At first I thought the apparatus must come to earth for want of guidance, but there I had greatly under-estimated the cunning of the builder. So perfectly poised were the wings that they preserved their equilibrium from the start, automatically, and all the difference the absence of my weight seemed to make to them was that they rose far more swiftly and easily. They had lain on the pyre of scrub pointed due west, which direction they kept, and I wasn't long realising those wings would come to earth only when the power in them was exhausted. How long that would take I had no notion, but when they finally disappeared into the sunset they appeared to me to be working as strongly as ever. Somewhere, no doubt, far out on those trackless mountain wildernesses, buried in blown dust and driven snow, there lies the wreck of certainly the most amazing and ingenious device ever perfected by the brain of man. I was staring blankly after my lost pinions when I became aware that a party of natives were spying me from behind a big boulder at some distance away. I called to them, but they seemed a good deal readier to run away than come near; it was pretty obvious they had witnessed my dealings with the automaton and set me down for a wizard of the mountain conjuring up familiar devils. Like Saunders Philipson, I knew something of this breed and how to treat them; and without taking any further notice of them I turned away and lit my fire and sat warming myself and counting over one or two pieces of my rough silver. It had the desired effect: they gradually gained heart and drew near. I told them I was a traveller who had strayed from my party, and that being without food and seeing the great bird perching on the mountain I had attacked it with a stone, but that it had escaped from me. They listened politely if awesomely to my tale but obviously didn't believe it, and without Philipson's very serviceable rough silver I don't imagine I should have got much help from those natives. As it was, they helped me down to their wretched hill-village, and thence, after I had rested several days, set me on my way back towards civilisation. The journey, which took three or four weeks on foot, was totally devoid of incident, and I pass it over in silence; but before leaving this phase of my adventure I will record one thing which may be of interest as indicating, however roughly, the geographical position of the lost city of Hellas. Since my return to the outer world I have made many calculations of the distance I covered in making my escape. The result is pretty amazing, but I have checked and re-checked my reckonings--the journey there as against the journey back--and if the figures err, it is probably on the side of under-statement. During the eighteen hours of my flight from Hellas to the point on the mountain side where the party of natives found me, I must have travelled not less than _nine hundred English miles._