As I wonder how we would look impaled on that sharp gothic steeple, a dozen pounds of ballast sends us skyward like a rocket.
"It's not the distance, it's the pace that kills."
It was then ten o'clock. We had traveled by actual measurement on the map, one hundred and eighty kilometers. The heat was increasing rapidly and the sensitive bubble over our heads had become more erratic than ever. Down it would drop a few thousand feet, if a cloud happened to darken the sun, and then up three or four thousand, as soon as the cloud had passed on.
This constant "bobbing" up and down at a terrific pace, added to the heat and lack of sleep, was gradually telling on our nerves. Ten hours in a basket, under such circumstances, is about as much as any ordinary man can stand. Without wasting any time in idle discussion, we decided to _atterrir_--in other words, to land, as soon as the necessary arrangements for this important operation had been completed.
The "Rolla" was then at nine thousand feet; we had lost the wind on our way up, and below, in the west, the storm was rapidly gaining on us.
We had still four sacks of sand ballast of the nine we had taken up with us. Every knot that held them to the basket was carefully examined; a precaution of vital importance, as we would soon be above the clouds again, if any of them escaped us in the varied incidents that might attend our descent. The lunch-basket and our coats were also securely fastened, and the anchor partly unlashed and made ready to be dropped.
I held the barometer, with eyes glued upon its face, ready to call out our future altitudes. My companion, with the valve-rope in his right and the ballast-spoon within reach, was still gazing earnestly at the fields in the distance, where we hoped we might stand alive a few minutes later.
[Illustration: { A woman looks up at the balloon.}]
Not a word had been spoken for some time, when the captain said:
"Our landing, I think, will be a hard one. I dislike the way those trees are scattered beyond that narrow valley. We never should have allowed the storm to reach our heels,--but it has to go now----," and his hand gives the valve-rope a long and heavy pull.
We can hear the gas sputter as it leaves the creaking silk.