Now where can that lake be which the map shows so
plainly? He feels that surely he should see it by now,
and has an uncomfortable feeling that he is flying too far
West. What pilot is there indeed who has not many times
experienced such unpleasant sensation? Few things in the
air can create greater anxiety. Wisely, however, he sticks
to his compass course, and the next minute he is rewarded
by the sight of the lake, though indeed he now sees that the
direction of his travel will not take him over it, as should
be the case if he were flying over the shortest route to his
destination. He must have slightly miscalculated the velocity
or direction of the side-wind.
``About ten degrees off,'' he mutters, and, using the
Rudder, corrects his course accordingly.
Now he feels happier and that he is well on his way.
The gusts, too, have ceased to trouble him as, at this altitude,
they are not nearly so bad as they were near the ground
the broken surface of which does much to produce them;
and sometimes for miles he makes but a movement or two
of the controls.
The clouds just above race by with dizzy and uniform
speed; the country below slowly unrolls, and the steady
drone of the Engine is almost hypnotic in effect. ``Sleep,
sleep, sleep,'' it insidiously suggests. ``Listen to me and
watch the clouds; there's nothing else to do. Dream,
dream, dream of speeding through space for ever, and ever,
and ever; and rest, rest, rest to the sound of my rhythmical
hum.
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