He swept round and round in his corkscrew flight, rising gradually until he was more than two thousand feet above the river. His view was now greatly extended, and when the larger aeroplane came in sight from round a bend nearly a mile away, he saw with a flash of hope that it was now lower than his own machine, although somewhat higher than before. Evidently the airmen had foreseen that he might rise in order to avoid their bombs, and sought to forestall him; but his narrow spiral had carried him up to a greater height than their two long inclined planes. The moment he saw them he started straight to meet them. Nothing could have been better calculated to assist his brother in the desperate struggle on the track. It was as when a charging bull is diverted from the object of his fury by the fluttering of a handkerchief or a newspaper within his range of vision. The Kalmuck airmen recognised that they had an opponent with whom they must seriously reckon; and though perhaps their general, looking on from below, would have bidden them to ignore the aeroplane, and pursue the more important duty of shattering the defences, they no doubt thought that a few minutes’ or even hours’ further delay would be less disastrous than the destruction of themselves and their machine. When the defenders’ aeroplane was out of action, the rest would be easy. Lawrence had resolved not to imitate the enemy in hurling a bomb while the machines were flashing past in opposite directions. His missiles were too precious for one to be wasted. As the aeroplanes met, he heard two cracks, followed by two metallic thuds on the iron plates below his chassis: the enemy had fired. What effect their shots had he knew not, but neither the engine nor the occupants suffered any injury. He had already commenced a turning movement. Completing his circle, he steered straight after the enemy, who were heading directly up the valley. There had been no explosion on the track or in the mine compounds as they passed: so far his tactics had justified themselves.