Lawrence guessed that the Kalmuck airmen would now suppose him to have risen, and would themselves be mounting in order to keep above him. He therefore resolved to keep low. The sequel showed that the enemy had been cunning enough to guess at his guess. When they reappeared, so far from ascending they were descending, yet gradually, so that they might adapt their course to the exigencies of the moment. They were now only two hundred feet above him. This time he decided not to rush past and continue his flight up stream, but to wheel at the turning-place, and save time and petrol by flying back in their wake to his platform. He realised afterwards that he began his turning movement a trifle too soon, though, as the event proved, his indiscretion served him well. The enemy had not quite met him when he shifted his rudder for circling round the bay. He expected them to flash by as usual at express speed, but to his intense astonishment and alarm he found that instead of continuing on their direct course they had suddenly banked over, and were wheeling above him in the same direction as himself. It was a manoeuvre of extraordinary daring, for the larger aeroplane required a much wider circle than the smaller, and in order to clear the cliffs it had to remain banked up at a dangerously sharp angle. Lawrence felt himself trapped. He could not fly out at either end of the bay, he thought, without being immediately followed by the enemy, who would then have him at their mercy. Yet he was in equal danger if he remained circling below them, for though their flight was swifter than his, at some moment their machine would be vertically above him, and they would doubtless seize that moment for hurling a bomb. He could not descend without shattering the aeroplane on the banks or plunging into the river. He felt as helpless as a pigeon beneath an eagle.