"You can depend on me!"
The nose of the Arrow was still tilted upward, and John knew that they had come to a great height, as the cold struck to his very bones. The air also was darker and damper, and he saw that they were in the region of mists of vapors. Mentally he already used terms of land as terms of the air. Before them lay banks of cloud which were the same as mountains.
"One Taube is directly behind us and it seems to me a little higher," he announced. "The other has cut off to the right and also a little higher, if I see right."
"Then we must rise fast! We can't let them get above us!"
The nose of the Arrow tilted up yet farther, and shot into colder and darker regions. John saw mists and vapors below, but the earth was invisible. He was truly hanging between a planet and the stars, and this was the void, dark and thin, cold and infinite.
"Steady again!" said Lannes. "We're going to descend for a while."
The nose of the Arrowdropped down many degrees, and then they seemed to John to slide through space, although they slid like lightning. The air felt damper and thicker, and the area of vision contracted fast. They had plunged into a bank of vapor, and search as he would with both eye and glass he could see no sign of the Taubes.
"We've lost them for the time at least," he said.
"I hoped for it," said Lannes. "That's why I made for this area of vapor. It's exactly like a ship escaping in a fog from a fleet—only we haven't escaped yet."
"Why not?"