Still higher went their flight. The mountains shrunk into flatness and finally everything seemed to be a plain with black streaks—the forests; a white pool—the lake; and winding ribbons—the roads. And as Franka was not far-sighted, the whole picture swam in her vision into an empty gray plain. She recalled her dream and that terrifying feeling of being alone in space. But in sooth, she was not alone: her beloved was by her side.
“Put your arm around me,” she besought him. And as soon as that firm strong support went obliquely down from her shoulder embracing her waist, it seemed to her exactly as in that dream—the blessed sense of security that one is held and protected ... only this time with the difference, that she now knew who that one was, and she thanked Heaven that it was this one and not the other. She closed her eyes and bent her head back. She looked so pale that Chlodwig was alarmed, and bade the pilot to glide down and land them. Then Franka opened her eyes:—
“No, no, not yet—it is splendid!”
Her panic had vanished, and the peculiar fascinating intoxication of the flight through the upper air had seized her. “Do not land yet! Tell him to go in a wave-motion—up, down, up—down so that I may feel the sensation of flying, that I may know that we are flying.”
“Aren’t you frightened, my love,—you are so pale—”
“No, not afraid—only this new experience is so surprising, so overpowering—it is the fulfillment of a dream. Isn’t it delightful?”
“Oh, yes, the human race might, indeed, be proud of the heights which it has attained, if at the same time it had not remained so abject! Yet have patience—our watchword still is—‘Excelsior!’”
After another quarter of an hour, in which they had their heart’s content of mounting and descending, of gliding and curving, the pilot directed his aerial car to the landing-place and the two happy passengers dismounted.
They proceeded to the Rose-Palace on foot. Frau Eleonore came to meet them, as they walked along the terrace.
“At last!” she exclaimed; “I was beginning to be concerned about you—lest something had happened, Franka.”