Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 18, 1928 — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

874 heads small, round, and bald with black top-knots like plumes. They stood upon short legs, yet were as tall as myself. They seemed very gentle; they regarded us timorously, but curiously. They knew Sonya; as she entered the cage, they nuzzled with their beaks against her smock. “Ah, Nana! They want sweets,” she Jaughed. One, more bold, pecked at her pocket. She leaned, and with her shoulder heaved its great body away. Then she pro- duced small pieces of sweetmeat, made them each take a piece decorously. “They are well trained, you see?” She rested an arm against the great curving side of one of them; I could well imagine that on its broad soft back she could have ridden into the air. One had lazily opened its wings; a feathered spread of fifteen feet at least, graceful wings, gray-white, with tips that were solid black. The platform was under an inclosure of the flat roof. Sonya rolled it out—a plat- form some ten feet long, by six wide. Soft furs covered its surface. It was mounted upon small wheels, with a frame set in small cylinders of compressed gas as cush- ions against the shock of landing. Midway of the platform, underneath, was a cross rod. Sonya extended its sections sidewise, each jutting out some six feet be- yond the platform edge. To each of the ends of this rod, a bird was harnessed. The other six were in two strings in front— three in a string, one in advance of the other. There were reins for the leading birds, to pull their heads gently from one side to the other; a rein to pull downward on their feet; another rein, which when drawn upon, raised a cushion to press upward against the bird’s throat. It took Sonya only a few minutes to har- ness them. I had been inspecting the plat- form. It was built of a light metal frame- work, upon which a thin, strong membrane was stretched. The whole seemed light as a kite. Beneath it, set in the space between its Janding gear, was a system of small, flex- ible wings, and movable cones through which the air rushed. And there was a ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. horizontal and vertical rudder, with flexible tips. Flying skill was needed. There were several controls, near the front of the plat- form, where now the reins were held in a notched cross-bar. “We are ready,” said Sonya. She stretched upon her side on the fur covering of the platform, with the reins and the con- trols before her. We took our places beside and behind her, lying at full length, arms crooked into leather straps to hold us. Sonya called to the birds. Eight of them as one, leaped upward. The great wings flapped. We moved, rolled across the roof; at its edge we lifted with a jerk. The low housetop, the dark trees, other roofs, the dim city lights all slid downward into a blur of shadow. On a long slant, we headed upward into the starlit night. [ lay on my side, clinging to that swaying, leaping platform. The wind surged past, tearing away every sound save the flapping of those giant wings. A graceful bird on each side of me; two strings of them slant- ing upward in front; winging swiftly up into the night, drawing me after them. The dark world was lost and gone; the star-in- crusted dome of the heavens encompassed everything. This was not an air voyage; it was fly- ing. The platform fluttered, slid over the air like some swiftly drawn kite. The heavens swung with a dizzy lurching. I gazed over the edge at the dark moving landscape far down. The faint lights of the city showed a thinly built, suburban area; then the shore of a starlit sea ahead. Primitive flying, with the first startling strangeness of it gone, its romance swept over me, a magic carpet upon which I lay, magically flying over realms of mystery, a flight unreal; ro- mantically miraculous. A magic world was down there, with wondrous things passing beneath me and my magic carpet. I was brought back from roaming fancy. Dolores, lying beside me, was pulling at my shoulder. I caught her words before the wind snatched at them. . “Look, Leonard! There is the island!” There was no fear of this flight upon Dolores’s face; only an eager wonderment, — choo com cS (EO)