"This is the hour!" said he to me. "We must die! We are rejected by
men! They despise us! let us crush them!"
"Mercy!" exclaimed I.
"Let us cut the cords! let this car be abandoned in space! The
attractive force will change its direction, and we shall land in the
sun!"
Despair gave me strength! I precipitated myself upon the madman, and a
frightful struggle took place! But I was thrown down! and while he held
me beneath his knee, he cut the cords of the car!
"One!" said he.
"Mercy! O, God!"
"Two! three!"
One cord more, and the car was sustained only on one side. I made a
superhuman effort, rose, and violently repulsed this insensate.
"Four!" said he.
The car was overset. I instinctively clung to the cords which held it,
and climbed up the outside.
The unknown had disappeared in space!
In a twinkling the balloon ascended to an immeasurable height! A
horrible crash was heard. The dilated gas had burst its envelope! I
closed my eyes. A few moments afterwards, a moist warmth reanimated me;
I was in the midst of fiery clouds! The balloon was whirling with
fearful rapidity! I felt myself swooning! Driven by the wind, I
travelled a hundred leagues an hour in my horizontal course; the
lightnings flashed around me!
Meanwhile my fall was not rapid. When I opened my eyes, I perceived the
country. I was two miles from the sea, the hurricane urging me on with
great force. I was lost, when a sudden shock made me let go; my hands
opened, a cord slipped rapidly between my fingers, and I found myself on
the ground. It was the cord of the anchor, which, sweeping the surface
of the ground, had caught in a crevice! I fainted, and my lightened
balloon, resuming its flight, was lost beyond the sea.
When I recovered my senses, I was in the house of a peasant, at
Harderwick, a little town of Gueldre, fifteen leagues from Amsterdam, on
the banks of the ZuyderzÈe.
A miracle had saved me. But my voyage had been but a series of
imprudences against which I had been unable to defend myself.
May this terrific recital, while it instructs those who read it, not
discourage the explorers of the routes of air.