But the more I looked at him the further did suspicion fly from my mind. He had a frank and honest eye and a simple and natural attitude. Such clear signs of sincerity and loyalty emanated from his whole person that my doubts ceased, and I felt remorse at having for a single moment suspected the sincerity of his devotion.
He had finished his little speech by asking the simple question, “Will you trust yourselves to me?” I held out my hand, and said, “Shake, M. Thiébeaux, and let us start.”
“But I do not want to start alone,” he said. “I have a friend who knows the way better than I, and we shall have need of him. I will answer for him. May I bring him with me?”
A little later my companions and I were seated with our brave guides in a little country carriage and making for the Belgian frontier.
Vigneulles is in the Meuse, at the entrance to the great plain which is known as the “Grande Woëvre.” This was the scene of the memorable battles of the 16th and 18th of August, 1870, the battles which are called Mars-la-Tour, Rezonville, Gravelotte and Saint-Privat.[B] The little village lies between Verdun and Metz, and is about forty kilometres distant from the latter.
[B] Note:—It is also the scene of very serious fighting at the present moment (Feb., 1915). Vigneulles is a few miles from the German position at St. Mihiel.
This enabled us to calculate the path we must have taken in our balloon.
The distance from Paris to Metz is about four hundred kilometres, but our balloon did not take a direct course. During the first part of our journey we went persistently in an opposite direction—that is to say, towards the west of France—and it was only when the storm commenced, which was about 11 o’clock in the morning, that the wind must have shifted and carried us towards the east.
It was not yet 11 o’clock when I had expressed a desire to come down on the great plain which offered us such an immense and propitious terrain for coming to earth. The wind had at that time not yet changed, and we could hope to come down in the fertile plains of Normandy or possibly in the direction of Brittany. Our aeronaut did not share my point of view, and we continued our journey. It was only then, after two hours navigation, that the weather changed. So it is evident that the balloon must have traversed at least twice the distance between Paris and Metz, since it had travelled for two hours at full speed in an opposite direction. The whole journey had been carried out in the space of four hours—from nine in the morning till one in the afternoon. That represented an amazing speed: two or three hundred kilometres an hour.
And now for the Belgian frontier!