“How fearful And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
... I’ll look no more
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong!”
Shakspeare.
“Oh, how delightful!” was the first exclamation of Mabel, as the Eaglet shot upwards, swiftly, but with a motion so smooth that its speed was only made known by the earth and the spectators appearing to sink down—down—ever growing less and less, while the cheers sounded fainter and fainter, as rising up from a distance. “How delightful!” she repeated, waving a little flag as her farewell to those below.
But when the smiling Mabel turned to look at her companions, she was somewhat startled to mark that the countenance of her uncle was of the same ashen hue as that of the earl.
“How is it that Mr. Verdon is not with us?” exclaimed Mabel in some surprise.
Augustine silenced her by a warning look. His grasp on the arm of Dashleigh had grown heavier[194] and tighter; but for that grasp it is possible that the nobleman, in the first excitement of fear, would have flung himself out of the car. Augustine’s first thought was for his companion, for he felt that the unhappy Dashleigh was trembling convulsively under his hand.
“Well, my friends,” said he, in a tone so cheerful that it completely deceived his niece; “Verdon will think it a shame if we do not go back for him directly; I propose, therefore, that we descend.”
“Yes, descend!” cried Dashleigh wildly; and a strange faint echo from the far earth repeated the word, “Descend!”
Augustine was almost afraid to loosen his hold on the arm of the earl; it was, however, necessary that he should try some means of bringing the Eaglet to the ground. He was, of course, aware that this means must be to let out the gas which inflated the ball, but ignorant as he was of the practical working of a balloon, however easily he might grasp its theory, Augustine was left to guess the way in which this effect might be produced. Mabel, who had perfect confidence in the power of her gifted uncle to master any difficulty, and who saw no change in his countenance except the paleness which overspread his handsome features, had no idea of the anxious fear which now perplexed his mind.
Augustine laid hold of a rope which seemed to him to be the one most probably attached to the[195] valve at the top of the ball, and in this his reason had not misled him. The valve was constructed to open inwardly, so that the pressure of the gas within might keep it constantly closed, except when mechanical means were applied to counteract that pressure. But Mr. Verdon’s misgiving had not been without foundation; there was some hitch with the valve which prevented its working properly under an inexperienced hand. As Augustine pulled the rope, the balloon entered into a cloud, and the travellers suddenly found themselves enveloped in a dense, damp, chilly mist.
“Are we ascending or descending?” asked Mabel, “for the balloon is so steady that it does not seem to be moving at all.”
Her uncle, who, with far greater anxiety, had been asking himself the same question, replied in a voice still perfectly calm, “throw down some pieces of paper, and we shall ascertain that fact directly.”
Wondering that he should not know it without having recourse to experiment, Mabel immediately obeyed. “The bits seem to fall, not like paper, but like lead!” she exclaimed.
“Then we must be ascending rapidly still,” muttered Augustine; and he pulled the rope with such desperate force that it snapped in his hand, and all communication with the all-important valve was broken off for ever.
“God have mercy upon us!” was Augustine’s[196] instinctive prayer, not uttered aloud from the fear of alarming his companions. The thick mist prevented Mabel from having any clear idea of what her uncle was doing, but she thought him strangely silent, and a damping chill came over her young spirit like the fog which enwrapped her form. Augustine looked up almost in despair at the huge indistinct mass looming as a dark cloud above him. Oh! that there were but any means of tearing open a passage for the gas! The wicker car, suspended by ropes, hung too low beneath the ball for it to be possible for Aumerle’s extended arm to reach the silken globe, or his penknife would have at once offered an easy solution of the difficulty. A light, agile sea-boy might possibly have climbed one of the ropes, and so have reached the inflated ball; but the brain of Augustine turned dizzy at the very thought of attempting to clamber at the awful height to which he knew that he must now have attained. His frame was remarkable for strength as well as for manly beauty, but was altogether unfitted for a perilous feat like this. To have attempted it must have been inevitably to fall and perish.
Suddenly, to Mabel’s relief, the balloon emerged from its misty shroud, and burst again into the brightness of day. The scene was one never to be forgotten, but Mabel was the only on............