"Phew! there he goes again. Just look at that spiral!" cried one of the onlookers.
"Ha! Now he's going to loop; watch him!" exclaimed another.
The daring aviator, who was flying a new two-seater fighting machine with a twelve-cylindered engine, capable of giving over fourteen hundred revolutions a minute, seemed perfectly oblivious of the danger he was in, as seen by those below, for he careered through space at a speed varying from eighty to nearly one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and performed the most amazing spirals, twists, and gymnastic gyrations imaginable.
The people below, even the pilots, watched him with bated breath, and sometimes with thumping hearts. They felt somehow that he was overdoing it, and sooner or later he would crash to earth and certain death Several times even the experts, who were there to judge him, and award him the coveted brevet, felt sure that the youth had lost control of the 'plane, for she swerved so suddenly, and banked so swiftly, as she came round, that one of them exclaimed:--
"Good heavens, he's going to crash!"
"Phew! Just look there, he's met an air-pocket, and it's all over with the young devil," shouted a civilian, evidently a representative of the New Air Board.
But, strange to say, all their prophecies were wrong, for, recovering himself, the daring young flyer, Dastral as he was called, had the machine under perfect control, and was just as easy and comfortable up there at three thousand feet--and far happier--than if he had been in an arm-chair in the officers' mess at the aerodrome.
"There's a nose dive for you!" cried the major who commanded the Squadron at the aerodrome, and who had done more than any one to encourage the lad, and bring him out. As he spoke, the youth was speeding to earth in a thrilling nose-dive which must have been at the rate of anything approaching a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
For an instant it seemed as if the prediction of one of the gloomy prophets would now be fulfilled and the aviator would crash; but no, after a dive of a thousand feet Dastral, as cool as a cucumber, jammed over the controls, flattened out for a few seconds, looped three times in succession, then spiralling and banking with wonderful and mathematical precision, shut off the engine, and volplaned down to the ground, touching the earth lightly at the rate of some fifty miles an hour, taxied across the level turf, and brought up within ten yards of the astonished spectators.
"Humph! He's won his wings, major," exclaimed one of the small crowd.