"Oh!" ejaculated Sir John, terror-struck, clinging hard to the side of the cage.
"Oh!" ejaculated Mr. Alloyd, also clinging hard.
"I want you to see London," said Edward Henry, who had been through the experience before.
The cage came to a standstill exactly at the peak of the other crane. London lay beneath the trio. The curves of Regent Street and of Shaftesbury Avenue, the right lines of Piccadilly, Lower Regent Street, and Coventry Street, were displayed at their feet as on an illuminated map, over which crawled mannikins and toy autobuses. At their feet a long procession of automobiles were sliding off, one after another, with the guests of the evening. The metropolis stretched away, lifting to the north, and sinking to the south into jewelled river on whose curved bank rose messages of light concerning whisky, tea, and beer. The peaceful nocturnal roar of the city, dwindling every moment now, reached them like an emanation from another world.
"You asked for a rocket, Sir John," said Edward Henry. "You shall have it."
He had taken a box of fuses from his pocket. He struck one, and his companions in the swaying cage now saw that a tremendous rocket was hung to the peak of the other crane. He lighted the fuse.... An instant of deathly suspense! ... And then with a terrific and a shattering bang and splutter the rocket shot towards the kingdom of heaven, and there burst into a vast dome of red blossoms which, irradiating a square mile of roofs, descended slowly and softly on the West End like a benediction.
"You always want crimson, don't you, Sir John?" said Edward Henry, and the easy cheeriness of his voice gradually tranquillised the alarm natural to two very earthly men who for the first time found themselves suspended insecurely over a gulf.
"I have seen nothing so impressive since the Russian ballet," murmured Mr. Alloyd, recovering.
"You ought to go to Siberia, Alloyd," said Edward Henry.
Sir John Pilgrim, pretending now to be extremely brave, suddenly turned on Edward Henry and in a convulsive grasp seized his hand.
"My friend," he said hoarsely, "a thought has just occurred to me: you and I are the two most remarkable men in London!" He glanced up as the cage trembled. "How thin that steel rope seems!"