“It is not at all like a little bird,” he thought, “but rather resembles a slow train on the surface of the sea, or a horse on a switchback merry-go-round.  I feel, however, that my spirit will soon be free, for the earth is becoming like a board whereon a game is played by an unseen hand, and I am leaving it.”  And craning his head out a little too far he felt his chin knock against his spine.  Drawing it in with difficulty he concentrated his attention upon that purification of his spirit which was the object of his journey.

“I am now,” he thought, “in the transcendent ether.  It should give me an amazing power of expression such as only the greatest writers and orators attain; and, divorced as I am rapidly becoming from all sordid reality, truth will appear to me like one of those stars towards which I am undoubtedly flying though I cannot as yet see it.”

Blink, who between his legs had hitherto been unconscious of their departure from the earth, now squirmed irresistibly up till her forepaws were on her master’s chest, and gazed lugubriously at the fearful prospect.  Mr. Lavender clasped her convulsively.  They were by now rapidly nearing a flock of heavenly sheep, which as they approached became ever more gigantic till they were transformed into monstrous snow-fleeces intersected by wide drifts of blue.

“Can it be that we are to adventure above them?” thought Mr. Lavender.  “I hope not, for they seem to me fearful.”  His alarm was soon appeased, for the machine began to take a level course a thousand feet, perhaps, below the clouds, whence little wraiths wandering out now and again dimmed Mr. Lavender’s vision and moistened his brow.

Blink having retired again between her master’s legs, a sense of security and exaltation was succeeding to the natural trepidation of Mr. Lavender’s mood.  “I am now,” he thought, “lifted above all petty plots and passions on the wings of the morning.  Soon will great thoughts begin to jostle in my head, and I shall see the truth of all things made clear at last.”

But the thoughts did not jostle, a curious lethargy began stealing over him instead, so that his head fell back, and his mouth fell open.  This might have endured until he returned to earth had not the airman stopped the engines so that they drifted ruminantly in space below the clouds.  With the cessation of the noise Mr. Lavender’s brain regained its activity, and he was enchanted to hear the voice of his pilot saying: 

“How are you getting on, sir?”

“As regards the sensation,” Mr. Lavender replied, “it is marvellous, for after the first minute or two, during which the unwonted motion causes a certain inconvenience, one grasps at once the exhilaration and joy of this great adventure.  To be in motion towards the spheres, and see the earth laid out like a chess-board below you; to feel the lithe creature beneath your body responding so freely to every call of its gallant young pilot; to be filled with the scream of the engines, as of an eagle at sport; to know that at the least aberration of the intrepid airman we should be dashed into a million pieces; all this is largely to experience an experience so unforgettable that one will never—­er—­er—­forget it.”