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And he could detect in his physical sensations no trace of that qualmish dread he always experienced in high places: the sense he had of security, of solidity, was and ever remained wholly unaccountable in his understanding. Of a sudden, surprised by a touch on his arm, he turned to see through the mica windows of the wind-mask the eyes of the aviator informed with importunate doubt.
At length their pilot, wearing his wind-mask, appeared and began to climb to his perch. With a cool nod for Lanyard and a civil bow to his woman passenger, he settled himself, adjusted several levers, and flirted a gay hand to his brother-officers. There was a warning cry. The crowd dropped back rapidly to either side.
Two of the dogs, Big Joe and Stryelka, were noticeably giving out. But Bennett, his huge jaws clenched, his small, distorted eyes twinkling viciously through the apertures of the wind-mask, his harsh, black eyebrows lowering under the narrow, contracted forehead, drove the expedition to its work relentlessly.
None the less Lanyard's rough and rapid calculations persuaded him that they were then about Mid-Channel. He had no more than arrived at this conclusion when a sharp, startled movement, that rocked the planes, drew his attention to the man at his side. Glancing in alarm at the aviator's face, he saw it as white as marble what little of it was visible beyond and beneath the wind-mask.
And so it was not altogether fearlessness that made him to all intents and purposes ignore the weapon; it is nothing to his credit for courage if his eyes struck past the black and deadly mouth of the revolver and looked only into the blank and expressionless eyes of the wind-mask; it was not lack of respect for his skin's integrity, but the sheer, tremendous wonder of it all, that rendered him oblivious to the eternity that lay the other side of a slender, trembling finger-tip.
But his confidence was belied by a look of daze; for the earth was billowing and reeling round him as though bewitched; and before he knew what had happened he sat down hard and stared foolishly up at the aviator. "Here!" said the latter courteously, his wind-mask hiding a smile "my hand again, monsieur. You've endured more than you know. And now for mademoiselle."
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