THE BALLOON COMES DOWN.
‘Hello!’ exclaimed Lucius. ‘What have they put out the torches for, I
wonder.’
‘So they hev,’ said Ephraim, peering over. ‘Sh! keep mum! Maybe thar’s
some wan tryin’ ter head us off. I wish they’d let her go.’ Then, as no
sound broke the stillness of the night, nor could any noise of footsteps
be heard, he called softly, ‘Let her go!’
Instantly came back a response in his own words, as a bo’sun repeats the
orders of the mate, ‘Let her go!’
But the balloon remained stationary, and at last, after waiting for a
moment or two, Ephraim cast prudence to the winds and shouted at the top
of his voice: ‘Let her go, ye durned fools. Why don’t ye let her go?’
‘Ye durned fools, why don’t ye let her go?’ was hurled back at him with
savage emphasis.
‘By time!’ began Ephraim—when Lucius interrupted with, ‘That was echo,
Grizzly.’
‘Echo in this yer field!’ retorted Ephraim. ‘Thar ain’t any echo. If
thar war, why didn’t she up ’n answer when I gave the boys good-bye and
ye hollered out yer message?’
‘Well, it sounded like it,’ persisted Lucius. ‘Try again and make sure.’
‘Let her go, can’t ye?’ howled Ephraim, unable, in his anxiety to be
quit of mother earth, to think of any other test. But this time there
was no reply.
‘What’d I tell ye?’ cried Ephraim excitedly. ‘Thar warn’t no echo. The
or’nery skunks hev been playin’ it back on us, and now they’ve
skedaddled and left us anchored hyar.’
‘Perhaps some one came along and scared them,’ suggested Lucius.
‘I’ll scare ’em wanst I git down agen,’ grumbled Ephraim. ‘However, it
don’t amount ter a cob er corn. I’ll soon cut her loose, though sutt’nly
I didn’t want ter lose that extry bit er rope.’
‘It’s grown very cold all of a sudden,’ remarked Lucius, as Ephraim
hunted round for the lantern he had brought. ‘And wet, too. Oh!’ as the
Grizzly drew the slide and flashed the light here and there. ‘It’s
raining hard, and never a sound on the balloon. How very odd.’
‘Hyar’s the rope,’ exclaimed Ephraim at this juncture. ‘Ketch hold on
the light, Luce, while I cut her through.’
He handed the lantern to Lucius, and having opened a formidable
clasp-knife, put his hand through the cords which rose from the car, and
laid hold of the detaining rope.
Instantly an exclamation of deep surprise escaped him. The rope was
slack.
‘What’s wrong now?’ inquired Lucius, still occupied in wondering why the
rain had made no sound. ‘It has stopped raining. I can see the stars
again.’
For answer Ephraim broke into peal after peal of laughter. ‘Co’se ye
kin! Co’se ye kin!’ he shouted. ‘Why, don’t ye know ye must be nigh on a
mile nearer ter ’em than when ye started. Ho! ho! ho!’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lucius. ‘We can’t have gone up so high just
since you cut the rope.’
‘Cut the rope!’ cried Ephraim. ‘I never did cut the rope. See hyar.’ He
hauled in the slack and flung it on the floor of the car. ‘While us two
fust-class samples er prize ijots hez been growlin’ and howlin’, ole
Blue Bag hyar hez been cuttin’ through space like a wheel-saw goin’
through a block er pine.’
‘My!’ exclaimed Lucius. ‘Then the torches were not put out by the men?’
‘Not them,’ chuckled Ephraim. ‘The old balloon jest lit out fer the sky
and left ’em.’
‘I didn’t feel any movement then, and I don’t now,’ said Lucius
incredulously. ‘Are you sure we are off?’
‘You kin smile,’ returned Ephraim. ‘You’ve looked yer last on the old
world fer a bit. Why, that echo might hev told me, fer I read about jest
such a thing in my book; but I war that flabbergasted et what ye said
about the torches that I clean forgot it.’
‘Was the echo in the air then?’ asked Lucius.
‘It p’intedly war. Thar and nowhar else. Then we got out er that belt
and whoosh! through thet cloud and rain-storm, and hyar we air bright
and early, all ready to give howdy to the little twinklin’ stars.
Hurroo!’
‘But are you sure?’ persisted Lucius. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Waal, it’s so, sonny. Ye kin see fer yerself.’ Ephraim tore up some
paper and flung the pieces over the side of the car, and as he flashed
the light upon them, Lucius observed that they appeared to be fluttering
down. ‘Thet shows we’re goin’ up, ye onderstand,’ said Grizzly.
‘No, I do not understand,’ answered Lucius; ‘and since you know so much
about it, you’d better explain.’
Ephraim needed no second bidding, but at once began a learned discourse
on ballast, valves, and everything pertaining to the manufacture and
management of balloons, when Lucius suddenly shrieked out: ‘My ears are
beating like drums, and I think my head is going to burst.’
‘Ye don’t say so!’ responded Ephraim in unaffected alarm. ‘Hello! so’s
mine. We must be goin’ up too high. Hold on! I’ll fetch her down.’
He pulled the cord which opened the valve as he spoke, and presently
they were conscious of pleasanter surroundings.
‘That’s better,’ said Lucius. ‘Do you know, I think it was rather rash
to come up in the dark.’
‘Maybe it war,’ admitted Ephraim; ‘but ef we’d tried ter start in the
daytime, we’d never hev come up at all.’
‘We should have been stopped, sure enough,’ assented Lucius, who with
the absence of motion on the part of the balloon had lost most of the
fear which had possessed him at the start. ‘All the same, I think we
might as well have waited for the dawn.’
‘I don’t suppose thar’s much risk er a collision up hyar,’ said Ephraim
quaintly. ‘I ’magine we’ve got the sky pretty much ter ourselves. But ye
won’t hev long ter wait fer dawn on a June night; and meantime, ef we
watch the valve we’ll hev no trouble.’
‘That brings us down?’ said Lucius.
‘Ezacly. It’s all jest ez easy ez fallin’ off’n a log, this yer
balloonin’. When we want ter git up, ye chuck out a bag of ballast, and
when ye want ter come down, ye pull the valve cord and let out a smart
lump of gas. That’s about the lot of it.’
‘When we get back to Staunton,’ advised Lucius, ‘you ought to turn
professional.’
‘Professional what?’ inquired Ephraim, who was busy setting things to
rights in the car by the light of the lantern.
‘Why, professional—what d’ye call him? The man who goes up in balloons.’
‘Airy-nort!’ shouted Ephraim joyously. ‘By time! Luce, thet’s a
perfectly grand idee. So I will. I’ll turn airy-nort and take folks up
and down fer five dollars the trip. Luce, I’m obleeged ter ye fer thet
idee. I p’intedly am.’
‘If it helps you to get back your pile, I shall be very glad,’ said
Lucius rather sadly. ‘I’m sure I’ll be very willing to act as conductor,
and rush around and get passengers for you.’
‘Shucks!’ observed Ephraim. ‘Who’s thinkin’ of the pile?’
‘I am,’ said Lucius, ‘and shall never cease to think of it until I have
made it up to you in some way. I really do believe that aeronaut notion
is a good one.’
‘It is thet,’ affirmed Ephraim with conviction, ‘and I’ll fix it up too;
you see ef I don’t.’
‘I suppose you know that you are still holding the valve cord,’ said
Lucius. ‘How are we to get up again if you let out all the gas?’
‘By time! I forgot,’ exclaimed Ephraim, releasing the cord. ‘I ’low
thar’s more in this yer airy-nortin’ than I thort thar war. We’re about
steady now,’ he went on, throwing out some more paper in the stream of
lamplight; ‘but of co’se I dunno whar we air; fer I han’t no notion how
fast or how slow old Blue Bag kin travel.’
‘Well, there’s not much wind,’ said Lucius, ‘so I don’t suppose we have
gone very far. It would be rather a joke if we found ourselves standing
still over Staunton, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would thet!’ grinned Ephraim, ‘or, better still, ef we went hoverin’
over the Yanks jest ez they war gittin’ their breakfasts.’
‘By the way, where do you expect to get to?’ inquired Lucius. ‘I suppose
you thought it all out before we started?’
‘Waal, I kinder did, ez fur ez might be,’ replied Ephraim, ‘though
sutt’nly it war like enuff ter wanderin’ blindfold through a wood; but I
knew jest ez well ez everybody else thet old Stonewall war gobblin’ up
the Yanks somewhar in the valley, and I ’lowed we wouldn’t git much
beyond Winchester ’thout lightin’ on his trail.’
‘Winchester! All that long way off!’
‘Oh, come. It ain’t so very fur ez all thet comes to, and besides, ye
air carried free, gratis, and fur nuthin’. ’Tisn’t ez ef ye war asked
ter walk.’
‘That’s all very well; but supposing the wind changes, or has changed,
and blows us to goodness knows where. What are you going to do then?
Will there be enough gas left to bring us back again?’
‘Oh! I reckon yes,’ answered Ephraim rather uncomfortably, for this was
a point which he had left unconsidered. ‘But it don’t matter much after
all. It wouldn’t be such a trial ez all thet ter do it on foot!’
‘I shouldn’t mind,’ assented Lucius. ‘I suppose we could find our way,
and as to food—why, Grizzly, did you bring any with you? I never
remembered it.’
‘Thet’s all right,’ said Ephraim, relieved at the turn given to the
conversation; ‘ye’ll find plenty in this bag—bread and meat and milk—and
ef ye’re hungry, why, ye’d better pitch in.’
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ laughed Lucius, ‘though, to be sure, it is
rather early for breakfast. Oh, Grizzly,’ he went on, munching the
viands, ‘I was in a horrible fright when we first started. I was in two
minds about stepping out of the car, when old Blue Bag, as you seem to
have named the balloon, shot up to the length of the rope, and then of
course I was done for.’
‘Ye war,’ chuckled Ephraim, following suit with the provisions; ‘but now
ye see it’s jest the nicest kind er travellin’ ever invented. I ’low I
warn’t quite sure myself how it would be when fust we started, but I
wouldn’t ask nuthin’ better than this. Wait till mornin’ comes and we’ll
show our flag.’
‘Flag!’ echoed Lucius. ‘Have you brought a flag?’
‘Rayther!’ said Ephraim; ‘a proper one, too—stars and bars and all. I
didn’t want our boys ter fire on us ye know, sposin’ we came too close
to the ground.’
‘But the Yanks will fire on us if they see the flag,’ argued Lucius.
‘By time! I never thort er thet,’ confessed Ephraim with humility. His
reasoning was not infrequently like that of Sir Isaac Newton with regard
to his cat and her kitten. ‘Waal, never mind, we’ll do without the flag.
And ez ter shootin’,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘ef it comes ter
thet, I reckon we kin stand a siege.’
Lucius did not hear this remark, and in response to his request for its
repetition, Grizzly merely asserted that it didn’t matter.
Providence was kind to the two lads in their ignorance, and for a couple
of hours they floated peacefully along, sublimely unconscious of the
dangers to which they were exposed, and chatting, with boyish disregard
of the awfulness of the theme, over their chances of witnessing the most
horrible sight in nature—men struggling together in bloody strife, like
savage beasts of prey.
Then suddenly a red light flared up in the east, and Ephraim exclaimed
cheerfully: ‘Thar comes the mornin’. We’ll soon larn our wharabouts
now.’
But, even as he said the words, the fires of day were extinguished, a
wet veil enveloped the balloon, which heeled over as a blast of bitter
cold wind rushed shrieking through the cordage. A long, jagged stream of
blinding light rent the cloud-bank into which they had entered, while,
almost simultaneously, a stunning thunder roll reverberated all around
them.
‘Oh!’ shrieked Lucius, burying his face in his hands. ‘How awful! Let us
go down. Quick! quick! The balloon will burst.’
‘We can’t!’ gasped Ephraim, also temporarily out of his senses with
fright. ‘I’ve lost my grip of the valve cord.’
It was true. Not expecting such a contretemps, he had neglected to
secure the valve cord, which at the first lurch of the balloon had swung
through the cordage, and now dangled out of reach and invisible in the
darkness.
Meanwhile the thunder roared and crackled, and the lightning blazed
about them, and the balloon, driven this way and that by contrary
currents of wind, swung from side to side, staggering back to the
perpendicular; while the frail car, falling with each lurch and recovery
to the utmost limit of the binding ropes, shook and whirled and bumped
its miserable occupants till they were actually sick with terror and
physical discomfort.
‘Oh! oh!’ moaned Lucius. ‘I shall die! Oh! why did I ever come? I shall
be killed! Oh! if it were only not so very dark!’
Suddenly there was a shout from Ephraim. Lucius knew in a dim
unconscious way that he had risen to his feet and was leaning over the
car during a temporary lull in the mad gyrations of the balloon, and in
a few moments more old Blue Bag, bursting grandly through the storm,
soared peacefully amid tranquil skies into the broad light of day.
‘By time!’ ejaculated Ephraim, wiping the sweat from his face, which was
deadly pale. ‘Thet war on’y jest in time. Thet war none too soon. What
an or’nery skunk I must hev been ter fergit it.’
‘What did you do?’ chattered Lucius, still in deadly terror.
‘Why, hove out a big lump er ballast, er co’se,’ returned Ephraim, who
was fast getting his quivering nerves under control again. ‘And I do
hope it’ll fall plump on one er them pesky Yanks and knock the nat’al
stuffin’ out er him.—Don’t ye take on so, Luce. I ’low it war awful
while et lasted—awful; but we’re all right now. Old Blue Bag don’t set
me back again, I tell ye.’
Lucius cast one despairing look upwards.
‘Right!’ he groaned. ‘Can’t you see that we’re going up and up, and
we’ll never come down again until the balloon has been shivered into
atoms. You’ve lost the cord.’
Ephraim followed the glance. Matters were certainly about as bad as they
could be. The valve cord, tangled in the rigging of the balloon, lay
twisted far up on the side of the latter, absolutely out of reach.
‘Umph!’ grunted Ephraim. ‘Waal, it’s a mercy thar’s more ways than one.
I’ll make a hole in her side.’
He pulled out his clasp-knife, and with a sigh for the dire necessity of
it, prepared to stab the child of his invention. But, as he stood at the
edge of the car, his fingers, numbed with cold and wet, lost grip of the
knife in their efforts to open the strong blade, and with a silence more
eloquent than the loudest crash, it slipped down into the cloud depths
below.
A cry of horror broke from Lucius as what seemed to him their only means
of salvation disappeared, but Ephraim shouted loudly: ‘Lend us yourn,
quick! It’s gettin’ ez cold ez a iceberg. Smart, sonny!’
‘I haven’t got it,’ whimpered Lucius. ‘I put it out to bring, but I
forgot it. Oh! oh! oh! I shall be killed! I shall be killed!’ He flung
himself upon the floor of the car, grovelling abjectly in the desolation
of his spirit.
Another nature might have upbraided Lucius and reminded him that the
danger was at least equal for both of them, and that his was not the
only life at stake. Not so the old Grizzly. He stooped down, and patting
the cowering boy on the shoulder, said in strong, tender voice, in which
lurked no perceptible note of anxiety: ‘What, Luce! ’Tain’t your par’s
son ter be kyar’in’ on like thet. Stand up now—thar’s a lamb—and be
ready ter ketch hold on thet cord ez I sling her in.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Lucius would have said, but the words froze
upon his lips, and with eyes that bulged with terror he watched his
intrepid friend, who had kicked off his boots, and with an ashen face,
but steely eyes and hard-set lips, climbed upon the rim of the car and
grasped the mass of cordage above his head.
For a moment Lucius felt inclined to faint, but by a violent effort he
collected his scattered wits, and shaking like an aspen leaf, leaned
with outstretched hand against the side of the car.
Truly it was a fearful sight. As Ephraim, his feet twined among the
cordage, slowly mounted towards the network, the balloon, drawn by his
weight, careened over, so that he hung sideways—above him the
illimitable blue—below, thousands of feet below him, the earth he has so
rashly left. Lucius shut his eyes, and his brain reeled with the horror
of the thing; but brave old Grizzly never faltered, never hesitated,
only mounted inch by inch to where the valve cord rested on the bellying
curve of the balloon.
At last he reached it, and freeing it swiftly, sent it inwards with a
turn of the wrist. As one in a dream, Lucius saw it waving towards him,
opened and shut his hand mechanically, caught it, and pulled with all
his might.
‘Hold on!’ roared Ephraim, scrambling once more into the car. ‘Don’t ye
lug like thet. Ye’ll hev the whole gimbang ter bits, and we’ll go
whirlin’ down quicker ’n we came up.’
He gently took the cord from Luce’s trembling hand and made it fast.
‘Thar,’ he said, ‘I reckon we’ve about exhausted the possibilities fer a
spell. We’ll take a rest, now, thank ye.—Hello!’ For as he turned,
Lucius flung his arms about him.
‘Oh, you dear, brave old Grizzly,’ sobbed the overwrought boy. ‘You’ve
saved my life. Oh! How could you go up there in that dreadful place?’
The colour rushed back to Ephraim’s face in a great wave, and while he
satisfied himself by a look that the balloon was falling, he fondled and
soothed the boy by his side as a mother might have done.
‘Thar now, Luce; thar now,’ he said tenderly, ‘don’t take on no more.
Shucks! It warn’t nuthin’, now it’s over. We’re going down now. Steady,
bub, steady; we’re jist gittin’ ter thet bank of storm-clouds.
Thar’—drawing Lucius close to him, as the boy shivered with
apprehension—‘now we’re through that lot, and none the worse er it.
Look, Luce, look—thar’s old Mother Earth. Bullee! Reckon ye’ll prefer to
stay down wanst ye git thar.’
[Illustration:
Ephraim, his feet twined among the cordage, slowly mounted towards the
network.
]
‘Oh, yes,’ sobbed Lucius. ‘We’ll get home somehow, but not in this awful
balloon.’
Old Blue Bag was now rapidly nearing the earth, and had the boys had the
heart to consider it, a wonderful panorama lay stretched out below them.
But earth in their regard held but one joy just then—it was a
resting-place, a sure haven of safety, and for its beauties they had no
eye. With one hand on the valve cord, and holding a bag of ballast in
the other, Ephraim regulated their descent. The grapnel was out, and as
the balloon slowly sank, dragged through the tops of the trees in a
thick wood. Now they were past this, and floating over open spaces
again. The grapnel swept along the ground, caught under the bole of a
fallen tree—and they were safe.
‘Whoop!’ screeched Ephraim, flinging out a rope. ‘I reckon we’ve got
thar. Over ye go, Luce.’
Lucius did not wait to be told twice. He simply flung himself upon the
rope, and scrambling down, sank in a confused heap upon the ground.
Ephraim followed quickly, saw that the balloon was fast and secure, and
was just bending anxiously over his companion, when a sudden sound
caused him to look up.
From all directions men in blue uniforms, and guns with bayonets fixed
in their hands, were running towards them.
‘Gloryful gracious!’ murmured Ephraim, straightening up. ‘Ef thet ain’t
the peskiest kind er luck. We’ve been and tumbled right inter a nest er
Yanks!’
[Illustration]