One, the last one, the Chosen one reaches his Queen; her arms are open to receive him, and he falls in their mortal embrace. He lives his whole life in a second, and gives up the ghost in one gasp of ineffable ecstasy.
The varied emotions of our trip above the clouds are simply superhuman, but the owner does not seem to enjoy them:
“On ne s’amuse pas ici—descendons.”
I know he is longing to play with the trees again; but before I can answer, the valve-rope is jerked, and we drop two or three thousand feet.
Looking up through the open appendix, I can see the interior of the balloon, the valve-rope hanging in the centre, and watch the valve open and close at the top.
We are now traveling with the wind at a speed of forty miles an hour, but we feel no motion whatever. The hills, the meadows, the hamlets, rush toward us in a mad race, as if driven by the mighty hand of God.
The world looks like a painted atlas, with every little detail carefully marked. As I compare it with the military map in my hands, I can not tell which is the better of the two; and, moreover, at this altitude, they both seem the same size.
The captain is throwing out ballast,—quite a lot it seems to me. But the barometer is still falling. Down we go, and in a moment we are close to earth again. Half a dozen peasants are harvesting in the grain fields.
“Captain! we are dead birds this time!”
“Pas encore,” replies the owner, “but be sure before we touch ground to swing up on the hoop above you or the shock might break your legs.”