o fly of my own
accord if I smash at the end of it. I will have something to pay for my
sleep. Of all other things--. In my past it was my dream to fly.
Now--keep your balance."

"A dozen spies are watching me, Sire!"

Graham's temper was at end. Perhaps he chose it should be. He swore.
He swung himself round the intervening mass of levers and the
monoplane swayed.

"Am I Master of the earth?" he said. "Or is your Society? Now. Take your
hands off those levers, and hold my wrists. Yes--so. And now, how do we
turn her nose down to the glide?"

"Sire," said the aeronaut.

"What is it?"

"You will protect me?"

"Lord! Yes! If I have to burn London. Now!"

And with that promise Graham bought his first lesson in aerial
navigation. "It's clearly to your advantage, this journey," he said with
a loud laugh--for the air was like strong wine--"to teach me quickly and
well. Do I pull this? Ah! So! Hullo!"

"Back, Sire! Back!"

"Back--right. One--two--three--good God! Ah! Up she goes! But this
is living!"

And now the machine began to dance the strangest figures in the air. Now
it would sweep round a spiral of scarcely a hundred yards diameter, now
rush up into the air and swoop down again, steeply, swiftly, falling like
a hawk, to recover in a rushing loop that swept it high again. In one of
these descents it seemed driving straight at the drifting park of
balloons in the southeast, and only curved about and cleared them by a
sudden recovery of dexterity. The extraordinary swiftness and smoothness
of the motion, the extraordinary effect of the rarefied air upon his
constitution, threw Graham into a careless fury.

But at last a queer incident came to sober him, to send him flying down
once more to the crowded life below with all its dark insoluble riddles.
As he swooped, came a tap and something flying past, and a drop like a
drop of rain. Then as he went on down he saw something like a white rag
whirling down in his wake. "What was that?" he asked. "I did not see."

The aeronaut glanced, and then clutched at the lever to recover, for they
were sweeping down. When the monoplane was rising again he drew a deep
breath and replied, "That," and he indicated the white thing still
fluttering down, "was a swan."

"I never saw it," said Graham.

The aeronaut made no answer, and Graham saw little drops upon his
forehead.

They drove horizontally while Graham clambered back to the passenger's
place out of the lash of