so potent and so swift, suddenly
appeared slow by comparison with this tremendous rush. How great the
monster seemed, how swift and steady! It passed quite closely beneath
them, driving along silently, a vast spread of wirenetted translucent
wings, a thing alive. Graham had a momentary glimpse of the rows and
rows of wrapped-up passengers, slung in their little cradles behind
wind-screens, of a white-clothed engineer crawling against the gale
along a ladder way, of spouting engines beating together, of the
whirling wind screw, and of a wide waste of wing. He exulted in the
sight. And in an instant the thing had passed.

It rose slightly and their own little wings swayed in the rush of its
flight. It fell and grew smaller. Scarcely had they moved, as it seemed,
before it was again only a flat blue thing that dwindled in the sky.
This was the aeroplane that went to and fro between London and Paris. In
fair weather and in peaceful times it came and went four times a day.

They beat across the Channel, slowly as it seemed now, to Graham's
enlarged ideas, and Beachy Head rose greyly to the left of them.

"Land," called the aeronaut, his voice small against the whistling of
the air over the wind-screen.

"Not yet," bawled Graham, laughing. "Not land yet. I want to learn more
of this machine."

"I meant--" said the aeronaut.

"I want to learn more of this machine," repeated Graham.

"I'm coming to you," he said, and had flung himself free of his chair
and taken a step along the guarded rail between them. He stopped for a
moment, and his colour changed and his hands tightened. Another step and
he was clinging close to the aeronaut. He felt a weight on his shoulder,
the pressure of the air. His hat was a whirling speck behind. The wind
came in gusts over his wind-screen and blew his hair in streamers past
his cheek. The aeronaut made some hasty adjustments for the shifting of
the centres of gravity and pressure.

"I want to have these things explained," said Graham. "What do you do
when you move that engine forward?"

The aeronaut hesitated. Then he answered, "They are complex, Sire."

"I don't mind," shouted Graham. "I don't mind."

There was a moment's pause. "Aeronautics is the secret--the privilege--"

"I know. But I'm the Master, and I mean to know." He laughed, full of
this novel realisation of power that was his gift from the upper air.

The aeropile curved about, and the keen fresh wind cut across Graham's