d of his motor fell faintly on our ears as a
whisper from the clouds. Then--_chut_!--it stopped, and in a single
leap he dived a sheer thousand feet.

That in itself was amazing temerity for one who had flown just long
enough to justify him in piloting an aero bus in a dead calm. But
I was little prepared for what followed. Instead of continuing his
flight horizontally at the end of that headlong dive, this tyro pulled
up his elevator, sweeping through a sharp curve into an upward leap
with all the dizzy impetus gained in his descent.

The crowd gasped. At my side Georges danced with anxiety upon the
turf.

"You are right," I said. "He is certainly crazy, this young Monsieur
Power."

"He calls it the _montagnes russes_, this trick," said Georges. "I
have told him that everybody who ever did it is long dead, with the
single exception of yourself, but that to him is entirely equal. See,
he has dived again only just in time!"

And, in truth, another moment of upward flight would infallibly have
caused him to lose headway, and fall backward, to flatten himself upon
the ground. But he had with superb coolness entered upon a second dive
of the most impressive, continuing his species of switchback descent
until within a few hundred feet of the hangars. I saw his head
protruding from the nacelle, incased in a flying helmet of perfectly
black leather. At that height the _remous_ and gusts hit him at
unexpected angles, and his machine rose and fell and rocked, as if
upon the waves of an invisible ocean. It was buffeted about until I
knew that he could not be on his seat half the time. First one wing
tip and then the other was blown upward, threatening irrevocable side
slip, but always at the last moment his instinct--for it could have
been nothing else--saved him in masterly fashion.

At one moment, indeed, as he banked high to turn down wind, it seemed
that he was lost, and a woman in front of me turned away with a little
cry of horror, her hands before her eyes.

But no! Blown like a leaf straight toward us, he wheeled again into
the teeth of the wind at the same astonishing angle, finally landing
neatly in front of the hangars. It was with an exclamation of relief
that I saw him leap from his machine safe and sound.

With a number of mechanicians, I ran to greet him, and he held out a
gloved hand, smiling in boyish delight and complete unconcern, and
showing all his square, white teeth. I burst at once into protests.