“Come down with me, and I’ll show you one, then,” said the bandmaster.
He had conceived the idea of confronting Ilam with Mr. Jetsam.
The shifting searchlight from the balloon fell dazzlingly across the car, and through the window Carpentaria saw plainly for the fraction of a second the polished face of the Soudanese. Then it disappeared.
He rushed to the door, flung it open, and gazed downwards into the weblike tracery of the steel-work which shone dully in the white glare of the searchlight. A zigzag stairway, incomparably slender, stretched away towards earth along the face of the colossal wheel, and a dark figure slipped rapidly from rung to rung of the dizzy ladder. Then the light moved capriciously away, and all was indistinguishable blackness.
CHAPTER XIII—Performances of Mr. Jetsam
Carpentaria slipped back into the car with a shiver, as it occurred to him that Ilam, had he so chosen, might have pushed him into three hundred and forty perpendicular feet of space. But Ilam had not moved.
“I’ve had enough,” said Carpentaria. “We’ll descend. Ring the bell.”
“No,” said Ilam. “I want to——”