trapped into place, and told how she was to hold
on, and not to be afraid. There would be some noise, but she mustn't
mind; and there was the little apparatus Captain March had invented, by
which a passenger could communicate with the conductor. It was something
like the bulb you squeeze in a motor car when you want the chauffeur to
turn right or left or stop.

"Press once if you're sick of it, and want to come down," said Eagle.
"Twice if you want to go higher. There's a whistle close to my ear, so
sharp it cuts through the motor noise."

My heart beat almost as fast as if I were in the monoplane myself when
Eagle was ready to start, looking like a twentieth-century,
leather-masked Apollo starting out to drive his sun chariot up to the
zenith and down the other side. The motor purred, and the propeller
began to revolve. Diana, tense as a stretched violin string, was hanging
on already, like grim death. The two mechanics held the tail of the
impatient giant bird, and when Eagle raised one hand, they let go. For
perhaps fifty yards the _Golden Eagle_ ran lightly over the turf on her
bicycle wheels; then her master tilted the planes, and his namesake
soared upward from the ground into the air.

As she went, through the noise she made I heard a shriek from the
passenger. Diana's pride, which denied cowardice in the joy of being
envied, was forgotten in the primitive emotion of fear. What my sister
did I could not see, as the monoplane mounted so quickly; but almost at
once I realized that she must have signalled her wish to descend, for
the _Eagle_ ceased to soar, dropped, and began gently gliding down. A
moment later the great winged form was landing once more close to its
own shed.

Father rushed to the rescue of his darling, and Captain March--out of
his seat in a second--was unfastening the straps and anxiously
extricating Diana from the passenger's perch. I couldn't help feeling
ashamed before all the people--scornful or sympathetic, who were looking
on--that my sister had shown herself a coward; but I was sorry for her,
too. She had quite collapsed, and lay in Father's arms as Captain March
unfastened her helmet. I wasn't mean enough to think of rejoicing
because, in taking my place away, she had been tried and found wanting.
Instead, I found myself really afraid that Captain March might despise
the poor girl for the timidity which humiliated him as well as her. But
I need not have worried. Pulling off the helmet