Then came the starting of the motor, the wheeled run, and the leap into air. As we took wing, I could have sung for joy. I was so gloriously excited, I was hardly conscious of the noise of the engine. That helmeted head and the firm leather-clad shoulders beneath me seemed the head and shoulders of a god.
We circled over the enclosure. The Golden Eagle hadn't risen very high yet, but I had a queer feeling of being no longer related to any one on earth. I was with my champion, a creature of another sphere. Intoxicated with joy, I pressed the bulb twice. I could not hear the shrill whistle, but the driver evidently heard, for in obedience we shot up—up—up! The height indicator showed that we had reached the height of five hundred feet. I pressed the bulb again twice over. Eagle began to steer the monoplane in immense circles. I felt I could almost see our corkscrew-track in the air, like twisted threads of gold on blue. The hangars in the fields of Hendon were toy sheds on a green-painted tray. Even the aerodrome was no more than a big rat trap. London spread itself out beneath us, a vast dark patch, like a fallen cloud. A shaft of sunlight set a golden dome on fire. It must have been St. Paul's. For the third time I gave the signal to mount. For the third time Eagle obeyed. I wondered if he liked me a little for sharing the confidence he had in his machine.
A few white clouds floated lazily beneath us, like snowy birds of an intolerable brightness and titanic size. Then they joined together in a glittering flock, and lost the semblance of birds. The mass became a sparkling silver sea, with here and there a dark gulf in it like a whirlpool. The air grew biting cold. I felt it press on me through the fur-lined coat Di had lent, like blocks of solid ice. But the strange sensation only exhilarated me the more. "I'm not a coward, I'm not a coward. I'm brave!" The words sang themselves in my head to the accompanying roar of the motor.
It was a glorious, dependable roar, but suddenly, in the midst of a spiral movement, I noticed a change in the sound. A gurgle—a choking stammer. A spray of petrol dashed across my goggles.
"Now—what?" The question asked itself in my soul. But there was no fear with it, only an awed realization that this might be the end of things, as I had known them, in a very little world low down and far away. "What does it matter?" the answer came. But Eagle had turned round in his seat, and was handing me a spanner. Now he was motioning to me. If he spoke, I couldn't hear a word. Yet I understood from the gestures of one mittened hand what he hoped I might be able to do. Somehow, even then, the driving force of thought in my brain was to please him, to show him that he hadn't relied on me in vain, rather than to save us both from threatening danger, though danger I saw there must be. I was determined that the corporal should not fail the captain.
The thing I had to do, as I seized the situation, was to turn the spanner on a loosened nut in the petrol pipe, to which Eagle pointed. Reaching up with my right hand, I steadied myself with the left, and touched something hot, horribly hot. There was an involuntary flinch of the nerves as the heat burned through the thick mittens I wore and scorched my fingers, but I didn't scream, I'm glad to say, or let go the spanner. I screwed and screwed at the union, with the nasty smell of burnt wool, and perhaps flesh, in my nostrils. Then there came the glorious sensation of success as the song of the motor took up its old refrain again. No more choking and spluttering, and it was I who had cured it.
I gave a little sob of thanksgiving, because I hadn't failed; and a voice seemed to whisper far, far down under the renewed song of the engine, "What if this is a prophecy? What if, after Diana has left him in the lurch, it should be given to you to atone—to help or save him in some danger?"
The little voice was so strong, so clear, that I thrilled all over. What it said seemed to become part of an experience which I could never forget.