But he found the pulsating movement of the monoplane as it drove up the faint south-west breeze was very little in excess of the pitching of a boat head on to broad rollers in a moderate gale, and he was constitutionally a good sailor.

And the keenness of the more rarefied air into which they ascended produced a sense of lightness and exhilaration.

He looked up and saw the blue sky above fretted with cirrus clouds.

His eye came cautiously down through the ribs and bars to a shining flight of white birds that hung in the lower sky.

For a space he watched these.