And some instinct told me that the life
of this Monsieur Power was necessary to the happiness of my beloved
mademoiselle. I knew also that I alone without undue risk might break
down the barrier of iron pride that had arisen between these two
autocratic young people.
_Qu'est-ce que tu veux que je te dise?_ I might have paid more heavily
for the mad intoxication of that last flight. In a month or two I
shall be again aloft.
I have often maintained that sooner or later a moment of emotion, of
sheer joy in the struggle and risk, will cause the soberest pilot to
throw discretion to the winds. It was so in this case.
_Parbleu!_ I leap, I dive, I twist in figures of eight, I fight my
way by inches against the wind, and, turning, I shoot back upon its
current with the speed of a projectile. I am shaken and buffeted until
I gasp for breath. I swerve, I dance, I caracole--I pirouette on a
wing tip, catching my side slips on the rudder as one plays cup and
ball. I dangle myself at the end of a single wire on the brink of
eternity, crying defiance to the winds! _C'etait de la folie_--the
madness of battle. Far below me I could see an occasional spectator
running like a rabbit, grotesquely waving his arms.
"Oh, yes, he is doubtless clever, this Power," I cry in my pride. "But
he is, after all, nothing but a buzzard. It is I, Lacroix, who am
alone veritable king of the air!"
_Coquin de sort!_ I do not know exactly when the wire controlling the
right _aileron_ parted.
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