"Not yet. I suppose the excitement has made my blood flow faster than usual, and that keeps me warm."
"It won't much longer. We're up pretty high now, and we're flying fast toward that beautiful country of mine. Can't you feel the wind rushing like a hurricane past your ears?"
"Yes, I do, and in the last minute or two it's acquired an edge of ice."
"And that edge will soon grow sharper. We're going higher."
John felt the upward swoop of the plane. The sensation that a ship gives a passenger when it dips after a swell returned, but it quickly passed. With it went all fear, and instead came a sort of unreasoning exhilaration, born of a strange new tincture in his blood. His ears were pounding and his heart had a more rapid beat. He hoped that Lannes would go yet higher. Yes, his comrade was right. He did feel the wind rushing past, and heard it, too. It was a pleasant sound, telling of trackless miles through the ether, falling fast behind them.
Those moments were filled for him with a new kind of exaltation. Despite the cold heights the blood still flowed, warm, in his veins. The intangible sky was coming nearer and its dusky blue of the night was deepening. The great, friendly stars looked down, meeting his upturned gaze, and still danced before him.
Now, he dared to stare down for the second time, and his heart took a great leap. Far beneath him, somber and dark, rolled the planet on which he had once lived. He had left war and the hate of nations behind. Here was peace, the steady throb of the motor in his ear was soothing music.
"I see that you've got your air-balance, John," said Philip, "you learn fast. I think that Castelneau and Méry would approve of you. Since you've learned to look down now with steady eyes take these glasses."
He handed him a pair of powerful glasses that he took from under the seat, and John, putting them to his eyes turned them downward. It gave him a strange tingling sensation that he from some unknown point in space should look at the earth as a distant and foreign planet.
But the effect of the glasses was wonderful. The earth sprang forth in the moonlight. He saw forests, fields, villages, and the silver ribbon of a river. But all were racing by, and that, even more than the wind rushing past, gave him an idea of the speed at which they were going. He took a long, long look and then returned the glasses.