“Don’t look down! Look at me!” commanded the aeronaut, sternly. “Look at me or I’ll drop on top of you,” he repeated.
Ned, alarmed, kept his eyes glued on those pink-clad legs twenty feet above him.
Yet he could no more help glancing hurriedly beneath him, than after a tooth has come out can you help putting your tongue into the hole.
He looked down for just a fraction of a second—and it was enough. He had seen the world, laid flat; a patch of green, and a patch of yellow, and a thread-like streak of silver; and the gulf that yawned under him made his flesh creep.
Supposing the aeronaut should drop on him! Wouldn’t that be awful! The rope might break, and together they would whirl like stones down through space. He watched the aeronaut anxiously.
“That’s right—watch me,” said the aeronaut. “If you don’t——” And he shook his head meaningly.
All this had required but a few moments, yet to Ned they had seemed hours.
“Where would you like to land?” asked the aeronaut, in a chatty voice. “Back at the fair grounds, or in a corn-field?”
“I don’t care,” faltered Ned. He was getting tired of his strained position.