed it, he rose rapidly to a height of about a thousand feet, wheeled round, and swooped down in a long incline towards the camp. He scarcely realized that he was taking his life in his hands as he flew almost within point-blank range. Nor had he calculated on the possible effect of the coming explosion on the aeroplane. When he arrested his downward flight he was so near the ground that the bursting of the bomb set the machine rocking violently, and for a few moments he could scarcely control it. Cool-headed marksmen could then have taken fatal aim at him; but the Afghans were fascinated and paralysed by his headlong descent, and while they were still wondering and dreading what it might portend, the explosion of the bomb within a few yards of them struck them with terror.