They were moving fast. But the automobile in the field before them seemed to be moving faster—Captain Wentz and four men! She saw Cyril’s hand rise in front of her, pointing to the left to avoid them, but Wentz came on. The Yellow Dove was still running on its wheels. She saw the danger. Wentz was aiming at a collision. She pulled her wheel toward her instinctively and the Yellow Dove rose, skimming the ground. She felt it lifting, slowly, now rapidly. The automobile seemed about to strike them. Another jerk on the wheel and the skids of the Yellow Dove just grazed the wind-shield of the machine, and a soldier leaped into the air, trying to catch a hold, missed and tumbled to the ground. In the car men were shouting like demons, and a volley of pistol bullets pierced the planes. She felt them strike the armored body, but she sank lower, clutching her wheel.
Clear? They must be. A second of agonized suspense and she saw Cyril turn his head and look down behind them. His face was white but his eye flashed triumph. His lips moved, but she heard nothing. Safe? They must be. The Yellow Dove, mounting easily, had cleared the trees at the border of the farm and before the eyes of the girl stretched only undulating surfaces of gray and green.
In front of her Cyril lay back in his seat. His hands clutched the sides of the cockpit. O God! She had not been sure before what his sudden lassitude had meant. He had been hit! John Rizzio! He turned around and smiled at her and one hand, stretched before him, pointed up and to the right. Her throat closed and her heart seemed to stop its beating and the Dove for a moment swung and tossed like a drunken thing, but with an effort she inclined her wheel and met it. Cyril again raised his fingers and pointed upwards. Higher! She tipped the wheel further toward her. His gesture was like an appeal to Heaven—a symbol of his faith in her and in the God of both. She set her lips and obeyed. Broken and helpless—perhaps dying, he was putting his faith in her. She must not fail him now.
She kept her gaze before her over Cyril’s head, trying to gain strength for what she had to do, thinking that she was in England—at Ashwater Park—and that the wheel she held was that of her own little Nieuport. There seemed to be little difference between them, except that the Yellow Dove was easier to manage. It responded to the slightest touch, and had a magnificent steadiness that reassured Doris as to her ability to do the thing that was required of her.
The mountains had fallen below them and the horizon had widened until it blurred into the haze of the distance. She looked down on what seemed to her a plain of purple velvet touched with lighter patches of orange and violet. Before her the sun was setting blood red in a sea of amber. She mounted above it into the clear empyrean of azure, higher—higher yet. She felt the exhilaration of large spaces, the joy of conquest over all material things. Death even did not dismay her—Cyril’s—her own. She seemed to have crossed at a bound, from the realm of substance into that of immateriality. Her soul already sang in accord with the angels. They were mated. She and Cyril—mated! And even Death should not separate them.
Dusk fell slowly below them, like a black giant striding across the face of the earth, but all was still bright and clear about her. The red ball of the sun would not set. She was going upward—upward into the realm of continuous and perfect day. Below her a thread of silk, thrown carelessly upon a purple carpet. The Rhine! She saw Cyril’s hand come up and move feebly to the right. She turned slowly and followed its direction. The Rhine—she remembered Cyril’s words back there in the woods. She must follow the Rhine to the sea and then turn to the westward along the coast. She would do it. She must.
Cyril was hurt—but perhaps not badly. His gestures reassured her. He moved his hand in a level line in front of him and she understood. They had mounted high enough. The barograph showed four thousand feet. She brought the wheel up to normal and held it there. The wind burned her cheeks and she knew from the changes in the river below her that the speed of the Yellow Dove was terrific—ninety miles—a hundred—a hundred and twenty—an hour—perhaps much more—she did not know. The speed got into her blood. Faster, faster, was the song her pulses sung. She was a part of the Yellow Dove now, and it was a part of herself. Its wings were her wings and its instinct was in her own fingertips.
Night fell slowly, a luminous night full of stars. She seemed to be hanging among them—to be one of them—watching the earth pass under her. Two of them gleamed like St. Elmo’s lights at the tips of the planes. The sky was clear and bright, of a deep bluish purple, like the skies she remembered high up on the plains of the great West in her own country. The air was bitter cold upon her face and she blessed Cyril’s foresight for the helmet, gloves and old leather jacket that he had put on her in the hangar. In front of her Cyril leaned slightly to one side and his right hand touched a button, throwing an electric light in a hood in front of the wheel upon the face of the compass and barograph. She glanced at them quickly—four thousand feet—the direction north-northwest. She longed to speak to him and shouted his name. But in the roar of the engines she could not hear her own voice.
He still sat up, the fingers of his right hand moving from time to time as he gave her the direction. She thanked God for that—he was alive—he would live until they reached Ypres. He must live. He must. She set her teeth upon the words and willed it, praying at last aloud with lips that screamed yet made no sound.
Below her moved the lights of a city. She did not know what it was. Cologne, perhaps. She had passed it yesterday morning in the train with John Rizzio. Yesterday! It seemed a year ago. Cologne—then Dusseldorf. The river was not difficult to follow. She lost it once and then moving at a lower altitude she found it quickly. But the old terror was gripping her now. Cyril! His fingers no longer moved directing her. He had sunk lower in his seat and his head had fallen back upon one side, his face upturned to the stars. Was he——?