A CHANGE
This was the end of the peaceful part of our voyage and the prelude of
a new and more exciting phase.
The wind, whistling ceaselessly, finished by somewhere picking up a
few clouds which had been almost imperceptible in the four corners of
the horizon. The balloon’s course began to be less regular; sometimes
it jumped in a disquieting manner, and our barometer then showed
variations of one thousand yards in a few minutes. Once we were even so
near the earth that we were able to speak to peasants who were working
in the fields. We asked them to tell us where we were, and they seemed
to have understood our question, for they answered us, but we could not
catch their reply.
The excessive swiftness with which the balloon had passed prevented
us from understanding what they said. The sound of their voices only
reached us as the distant echo of human speech. Our ears only heard
inarticulate sounds whose meaning escaped us, so swiftly was the
distance increased which separated our question from their answer.
At another time the car floated majestically over an immense plain
which filled the horizon and stretched as far as the eye could see.
Then it was I wanted to effect our descent. I said so to our aeronaut,
and asked him to open the valve and let the gas escape slowly, so as to
allow our balloon to sink gently to the ground.
The plain which was unfolded before our eyes seemed to me created
expressly for a successful landing. Here we could descend without
fearing any of those terrible accidents which threatened every descent
on less propitious ground. For a balloon does not always stop when it
reaches the earth; it often drags its car and knocks it with terrible
rage against obstacles, as we ourselves were destined to see.
Nothing of the kind was to be feared here. The balloon might graze the
earth and drag the car along the ground as much as it liked without
any great danger to ourselves. It was bound to end at any moment by
literally expiring, without crushing its passengers in its agony. But
it was fated that we were to continue our journey and descend later on
in a less peaceable manner.
The sailor certainly made an excellent soldier, as did all the brave
seamen who had pluckily done their duty in the Siege of Paris; but as
an aeronaut he was mediocre. He took no account of anything, neither
the direction we had followed, nor the swift speed of our passage, nor
the distance we must have traversed since our start from Paris. He
said: “If you give orders to come down, I will open the valve. I will
do so to obey orders, but may I take the liberty of saying that we have
not yet gone very far. We shall fall into the enemy’s lines, and once
the valve is open we shall not be able to go up again.” I was not of
this opinion; I considered that we must be very far from Paris and that
this plain must be one of the fertile plains of Normandy, which extend
from the banks of the Seine to the sea. We had been travelling for more
than two hours with a powerful east wind and had moved with almost
painful speed the whole time. Unless one supposed that the balloon had
changed its direction on the way, which was by no means probable as the
wind had not changed at all, it was easy to estimate the distance which
we must have traversed.
It was sufficient to watch the shadow of the balloon gliding at express
speed over the distant earth.
If the course of this immense phantom appeared very rapid to us at a
height of one thousand or one thousand five hundred yards, what must
have been the real speed of the balloon itself, which projected such a
rapid shadow into the distance!
I imparted this reflection to our pilot, but he was insensible to my
arguments and would not listen. He shook his head in doubt, and without
consenting to discuss my reasons, repeated: “If you give the order, I
will obey; but I think it will be better to wait.”
I finally gave way and consented to wait. After all, I said to myself,
we were not badly off in the air, and it was always better to be a
little longer up there than to come down too quickly and fall into the
hands of the enemy.
So we continued our journey.
It was a mistake, an irreparable mistake, one which came near costing
us dear.
From that moment the weather suddenly changed, and a quarter of an hour
later all hope of ending our journey peaceably by a regular descent was
completely lost.
The horizon, which up till now had been clear and radiant, began to
take on a disquietingly sombre tint. Mists arose. We could not see
where they came from, but they came, interminably rolling and surging
and thickening more and more; a tempest was forming around us. It was
a strange scene, at once beautiful and terrible, and its very horror
so contributed to its beauty that I forgot for the moment that we were
ourselves about to play a part in the drama.