fine. You're always late in getting back from leave. Last time you
only got in by the skin of your teeth, when we were off shooting, too.
If you overstep the mark again you'll find yourself brought up with a
round turn, you may take my word for it."

"I couldn't beg off after that," he said to Rodier. "Anyway, it's
rotten bad luck."

"Précisément ca!" said Rodier sympathetically.

For some little time they sailed slowly on, seeking in vain for a rift
in the blanket of mist: then Rodier cried suddenly--

"Better take a drop, mister. In three minutes all the petrol is gone,
and then--"

"I'm afraid you're right, Roddy, but goodness knows what we shall fall
on. We must take our chance, I suppose."

He adjusted the planes, so as to make a gradual descent while the
engine still enabled him to keep way on the machine, and it sank into
the mist. Both men kept a sharp look-out, knowing well that to
encounter a branch of a tree or a chimney-stack might at any moment
bring the voyage, the aeroplane, and themselves to an untimely end.
All at once, without warning, a large dark shape loomed out of the
mist. Smith instantly warped his planes, and the machine dived so
precipitately as almost to throw him from his seat. Next moment there
was a shock; he was flung headlong forward, and found himself
sprawling half suffocated on a damp yielding mass, which, when he had
recovered his wits, he knew to be the unthatched top of a hayrick.