CHAPTER XXV
From Kite Balloon to Saddle
The two occupants clung to the side of the padded basket, from which it was a marvel they had not been flung by the sudden upward rush of the huge sausage-shaped envelope above their heads.
The observer's face was very white, but he pulled himself together pluckily enough, and took the now useless receivers from his ears.
"I'm awfully sorry to have got you into this mess, old man," he said apologetically.
"It isn't a bit of use being sorry," snapped Dennis. "Get a move on you! What's the best thing to be done?"
The sharp anger in his companion's voice acted like a tonic, and the observation officer pulled a cord.
"I don't think it's an atom of good, for all that," he volunteered doubtfully. "It's a thousand chances to one, with this breeze, that we shall drop on our side of the fence, and those blessed guns of theirs have got us set. Look at that!"
A shrapnel burst above them, and as its fleecy white cloud unrolled there were two more bursts, one immediately below, which carried away the parachute, the other about eighty yards to the left.