Mamma. "I don't feel _able_ to die to-day."

"You shan't, if I can help it," answered Mr. Barrymore, without looking
round; but as he never wears goggles, I could see his face plainly from
my place by his side, and I thought it had rather an odd, stern
expression. I wondered whether he were cross with Mamma for seeming to
doubt his skill, or whether something else was the matter. But instead
of fading away, the expression seemed to harden. He looked just as I
should think a man might look if he were going to fight in a battle. I
awfully wanted to ask if anything were wrong, but something
mysterious--a kind of atmosphere around him, like a barrier I could feel
but not see--wouldn't let me.

"I believe the thing is broken, somehow," I said to myself; and the
thought was so awful, when I stared down at all those separate layers of
precipice which we would have to risk before we reached human-level (if
we ever reached it) that my heart pounded like a hammer in my side. It
was a terrible sensation, yet I revelled in it with a kind of desperate
joy; for everything depended on the eye, and nerve, and hand of this one
man whom it was so thrilling to trust.

Each time we twisted round a corkscrew I gave a sigh of relief; for it
was one less peril to pass on the way to safety.

"Do just stop for a moment and let us breathe," cried Mamma; and my
suspicions were confirmed by Mr. Barrymore's answer, thrown over his
shoulder. "It's best not, Countess," he said. "I'll explain afterwards."

Mamma is always ecstatic for an instant after any one has addressed her
as "Countess," so she didn't insist, and only murmured to herself, "Oh,
_why_ did I leave my peaceful home?" in a minor wail which showed me
that she wasn't really half as anxious as I was. But if she could have
seen Mr. Barrymore's profile, and had the inspiration to read it as I
did, she would probably have jumped out of the automobile in full
flight. Whereupon, though she might have gained a crown to wear upon her
forehead, all those on her brushes and powder-pots, and satchels and
trunks, would have been wasted. Poor little Mamma!

We plunged down below the snow-line; we saw far beneath us a wide, green
valley, where other people, the size of flies, were safe if not happy.
We passed some barracks, where a lot of sturdy little mountain soldiers
stopped bowling balls in a dull, stony square to watch us fly by. We
frightened some mules; we almost made a horse faint away;