"I know, but I hope he'll get down, anyway."
"He will. He's regained control of his machine, but he can use only one arm. The other hangs limp. And now for a glorious flight in this brave little Arrow of ours."
"Will you return to our original course?"
"I think we'd better not. The German flying men are out, and we might have another fight, from which we would not emerge as well as we have from this. No one must ever underestimate the Germans. They're organized to the last detail in every department. I, a Frenchman, willingly say this. I'll make our flight more southerly. We'll come down in Switzerland. I'd like to go on to France, but we must make a descent soon. We're both cold and overstrained, and it won't be a real violation of neutrality just to touch Switzerland once."
The Arrow now sank to a much lower level, and that planet, which they had left came again into view. It was not much more than a dark shadow, save for the sheen of high mountains in the south, but John was glad to see it again. It was like the return of an old friend. It was the fine Earth, not one of the great planets, but the only planet he knew.
He felt a great weakness, but they had descended so much that the intense cold was going away. The thicker and warmer air lulled him, and he sank into a sort of stupor from which he soon roused himself with anger. He considered it a disgrace to him that he should sleep, while Lannes still picked their way through the currents, and pockets and flaws of the heavens.
"You might sleep if you feel like it," said Lannes. "You did all the fighting, and I ought to do all the flying, especially as it's my business and I've had lots of experience. Go ahead, old man. It'll be all the better for us if you get back your strength."
Under Lannes' urging John leaned back a little more in his seat, and closed his eyes. It was true that he was horribly tired, and his will seemed to have weakened, too. Flying was new to him, and now the collapse after so much tension and excitement had come. In a few minutes he slept, but the Arrow sailed swiftly on, mile after mile.
John's sleep was sound, but not long. When he awoke it was still night, although the dark bore a suspicious tint of silver in the east. The physical and mental weakness had departed, but he was singularly cold and stiff. When he sought to move, something firm and unyielding about his waist restrained him.
His eyes opened slowly and he looked around. On three sides space met his vision, just dusky blue sky with floating banks and wisps of vapor. But far off to the south, rising like mighty battlements, he saw a dim line of mountains clad in snow. Then it all came back to him. He was aloft in the Arrow, the first time that he had ever awakened in the void between the stars and his own planet.