opposite shore of the Channel somewhere near the Franco-Belgian
frontier. As an experienced airman he had long ceased to find the
interest of novelty in the scenes below him. The lights of the Calais
boat, and of vessels passing up and down the Channel, were almost
unnoticed. On leaving the sea, he flew over a flat country until, on
his right, he saw in the moonlight a dark mass which from dead
reckoning he thought must be the Ardennes. The broad river he had just
crossed, which gleamed like silver in the moonlight, was without doubt
the Meuse, and that which he came to in about an hour must be the
Moselle. At this point Rodier, who had been dozing, sat up and began
to take an interest in things; afterwards he told Smith that they must
have passed over the little village in which he was born, and he felt
a sentimental regret that the flight was not by day, when he might
have seen the red roof beneath which his mother still lived.

After another half-hour Smith began to feel the strain of remaining in
one position, with all his faculties concentrated. The air was so
calm, and the wind-screen so effective, that he suffered none of the
numbing effects which the great speed might otherwise have induced;
but it was no light task to keep his attention fixed at once on the
engine, the map outspread before him, the compass, and the country
below; and by the time he reached a still broader river, which could
only be the Rhine, he was tired. As yet he had been flying for only
three hours: could he live through seven days of it? He had once
crossed America in the Canadian Pacific, and though he got eight
hours' sleep every night, he felt an utter wreck at the end of the
journey. To be sure, he was now in the fresh air instead of a stuffy
railway carriage, and he was riding as smoothly as on a steamer,
without the jar and jolt that made journeys by rail so fatiguing.
Still, he thought it only good policy to pay heed to the first signs