which he now flew mighty armies had fought, kingdoms had been lost and
won, four or five thousand years ago. The passage of so modern a thing
as an aeroplane seemed almost a desecration of the spirit of
antiquity, an insult to the _genius loci_.

Hitherto the weather and the conditions for flying had been perfect.
The wind had dropped, the sun shone brilliantly, but its heat was
tempered to the airmen by the very rapidity of their flight. At
length, however, about two hours before sunset, Smith noticed a
strange wobbling of the compass needle. It swung this way and that
with rapid gyrations, its movements becoming more violent every
moment. Suddenly the aeroplane reeled; the sky seemed to become black
in one instant; there was a vivid flash of lightning, followed by a
tremendous thunder-clap and a flood of rain.

Smith was desperately perturbed. He had run straight into an electric
storm. It was hopeless to attempt to make headway against it; the
strain upon the planes would certainly prove more than they could
stand. He had already slackened speed and planed downwards, so as to
be able to alight if he must, with the result that the machine became
more subject to vertical eddies of the wind, that continually altered
its elevation, now hurling it aloft, now plunging it as it were into
an abyss. Once or twice he tried to rise above the storm, but
abandoned the attempt when he saw how great an additional strain it
placed upon the planes. It seemed safer to keep the engine going
steadily and make no attempt to steer. He was no longer over the
river, and the ground below was comparatively flat, presenting many a
clear spot suitable for alighting; but with the wind blowing a
hurricane a descent might well prove disastrous. The worst accidents
he had suffered in the early days of his air-sailing had always
happened near the ground, when there was no way on the machine to
counteract the force of the wind.

All that he could do was to cling on and do his best by quick
manipulation of the levers to keep the machine steady. After fifteen
very uncomfortable and, indeed, alarming minutes, the violence of the
wind abated, and the rain became intermittent, instead of pouring down
in a constant flood. The compass was oscillating less jumpily, and it
was now possible to see some distance ahead. Owing to the
extraordinary behaviour of the compass, the baffling gusts of wind,
and the necessity of keeping his whole attention fixed on th