About : standard furniture venetian black
Title : standard furniture venetian black
standard furniture venetian black
the horror of the heightsby sir arthur conan doyle recording by mike harris the idea that the extraordinary narrativewhich has been called the joyce-armstrong fragment is an elaborate practicaljoke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted andsinister sense of humour, has now been abandoned by all who have examinedthe matter. the most macabre and imaginative of plotters wouldhesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragicfacts which reinforce the statement. though the assertions containedin it are amazing and
even monstrous, it is none the less forcingitself upon the general intelligence that they are true, and thatwe must readjust our ideas to the new situation. this world of ours appearsto be separated by a slight and precarious margin of safety froma most singular and unexpected danger. i will endeavour in thisnarrative, which reproduces the original document in its necessarilysomewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the readerthe whole of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that,if there be any who doubt the narrative of joyce-armstrong, there canbe no question at all as to
the facts concerning lieutenant myrtle, r.n., and mr. hay connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described. the joyce-armstrong fragment was found inthe field which is called lower haycock, lying one mile to the westwardof the village of withyham, upon the kent and sussex border.it was on the 15th september last that an agricultural labourer,james flynn, in the employment of mathew dodd, farmer, of thechauntry farm, withyham, perceived a briar pipe lying near the footpathwhich skirts the hedge in lower haycock. a few paces farther on hepicked up a pair of broken
binocular glasses. finally, among some nettlesin the ditch, he caught sight of a flat, canvas-backed book, whichproved to be a note-book with detachable leaves, some of which hadcome loose and were fluttering along the base of the hedge. thesehe collected, but some, including the first, were never recovered,and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all-important statement. thenote-book was taken by the labourer to his master, who in turn showedit to dr. j. h. atherton, of hartfield. this gentleman at once recognizedthe need for an expert examination, and the manuscript was forwardedto the aero club in
london, where it now lies. the first two pages of the manuscript aremissing. there is also one torn away at the end of the narrative, thoughnone of these affect the general coherence of the story. it is conjecturedthat the missing opening is concerned with the record of mr.joyce-armstrong's qualifications as an aeronaut, which can begathered from other sources and are admitted to be unsurpassed among theair-pilots of england. for many years he has been looked upon asamong the most daring and the most intellectual of flying men, a combinationwhich has enabled him to
both invent and test several new devices,including the common gyroscopic attachment which is known by hisname. the main body of the manuscript is written neatly in ink, but thelast few lines are in pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible—exactly,in fact, as they might be expected to appear if they werescribbled off hurriedly from the seat of a moving aeroplane. thereare, it may be added, several stains, both on the last page andon the outside cover which have been pronounced by the home office expertsto be blood—probably human and certainly mammalian. the fact thatsomething closely
resembling the organism of malaria was discoveredin this blood, and that joyce-armstrong is known to have sufferedfrom intermittent fever, is a remarkable example of the new weaponswhich modern science has placed in the hands of our detectives. and now a word as to the personality of theauthor of this epoch-making statement. joyce-armstrong, according to thefew friends who really knew something of the man, was a poet anda dreamer, as well as a mechanic and an inventor. he was a man ofconsiderable wealth, much of which he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronauticalhobby. he had
four private aeroplanes in his hangars neardevizes, and is said to have made no fewer than one hundred and seventyascents in the course of last year. he was a retiring man with darkmoods, in which he would avoid the society of his fellows. captaindangerfield, who knew him better than anyone, says that there were timeswhen his eccentricity threatened to develop into something moreserious. his habit of carrying a shot-gun with him in his aeroplanewas one manifestation of it. another was the morbid effect which the fallof lieutenant myrtle had
upon his mind. myrtle, who was attemptingthe height record, fell from an altitude of something over thirty thousandfeet. horrible to narrate, his head was entirely obliterated,though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. at every gatheringof airmen, joyce-armstrong, according to dangerfield,would ask, with an enigmatic smile: "and where, pray, is myrtle's head?" on another occasion after dinner, at the messof the flying school on salisbury plain, he started a debate as towhat will be the most permanent danger which airmen will have toencounter. having listened
to successive opinions as to air-pockets,faulty construction, and over-banking, he ended by shrugging his shouldersand refusing to put forward his own views, though he gave theimpression that they differed from any advanced by his companions. it is worth remarking that after his own completedisappearance it was found that his private affairs were arrangedwith a precision which may show that he had a strong premonition of disaster.with these essential explanations i will now give thenarrative exactly as it stands, beginning at page three of the blood-soakednote-book:
"nevertheless, when i dined at rheims withcoselli and gustav raymond i found that neither of them was aware of anyparticular danger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. i did notactually say what was in my thoughts, but i got so near to it that ifthey had any corresponding idea they could not have failed to expressit. but then they are two empty, vainglorious fellows with no thoughtbeyond seeing their silly names in the newspaper. it is interestingto note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-footlevel. of course, men have been higher than this both in balloonsand in the ascent of
mountains. it must be well above that pointthat the aeroplane enters the danger zone—always presuming that mypremonitions are correct. "aeroplaning has been with us now for morethan twenty years, and one might well ask: why should this peril be onlyrevealing itself in our day? the answer is obvious. in the old daysof weak engines, when a hundred horse-power gnome or green was consideredample for every need, the flights were very restricted. now thatthree hundred horse-power is the rule rather than the exception, visitsto the upper layers have become easier and more common. some of uscan remember how, in our
youth, garros made a world-wide reputationby attaining nineteen thousand feet, and it was considered a remarkableachievement to fly over the alps. our standard now has been immeasurablyraised, and there are twenty high flights for one in formeryears. many of them have been undertaken with impunity. the thirty-thousand-footlevel has been reached time after time with no discomfortbeyond cold and asthma. what does this prove? a visitor might descendupon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. yettigers exist, and if he chanced to come down into a jungle he mightbe devoured. there are
jungles of the upper air, and there are worsethings than tigers which inhabit them. i believe in time they willmap these jungles accurately out. even at the present moment i could nametwo of them. one of them lies over the pau-biarritz district of france.another is just over my head as i write here in my house in wiltshire.i rather think there is a third in the homburg-wiesbaden district. "it was the disappearance of the airmen thatfirst set me thinking. of course, everyone said that they had falleninto the sea, but that did not satisfy me at all. first, there was verrierin france; his machine
was found near bayonne, but they never gothis body. there was the case of baxter also, who vanished, thoughhis engine and some of the iron fixings were found in a wood in leicestershire.in that case, dr. middleton, of amesbury, who was watching theflight with a telescope, declares that just before the clouds obscuredthe view he saw the machine, which was at an enormous height,suddenly rise perpendicularly upwards in a succession of jerks in a mannerthat he would have thought to be impossible. that was the last seen ofbaxter. there was a correspondence in the papers, but it neverled to anything. there were
several other similar cases, and then therewas the death of hay connor. what a cackle there was about an unsolvedmystery of the air, and what columns in the halfpenny papers,and yet how little was ever done to get to the bottom of the business!he came down in a tremendous vol-plane from an unknown height.he never got off his machine and died in his pilot's seat. diedof what? 'heart disease,' said the doctors. rubbish! hay connor's heartwas as sound as mine is. what did venables say? venables was theonly man who was at his side when he died. he said that he was shiveringand looked like a man
who had been badly scared. 'died of fright,'said venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened about.only said one word to venables, which sounded like 'monstrous.'they could make nothing of that at the inquest. but i could make somethingof it. monsters! that was the last word of poor harry hay connor.and he did die of fright, just as venables thought. "and then there was myrtle's head. do youreally believe—does anybody really believe—that a man's head could bedriven clean into his body by the force of a fall? well, perhaps it maybe possible, but i, for
one, have never believed that it was so withmyrtle. and the grease upon his clothes—'all slimy with grease,'said somebody at the inquest. queer that nobody got thinking afterthat! i did—but, then, i had been thinking for a good long time.i've made three ascents—how dangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun—buti've never been high enough. now, with this new, light paulveroner machine and its one hundred and seventy-five robur, i shouldeasily touch the thirty thousand tomorrow. i'll have a shot at therecord. maybe i shall have a shot at something else as well. of course,it's dangerous. if a
fellow wants to avoid danger he had best keepout of flying altogether and subside finally into flannel slippersand a dressing-gown. but i'll visit the air-jungle tomorrow—and ifthere's anything there i shall know it. if i return, i'll find myselfa bit of a celebrity. if i don't this note-book may explain what iam trying to do, and how i lost my life in doing it. but no drivel aboutaccidents or mysteries, if you please. "i chose my paul veroner monoplane for thejob. there's nothing like a monoplane when real work is to be done. beaumontfound that out in very
early days. for one thing it doesn't minddamp, and the weather looks as if we should be in the clouds all the time.it's a bonny little model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthedhorse. the engine is a ten-cylinder rotary robur working up to onehundred and seventy-five. it has all the modern improvements—enclosedfuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers,and three speeds, worked by an alteration of the angle of the planesupon the venetian-blind principle. i took a shot-gun with me and adozen cartridges filled with buck-shot. you should have seen the faceof perkins, my old
mechanic, when i directed him to put themin. i was dressed like an arctic explorer, with two jerseys under myoveralls, thick socks inside my padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, andmy talc goggles. it was stifling outside the hangars, but i was goingfor the summit of the himalayas, and had to dress for the part.perkins knew there was something on and implored me to take him withme. perhaps i should if i were using the biplane, but a monoplaneis a one-man show—if you want to get the last foot of life out of it.of course, i took an oxygen bag; the man who goes for the altituderecord without one will
either be frozen or smothered—or both. "i had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar,and the elevating lever before i got in. everything was in orderso far as i could see. then i switched on my engine and found thatshe was running sweetly. when they let her go she rose almost at onceupon the lowest speed. i circled my home field once or twice just towarm her up, and then with a wave to perkins and the others, i flattenedout my planes and put her on her highest. she skimmed like a swallowdown wind for eight or ten miles until i turned her nose up a littleand she began to climb in a
great spiral for the cloud-bank above me.it's all-important to rise slowly and adapt yourself to the pressureas you go. "it was a close, warm day for an english september,and there was the hush and heaviness of impending rain. nowand then there came sudden puffs of wind from the south-west—one ofthem so gusty and unexpected that it caught me napping and turned me half-roundfor an instant. i remember the time when gusts and whirls andair-pockets used to be things of danger—before we learned to putan overmastering power into our engines. just as i reached the cloud-banks,with the altimeter
marking three thousand, down came the rain.my word, how it poured! it drummed upon my wings and lashed againstmy face, blurring my glasses so that i could hardly see. i gotdown on to a low speed, for it was painful to travel against it. as igot higher it became hail, and i had to turn tail to it. one of my cylinderswas out of action—a dirty plug, i should imagine, but still iwas rising steadily with plenty of power. after a bit the trouble passed,whatever it was, and i heard the full, deep-throated purr—theten singing as one. that's where the beauty of our modern silencers comesin. we can at last
control our engines by ear. how they squealand squeak and sob when they are in trouble! all those cries for helpwere wasted in the old days, when every sound was swallowed up bythe monstrous racket of the machine. if only the early aviators couldcome back to see the beauty and perfection of the mechanism which havebeen bought at the cost of their lives! "about nine-thirty i was nearing the clouds.down below me, all blurred and shadowed with rain, lay the vastexpanse of salisbury plain. half a dozen flying machines were doinghackwork at the
thousand-foot level, looking like little blackswallows against the green background. i dare say they were wonderingwhat i was doing up in cloud-land. suddenly a grey curtain drewacross beneath me and the wet folds of vapours were swirling round myface. it was clammily cold and miserable. but i was above the hail-storm,and that was something gained. the cloud was as dark and thick asa london fog. in my anxiety to get clear, i cocked her nose upuntil the automatic alarm-bell rang, and i actually began to slidebackwards. my sopped and dripping wings had made me heavier thani thought, but presently i
was in lighter cloud, and soon had clearedthe first layer. there was a second—opal-coloured and fleecy—at agreat height above my head, a white, unbroken ceiling above, and a dark,unbroken floor below, with the monoplane labouring upwards upon a vastspiral between them. it is deadly lonely in these cloud-spaces. oncea great flight of some small water-birds went past me, flying very fastto the westwards. the quick whir of their wings and their musical crywere cheery to my ear. i fancy that they were teal, but i am a wretchedzoologist. now that we humans have become birds we must really learnto know our brethren by
sight. "the wind down beneath me whirled and swayedthe broad cloud-plain. once a great eddy formed in it, a whirlpoolof vapour, and through it, as down a funnel, i caught sight of the distantworld. a large white biplane was passing at a vast depth beneathme. i fancy it was the morning mail service betwixt bristol and london.then the drift swirled inwards again and the great solitude was unbroken. "just after ten i touched the lower edge ofthe upper cloud-stratum. it consisted of fine diaphanous vapour driftingswiftly from the
westwards. the wind had been steadily risingall this time and it was now blowing a sharp breeze—twenty-eightan hour by my gauge. already it was very cold, though my altimeter onlymarked nine thousand. the engines were working beautifully, and we wentdroning steadily upwards. the cloud-bank was thicker than i had expected,but at last it thinned out into a golden mist before me, and thenin an instant i had shot out from it, and there was an unclouded sky anda brilliant sun above my head—all blue and gold above, all shiningsilver below, one vast, glimmering plain as far as my eyes could reach.it was a quarter past
ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointedto twelve thousand eight hundred. up i went and up, my ears concentratedupon the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always with thewatch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump.no wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. with so many thingsto think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. about thistime i noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certainheight from earth. at fifteen thousand feet mine was pointing eastand a point south. the sun and the wind gave me my true bearings.
"i had hoped to reach an eternal stillnessin these high altitudes, but with every thousand feet of ascent the galegrew stronger. my machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivetas she faced it, and swept away like a sheet of paper when i bankedher on the turn, skimming down wind at a greater pace, perhaps,than ever mortal man has moved. yet i had always to turn again andtack up in the wind's eye, for it was not merely a height record thati was after. by all my calculations it was above little wiltshirethat my air-jungle lay, and all my labour might be lost if i struck theouter layers at some
farther point. "when i reached the nineteen-thousand-footlevel, which was about midday, the wind was so severe that i lookedwith some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily tosee them snap or slacken. i even cast loose the parachute behind me,and fastened its hook into the ring of my leathern belt, so as to beready for the worst. now was the time when a bit of scamped work by themechanic is paid for by the life of the aeronaut. but she held togetherbravely. every cord and strut was humming and vibrating like so manyharp-strings, but it was
glorious to see how, for all the beating andthe buffeting, she was still the conqueror of nature and the mistressof the sky. there is surely something divine in man himself thathe should rise so superior to the limitations which creation seemed toimpose—rise, too, by such unselfish, heroic devotion as this air-conquesthas shown. talk of human degeneration! when has such a storyas this been written in the annals of our race? "these were the thoughts in my head as i climbedthat monstrous, inclined plane with the wind sometimes beatingin my face and sometimes
whistling behind my ears, while the cloud-landbeneath me fell away to such a distance that the folds and hummocksof silver had all smoothed out into one flat, shining plain. but suddenlyi had a horrible and unprecedented experience. i have known beforewhat it is to be in what our neighbours have called a tourbillon, butnever on such a scale as this. that huge, sweeping river of wind ofwhich i have spoken had, as it appears, whirlpools within it which wereas monstrous as itself. without a moment's warning i was dragged suddenlyinto the heart of one. i spun round for a minute or two withsuch velocity that i almost
lost my senses, and then fell suddenly, leftwing foremost, down the vacuum funnel in the centre. i dropped likea stone, and lost nearly a thousand feet. it was only my belt that keptme in my seat, and the shock and breathlessness left me hanging half-insensibleover the side of the fuselage. but i am always capable ofa supreme effort—it is my one great merit as an aviator. i was consciousthat the descent was slower. the whirlpool was a cone rather thana funnel, and i had come to the apex. with a terrific wrench, throwingmy weight all to one side, i levelled my planes and brought herhead away from the wind. in
an instant i had shot out of the eddies andwas skimming down the sky. then, shaken but victorious, i turned hernose up and began once more my steady grind on the upward spiral. i tooka large sweep to avoid the danger-spot of the whirlpool, and sooni was safely above it. just after one o'clock i was twenty-one thousandfeet above the sea-level. to my great joy i had topped the gale, andwith every hundred feet of ascent the air grew stiller. on the otherhand, it was very cold, and i was conscious of that peculiar nausea whichgoes with rarefaction of the air. for the first time i unscrewed themouth of my oxygen bag and
took an occasional whiff of the glorious gas.i could feel it running like a cordial through my veins, and i wasexhilarated almost to the point of drunkenness. i shouted and sang asi soared upwards into the cold, still outer world. "it is very clear to me that the insensibilitywhich came upon glaisher, and in a lesser degree upon coxwell,when, in 1862, they ascended in a balloon to the height of thirtythousand feet, was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicularascent is made. doing it at an easy gradient and accustoming oneselfto the lessened barometric
pressure by slow degrees, there are no suchdreadful symptoms. at the same great height i found that even withoutmy oxygen inhaler i could breathe without undue distress. it was bitterlycold, however, and my thermometer was at zero, fahrenheit. at one-thirtyi was nearly seven miles above the surface of the earth, andstill ascending steadily. i found, however, that the rarefied air wasgiving markedly less support to my planes, and that my angle of ascenthad to be considerably lowered in consequence. it was already clearthat even with my light weight and strong engine-power there was apoint in front of me where i
should be held. to make matters worse, oneof my sparking-plugs was in trouble again and there was intermittent misfiringin the engine. my heart was heavy with the fear of failure. "it was about that time that i had a mostextraordinary experience. something whizzed past me in a trail of smokeand exploded with a loud, hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam.for the instant i could not imagine what had happened. then i rememberedthat the earth is for ever being bombarded by meteor stones, andwould be hardly inhabitable were they not in nearly every case turnedto vapour in the outer layers
of the atmosphere. here is a new danger forthe high-altitude man, for two others passed me when i was nearing theforty-thousand-foot mark. i cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth'senvelope the risk would be a very real one. "my barograph needle marked forty-one thousandthree hundred when i became aware that i could go no farther. physically,the strain was not as yet greater than i could bear but mymachine had reached its limit. the attenuated air gave no firm supportto the wings, and the least tilt developed into side-slip, whileshe seemed sluggish on her
controls. possibly, had the engine been atits best, another thousand feet might have been within our capacity,but it was still misfiring, and two out of the ten cylinders appearedto be out of action. if i had not already reached the zone for whichi was searching then i should never see it upon this journey. butwas it not possible that i had attained it? soaring in circles like amonstrous hawk upon the forty-thousand-foot level i let the monoplaneguide herself, and with my mannheim glass i made a careful observationof my surroundings. the heavens were perfectly clear; there was noindication of those dangers
which i had imagined. "i have said that i was soaring in circles.it struck me suddenly that i would do well to take a wider sweep andopen up a new airtract. if the hunter entered an earth-jungle he woulddrive through it if he wished to find his game. my reasoning hadled me to believe that the air-jungle which i had imagined lay somewhereover wiltshire. this should be to the south and west of me. i tookmy bearings from the sun, for the compass was hopeless and no traceof earth was to be seen—nothing but the distant, silver cloud-plain.however, i got my
direction as best i might and kept her headstraight to the mark. i reckoned that my petrol supply would not lastfor more than another hour or so, but i could afford to use it tothe last drop, since a single magnificent vol-plane could at anytime take me to the earth. "suddenly i was aware of something new. theair in front of me had lost its crystal clearness. it was full oflong, ragged wisps of something which i can only compare to veryfine cigarette smoke. it hung about in wreaths and coils, turning andtwisting slowly in the sunlight. as the monoplane shot through it,i was aware of a faint
taste of oil upon my lips, and there was agreasy scum upon the woodwork of the machine. some infinitely fineorganic matter appeared to be suspended in the atmosphere. there wasno life there. it was inchoate and diffuse, extending for many squareacres and then fringing off into the void. no, it was not life. butmight it not be the remains of life? above all, might it not bethe food of life, of monstrous life, even as the humble greaseof the ocean is the food for the mighty whale? the thought was in my mindwhen my eyes looked upwards and i saw the most wonderful visionthat ever man has seen.
can i hope to convey it to you even as i sawit myself last thursday? "conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in oursummer seas, bell-shaped and of enormous size—far larger, i shouldjudge, than the dome of st. paul's. it was of a light pink colour veinedwith a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous thatit was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. it pulsated witha delicate and regular rhythm. from it there depended two long, drooping,green tentacles, which swayed slowly backwards and forwards.this gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity overmy head, as light and fragile
as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its statelyway. "i had half-turned my monoplane, that i mightlook after this beautiful creature, when, in a moment, i found myselfamidst a perfect fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large as thefirst. some were quite small, but the majority about as big as anaverage balloon, and with much the same curvature at the top. therewas in them a delicacy of texture and colouring which reminded me ofthe finest venetian glass. pale shades of pink and green were the prevailingtints, but all had a lovely iridescence where the sun shimmeredthrough their dainty forms.
some hundreds of them drifted past me, a wonderfulfairy squadron of strange unknown argosies of the sky—creatureswhose forms and substance were so attuned to these pure heightsthat one could not conceive anything so delicate within actualsight or sound of earth. "but soon my attention was drawn to a newphenomenon—the serpents of the outer air. these were long, thin, fantasticcoils of vapour-like material, which turned and twisted with greatspeed, flying round and round at such a pace that the eyes could hardlyfollow them. some of these ghost-like creatures were twenty orthirty feet long, but it was
difficult to tell their girth, for their outlinewas so hazy that it seemed to fade away into the air around them.these air-snakes were of a very light grey or smoke colour, with somedarker lines within, which gave the impression of a definite organism.one of them whisked past my very face, and i was conscious of a cold,clammy contact, but their composition was so unsubstantial that i couldnot connect them with any thought of physical danger, any more thanthe beautiful bell-like creatures which had preceded them. there wasno more solidity in their frames than in the floating spume from a brokenwave.
"but a more terrible experience was in storefor me. floating downwards from a great height there came apurplish patch of vapour, small as i saw it first, but rapidly enlargingas it approached me, until it appeared to be hundreds of squarefeet in size. though fashioned of some transparent, jelly-likesubstance, it was none the less of much more definite outline and solidconsistence than anything which i had seen before. there were more traces,too, of a physical organization, especially two vast, shadowy,circular plates upon either side, which may have been eyes, and a perfectlysolid white projection
between them which was as curved and cruelas the beak of a vulture. "the whole aspect of this monster was formidableand threatening, and it kept changing its colour from a very lightmauve to a dark, angry purple so thick that it cast a shadow as itdrifted between my monoplane and the sun. on the upper curveof its huge body there were three great projections which i can only describeas enormous bubbles, and i was convinced as i looked at them thatthey were charged with some extremely light gas which served to buoyup the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. the creaturemoved swiftly along,
keeping pace easily with the monoplane, andfor twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over melike a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. its method of progression—doneso swiftly that it was not easy to follow—was to throw outa long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to drawforward the rest of the writhing body. so elastic and gelatinous wasit that never for two successive minutes was it the same shape,and yet each change made it more threatening and loathsome than the last. "i knew that it meant mischief. every purpleflush of its hideous body
told me so. the vague, goggling eyes whichwere turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred.i dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it. as idid so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this massof floating blubber, and it fell as light and sinuous as a whip-lashacross the front of my machine. there was a loud hiss as it lay fora moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into the airagain, while the huge, flat body drew itself together as if in suddenpain. i dipped to a vol-pique, but again a tentacle fell overthe monoplane and was shorn
off by the propeller as easily as it mighthave cut through a smoke wreath. a long, gliding, sticky, serpent-likecoil came from behind and caught me round the waist, dragging me outof the fuselage. i tore at it, my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue-likesurface, and for an instant i disengaged myself, but only to becaught round the boot by another coil, which gave me a jerk that tiltedme almost on to my back. "as i fell over i blazed off both barrelsof my gun, though, indeed, it was like attacking an elephant with a pea-shooterto imagine that any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk.and yet i aimed better
than i knew, for, with a loud report, oneof the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the punctureof the buck-shot. it was very clear that my conjecture was right,and that these vast, clear bladders were distended with some liftinggas, for in an instant the huge, cloud-like body turned sideways, writhingdesperately to find its balance, while the white beak snapped andgaped in horrible fury. but already i had shot away on the steepest glidethat i dared to attempt, my engine still full on, the flying propellerand the force of gravity shooting me downwards like an aerolite. farbehind me i saw a dull,
purplish smudge growing swiftly smaller andmerging into the blue sky behind it. i was safe out of the deadly jungleof the outer air. "once out of danger i throttled my engine,for nothing tears a machine to pieces quicker than running on full powerfrom a height. it was a glorious, spiral vol-plane from nearly eightmiles of altitude—first, to the level of the silver cloud-bank, thento that of the storm-cloud beneath it, and finally, in beating rain,to the surface of the earth. i saw the bristol channel beneath me as ibroke from the clouds, but, having still some petrol in my tank, i gottwenty miles inland before i
found myself stranded in a field half a milefrom the village of ashcombe. there i got three tins of petrolfrom a passing motor-car, and at ten minutes past six that evening ialighted gently in my own home meadow at devizes, after such a journeyas no mortal upon earth has ever yet taken and lived to tell the tale.i have seen the beauty and i have seen the horror of the heights—andgreater beauty or greater horror than that is not within theken of man. "and now it is my plan to go once again beforei give my results to the world. my reason for this is that i must surelyhave something to show
by way of proof before i lay such a tale beforemy fellow-men. it is true that others will soon follow and willconfirm what i have said, and yet i should wish to carry convictionfrom the first. those lovely iridescent bubbles of the air should not behard to capture. they drift slowly upon their way, and the swiftmonoplane could intercept their leisurely course. it is likely enoughthat they would dissolve in the heavier layers of the atmosphere, andthat some small heap of amorphous jelly might be all that i shouldbring to earth with me. and yet something there would surely be by whichi could substantiate my
story. yes, i will go, even if i run a riskby doing so. these purple horrors would not seem to be numerous. itis probable that i shall not see one. if i do i shall dive at once. atthe worst there is always the shot-gun and my knowledge of ..." here a page of the manuscript is unfortunatelymissing. on the next page is written, in large, straggling writing: "forty-three thousand feet. i shall neversee earth again. they are beneath me, three of them. god help me; itis a dreadful death to die!" such in its entirety is the joyce-armstrongstatement. of the man
nothing has since been seen. pieces of hisshattered monoplane have been picked up in the preserves of mr. budd-lushingtonupon the borders of kent and sussex, within a few miles ofthe spot where the note-book was discovered. if the unfortunate aviator'stheory is correct that this air-jungle, as he called it, existedonly over the south-west of england, then it would seem that he had fledfrom it at the full speed of his monoplane, but had been overtaken anddevoured by these horrible creatures at some spot in the outer atmosphereabove the place where the grim relics were found. the picture ofthat monoplane skimming
down the sky, with the nameless terrors flyingas swiftly beneath it and cutting it off always from the earth whilethey gradually closed in upon their victim, is one upon which a manwho valued his sanity would prefer not to dwell. there are many, as iam aware, who still jeer at the facts which i have here set down, buteven they must admit that joyce-armstrong has disappeared, and i wouldcommend to them his own words: "this note-book may explain what iam trying to do, and how i if you please." end of the horror of the heightsby sir arthur conan doyle