Part 48 (1/2)

”Good G.o.d, man! Why did you do that?”

Vauquelin answered only with a pale grimace and a barely perceptible shrug.

Momentarily gathering momentum, the biplane sped downward with a resistless rush, with the speed of a great wind--a speed so great that when Lanyard again attempted speech, the breath was whipped from his lips and he could utter no sound.

Thus from that awful height, from the still heart of that immeasurable void, they swept down and ever down, in a long series of sickening swoops, broken only by negligible pauses. And though they approached it on a long slant, the floor of vapour rose to meet them like a mighty rus.h.i.+ng wave: in a trice the biplane was hovering instantaneously before plunging on down into that cold, grey world of fog.

In that moment of hesitation, while still the adventurer gasped for breath and pawed at his streaming eyes with an aching hand, pierced through and through with cold, the fog showed itself as something less substantial than it had seemed; blurs of colour glowed through its folds of gauze, and with these the rounded summit of a brownish, knoll.

Then they plunged on, down out of the bleak, bright suns.h.i.+ne into cool twilight depths of clinging vapours; and the good green earth lifted its warm bosom to receive them.

Tilting its nose a trifle, fluttering as though undecided, the Parrott settled gracefully, with scarcely a Jar, upon a wide sweep of untilled land covered with short coa.r.s.e gra.s.s.

For some time the three remained in their perches like petrified things, quite moveless and--with the possible exception of the aviator--hardly conscious.

But presently Lanyard became aware that he was regularly filling his lungs with air sweet, damp, wholesome, and by comparison warm, and that the blood was tingling painfully in his half-frozen hands and feet.

He sighed as one waking from a strange dream.

At the same time the aviator bestirred himself, and began a bit stiffly to climb down.

Feeling the earth beneath his feet, he took a step or two away from the machine, reeling and stumbling like a drunken man, then turned back.

”Come, my friend!” he urged Lanyard in a voice of strangely normal intonation--”look alive--if you're able--and lend me a hand with mademoiselle. I'm afraid she has fainted.”

The girl was reclining inertly in the bands of webbing, her eyes closed, her lips ajar, her limbs slackened.

”Small blame to her!” Lanyard commented, fumbling clumsily with the chest-band. ”That dive was enough to drive a body mad!”

”But I had to do it!” the aviator protested earnestly. ”I dared not remain longer up there. I have never before been afraid in the air, but after _that_ I was terribly afraid. I could feel myself going--taking leave of my senses--and I knew I must act if we were not to follow that other... G.o.d! what a death!”

He paused, shuddered, and drew the back of his hand across his eyes before continuing: ”So I cut off the ignition and volplaned. Here--my hand. So-o! All right, eh?”

”Oh, I'm all right,” Lanyard insisted confidently.

But his confidence was belied by a look of daze; for the earth was billowing and reeling round him as though bewitched; and before he knew what had happened he sat down hard and stared foolishly up at the aviator.

”Here!” said the latter courteously, his wind-mask hiding a smile--”my hand again, monsieur. You've endured more than you know. And now for mademoiselle.”

But when they approached the girl, she surprised both by s.h.i.+vering, sitting up, and obviously pulling herself together.

”You feel better now, mademoiselle?” Vauquelin enquired, hastening to loosen her fastenings.

”I'm better--yes, thank you,” she admitted in a small, broken voice--”but not yet quite myself.”

She gave a hand to the aviator, the other to Lanyard, and as they helped her to the ground, Lanyard, warned by his experience, stood by with a ready arm.

She needed that support, and for a few minutes didn't seem even conscious of it. Then gently disengaging, she moved a foot or two away.