But Lawrence had not been more than a few seconds in pursuit before he found that in speed his machine was utterly outclassed. The enemy seemed almost to leave him standing. This was not unexpected; but as soon as he was sure of it he felt that his course of action was clearly marked out. It would be a fatal mistake to give the enemy enough air-room to take advantage of their superiority. If they got plenty of space for manoeuvring they could rise as far above him as they pleased, and either shatter the aeroplane with a well-placed bomb, or, having two rifles to one, could wait an opening for a shot that would incapacitate himself or Fazl, perhaps both. He must devote all his energy and skill to dodging and deluding the enemy, attacking them if occasion offered, in any case keeping them constantly employed. Their engine must consume a much larger quantity of petrol and lubricant than his. They must have used up a great deal in flying from their starting-place--Tash Kend, he presumed--and it was unlikely that there was any supply with the army at the end of the valley from which they could replenish their tanks. If he could only manoeuvre so as to starve them out of fuel, all their superiorities would be nullified and their usefulness would have vanished. It was a question now of calculating chances, or rather of guessing--like the children’s game when one brings his closed fists from behind his back and asks another to guess which hand holds the concealed object. When the two aeroplanes were out of sight, the occupants of neither could know what the others were doing. They could only make a random shot at the probabilities. Lawrence felt pretty sure that the enemy would seek to rise to a greater altitude than they supposed him to be attaining. He therefore decided to descend at once, and hover in the lower part of the valley. A long vol plané northward brought him within a short distance of the struggle going on at the bend. As he sped by, he ordered Fazl to drop a bomb among the enemy beyond the breastwork, then swooped past, three or four hundred feet above the river, turned at the first possible spot, and flew back to meet the enemy. As he expected, they had risen to a great height. Flying low as he now was, they were probably two thousand feet above him. When they saw him, they at once began to descend; but the machines were rushing in opposite directions so swiftly that the vertical distance between them was lessened by only two or three hundred feet when they met. A few seconds after they had passed, Lawrence heard two explosions, and Fazl reported that the enemy’s bombs had fallen, one in the river, the other on the cliff-side. Again they had missed their aim.