Despite the ghastly experiences of my imprisonment, I felt surprisingly vigorous and alert, whipped up, I've no doubt, by excitement; and though I found these heavier wings were indeed harder to use than the unpowered type--particularly when it was a question of first getting up from earth--I managed to rise on a light puff of wind and swept round once or twice with fair ease. The power was easy to manipulate in the extreme. I had barely moved the second lever when I heard something swing into place with a sharp clink and felt the wings suddenly begin to flap without any help from my arms. Though I had seen this pattern of wing before and speculated long on its secret, I must admit my first experience of it at close quarters filled me with the utmost stupefaction. That strange power-box, emitting nothing but a faint clutter which was almost drowned in the rustle of the wings themselves, was working strongly and steadily within two feet of my head, yet not for all the wealth in the world could I more than vaguely guess how. Amazement gave way almost at once to confidence. It was incredible, of course, that I should really be able to cross tremendous ranges of mountains on this apparatus, yet I know that at that moment I was profoundly convinced I could. Then, remembering Philipson's injunction I turned off the power; even so I was astonished to find how far my wings had taken me from the spot where Philipson and Poyning stood waiting. I drew near, hovering in the way I had been taught, and swept my gaze back over the lost city of Hellas where it rose calm and magnificent, its white roofs gleaming in the moonlight. At that instant I saw something that set my pulses tingling with more than the exhilaration of flight. Away over the city, three or four black bat-like shapes had appeared in the sky. In a second I had begun to rise again, wheeling round short. 'Look towards the city!' I cried. 'Good-bye and good luck to you all!' I heard a sharp answering cry from below-- 'Fly for your life!' That was the last word I was ever to hear from the lips of the man I had known as Saunders Philipson. My mind had been instantly made up. As in a lightning flash I saw my escape, which by this time had become a mad, overwhelming desire in me, suddenly threatened by those sinister shapes against the wan-gold sky of the night. All the horrors of my captivity of the past week rose again before me, and I determined I would make my dash for freedom now, pursuers or none, and that I would never be taken alive. So, with Philipson's last cry ringing in my ears, I pushed back the power-lever of the wings to its fullest, and swept furiously away into the night.