For some days the Leomo were busy with the wreckage of the outbreak. I was attached to the section that had to inspect the lava wells, gauge the amount of molten matter which had oozed from each, repair every clirolan or other instrument that had been deranged, and replace those submerged. The urgency of the occasion excused us from the regular duties and pleasures of the day. All our ablutions and essential exercises were performed in the private mansions. Most of the hours not spent in sleep were devoted to the tasks made for us by the new exigency. The excitement removed the monotony and burden of the work, and almost before we knew that there was so much to do it was done. New wells were sunk and new clirolans fixed wherever the overflow had choked or sealed the old. The instruments of even the most distant section of the island were put into their best working order. Then we were free to scatter to the winds and to follow our old delights. Thyriel set herself with renewed eagerness to teach me the art of flight, and I attained the power of describing an easy curve from a shoulder of Lilaroma down to the plain. Again and again in her new desire to master flight with me seated between her wings, she carried me up to some jutting platform of the mountain: and then she showed me how to work the wing-engine with ease. I could keep level with my starting-point for a few minutes, but after that I had to let myself glide down the parabola of the air. I was too heavily weighted by gravity and the inertia of my muscles to rise as she did. There were many secrets of their flight that I soon understood. The curious construction of the wings, formed as they were of two sliding membranes, I have already described. What I had taken for a mere rudder was a large series of small screws that gave forward motion to the flight. The engine that whirled them round as they churned the air was of great power, and without them the flight would have been but slow and clumsy. It was through inability to manage this engine that I was so long in mastering even the rudiments of the art.