nking. Of
course, every one said that they had fallen into the sea, but that did
not satisfy me at all. First, there was Verrier in France; his machine
was found near Bayonne, but they never got his body. There was the case
of Baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of the iron
fixings were found in a wood in Leicestershire. In that case, Dr.
Middleton, of Amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope,
declares that just before the clouds obscured the view he saw the
machine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly
upwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thought
to be impossible. That was the last seen of Baxter. There was a
correspondence in the papers, but it never led to anything. There were
several other similar cases, and then there was the death of Hay Connor.
What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air, and what
columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was ever done to get
to the bottom of the business! He came down in a tremendous vol-plane
from an unknown height. He never got off his machine and died in his
pilot's seat. Died of what? 'Heart disease,' said the doctors. Rubbish!
Hay Connor's heart was as sound as mine is. What did Venables say?
Venables was the only man who was at his side when he died. He said that
he was shivering and looked like a man who had been badly scared. 'Died
of fright,' said Venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened
about. Only said one word to Venables, which sounded like 'Monstrous.'
They could make nothing of that at the inquest. But I could make
something of it. Monsters! That was the last word of poor Harry Hay
Connor. And he _did_ die of fright, just as Venables thought.

"And then there was Myrtle's head. Do you really believe--does anybody
really believe--that a man's head could be driven clean into his body by
the force of a fall? Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I, for one,
have never believed that it was so with Myrtle. And the grease upon his
clothes--'all slimy with grease,' said somebody at the inquest. Queer
that nobody got thinking after that! I did--but, then, I had been
thinking for a good long time. I've made three ascents--how Dangerfield
used to chaff me about my shot-gun!--but I've never been high enough.
Now, with this new light Paul Veroner machine and its one hundred and
seventy-five Robur, I should easily touch the thir