"Boaster! Swaggerer!" I muttered to myself en route. "Now are you satisfied? Thou tremblest, carcass! Thou wouldst tremble much more if thou knewest whither I shall soon lead thee!" I quoted Turenne, and I was beginning to babble something about Icarus--or was it Phæton, or Simon Magus?--brought to earth in the Colosseum by a prayer from the lips of Saint Peter--when we arrived. How I hated the corner where we alighted. It seemed mean and dingy and sinister in the dazzling sunlight--a red-hot Saturday, September 11, 1915, and the hour was 10.30 A. M. A condemned criminal could not have noted more clearly every detail of the life he was about to quit. We ploughed through the sand. We reached the scaffold--at least it looked like one to me. "Hello, here's a church. Let's go in," I felt like exclaiming in sheer desperation, remembering Dickens and Mr. Wemmick. I would have, such was my blue funk, quoted Holy Scripture to the sandlopers, but I hadn't the chance. I asked my friend, and my voice sounded steady enough, whether the wind and weather seemed propitious for flying. Never better was the reply, and my heart went down to my boots. I really think I should have escaped if a stout man with a piratical moustache hadn't approached me and asked: "Going up to-day?" I marvelled at his calmness, and wished for his instant dissolution, but I gave an affirmative shake of the head. Cornered at last! Handing my watch, hat, and wallet to my friend, I coldly awaited the final preparations. I had forgotten my ear protector, but cotton-wool would answer the purpose of making me partially deaf to the clangorous vibration of the propeller blades--which resemble in a magnified shape the innocent air-fans of offices and cafés. I essayed one more joke--true gallows humour--before I was led like a lamb (a tough one) to the slaughter. I asked an attendant to whom I had paid the official fee if my widows would be refunded the money in case of accident; but this antique and tasteless witticism was indifferently received, as it deserved. Finally the young man gave me a raincoat, grabbed me around the waist, and bidding me clasp his neck he carried me out into shallow water and sat me beside the air-pilot, who looked like a mere lad in his bathing-clothes. My hand must have been trembling (ah, that old piano hand), for he inquiringly eyed me. The motor was screaming as we flew through the water toward the Inlet. I hadn't courage of mind to make a farewell signal to my companion. Too late, we're off! I thought, and at once my trepidation vanished.