Then the petrified image seemed to become a human being again, whose breast rose in a long neglected breath, who raised his eyes upwards, looking into the empty greenish-blue sky and down again to the earth which formed a flat, round carpet, deep down in infinity—and at the sun which was rolling westwards like a glowing ball.
Last of all, however, at the head of the pilot who sat before him, at the airman’s cap which turned, neckless, into shoulders filled with a bull-like strength and a forceful calm.
The powerful engine of the aeroplane worked in perfect silence. But the air through which the aeroplane tore was filled with a mysterious thunder, as though the dome of heaven were catching up the roaring in the globe and throwing it angrily back again.
The aeroplane hovered homelessly above a strange earth, like a bird not able to find its nest.
Suddenly, amid the thunder of the air, the pilot heard a voice at his left ear saying, almost softly:
“Turn back....”
The head in the airman’s cap was about to bend backwards. But at the first attempt to do so it came in contact with an object of resistance, which rested exactly on the top of his skull. This object of resistance was small, apparently angular and extraordinarily hard.
“Don’t move!” said the voice at his left ear, which was so soft, yet making itself understood through the thunder of the air. “Don’t look round, either! I have no revolver with me. Had I had one handy I should probably not be here. What I have in my hand is an implement the name and purpose of which are unknown to me. But it is made of solid steel and quite sufficient to smash in your skull with should you not obey me immediately.... Turn back!”
The bull-like shoulders under the airman’s cap raised themselves in a short, impatient shrug. The glowing ball of the sun touched the horizon with an inexpressibly light hovering movement. For a few seconds it seemed to dance along it in soft, blazing rhythm. The nose of the aeroplane was turned towards it and did not alter its course by a hand’s breadth.
“You do not seem to have understood me,” said the voice behind the pilot. “Turn back! I wish to return to Metropolis, do you hear? I must be there before nightfall ... well?”