Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/113

108 seething mass of people. There were men and boys; women struggled with the crowd; and girls, who had better have stayed at home in some degree of safety, added to the throng.

All were staring up toward the heavens, covered with gray clouds. Powerful searchlights played across the sky, the long shafts of white light looking very weird.

Loud cries attested to the fact that one of the attacking airships had been discovered. Many fingers pointed it out, and as Tom had carried his binoculars along he quickly had the glasses focussed on the small object high up in the heavens.

"It's certainly a big balloon, and looks like a long sausage," he told Jack, as he stared entranced. "And all around it I can see queer little puffs of smoke breaking out, though most of them seem to be below the Zeppelin. Those must be the shrapnel shells they're firing up at the invader from the anti-aircraft guns used to defend the city. They're mounted on roofs of houses, they say."

It was a thrilling sight, and one the two chums would not have missed for a great deal. The lone Zeppelin was steering directly over a part of the city which was densely populated by the poor. Doubtless other great airships were moving in lanes that would take them