A few moments later its light was mixing with the dulling stars, and the drone of its engine could be heard only at the whim of the breeze. "I wonder what the Black Cat's up to now," said mechanic No. 1, rubbing his hands together for warmth. "Rum beggar, isn't he?" His companion slapped his breast with his arms and blew on his fingers. "Mad as a March hare," he growled; "takes a two-seater out at this time of night." "And did you notice the extra outfit?" "He's mad," repeated the before-dawn psychologist, "mad as a rabbit." "But he's a mighty stout boy," interposed the N.C.O., who was torn between his duty of keeping discipline and his love of character study; "and he sure puts the wind up Fritz when he takes off with his Black Cat Bristol fighter." The blackness of night was beginning to give way to a dull and sullen gray as the solitary pilot made a detour over the lines. In the gloom beneath he could see a long crescent of orange-colored flashes where the British guns were maintaining their endless pounding of the enemy. Farther east was a large patch of winking, yellow lights, giving to his eye the same effect as flakes of gunpowder dropped upon a heated stove: it was the bursting of the British shells. Beyond that field of death he could see other and larger flashes, and knew the Hun was replying in kind. Everywhere the darkness was being penetrated by long, rocket-like lights with a white, starry burst at the end, and, as though to give variety to the scene, a few red and green bursts mingled garishly with them. To the airman, from his refuge of height, it all combined in an uncanny pageant of fireworks--a weird spectacle of death, as though hell had opened and the passions of men were feeding the flames to make a devils' holiday. A searchlight woke him from his reverie. A couple of anti-aircraft guns barked at him. With a smile he noticed the rapid approach of morning's light, and, turning to the west, he set his course by the compass and made for the lonely mill-house of Picardy. VI From a meadow at the top of a hill, a girl watched the horizon of the east as the first glow of daylight heralded the arrival of Aurora's chariot. The hurried walk from the mill-house and the climbing of the hill had set her pulses throbbing with vitality, and as she watched the dull gray give way with the promise of dawn, a wild, unthinking spirit of exaltation seized her. Like the Pippa of Browning's song, she felt her spirit rise with the triumph of nature. Day! Faster and more fast, O'er night's brim, day boils at last: Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim Where spurting and suppressed it lay, For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.