It was to see the war balloon go up that I planned with a youthful wag of a Scot to rise at five o’clock one morning and walk out to the French lines before breakfast. He came to the roof and got me up, and we passed through the ruined streets, over the fallen bricks and mortar, to the outer gate, the _Bab-el-Sok_. Arriving in the open, the balloon appeared to us already, to our surprise, high in the air; and on the straight road that divided the French camp we noticed a thick, lifting cloud of brown dust. Lengthening our stride we pushed on as fast as the heavy sand would allow, passing the camp and overtaking the trail of dust just as the last cavalry troop of the picturesque French army turned out through an opening in the wire entanglements which guarded the town. General Drude did not inform correspondents when he proposed an attack. [Illustration: THE FRENCH WAR BALLOON.] [Illustration: AN ALGERIAN SPAHI.] Spread out in front of us on the bare, rolling country was a moving body of men forming a more or less regular rectangle, of which the front and rear were the short ends, about half as long as the sides. The outer lines were marked by companies of infantry, bloomered Tirailleurs and the Foreign Legion, marching in open order, often single file, with parallel lines at the front and vital points. Within the rectangle travelled the field artillery, three sections of two guns each; a mountain battery, carried dismantled on mules; a troop of Algerian cavalry; the general and his staff; and a brigade of the Red Cross. Outside the main body, flung a mile to the front and far off either wing, scattered detachments of _Goumiers_, in flowing robes, served as scouts. Already three of them on the sky-line, by the position of their horses, signalled that the way was clear. This little army, counting in its ranks Germans, Arabs, and negroes, as well as native Frenchmen, numbered all told less than three thousand men. It had got into fighting formation under shelter of a battery and two short flanking lines of infantry lodged on the first ridge; and passing through the wire entanglements the various detachments had found their positions without a halt. The force, even though small, was well handled, and the men were keen for the advance. Of course they were thoroughly confident; they might have been recklessly so but for the controlling hand of the cautious general. Finding ourselves at a rear corner of the block we set our speed at about double that of the columns of the troops and took a general direction diagonally towards a section of the artillery, now kicking up a pretty dust as it dragged through the ploughed fields. Overtaking the guns we slogged on with them for a mile or more, advising the officers not to waste their camera films, as they seemed inclined to do, before the morning clouds disappeared.