I stood hypnotized and cold, until called back to my barometer. I saw that the captain’s teeth were set, but his eye was clear and serene.
We now realize to its full extent the gravity of the situation.
The needle is jumping in my hands. “Twenty-two hundred metres—twenty-one-fifty—twenty-one——!” The storm is not a mile behind us, and the heavy wind that precedes it rolls in graceful waves over the wheat and barley fields.
“Seventeen hundred and fifty metres—seventeen hundred—sixteen hundred——!”
We are falling at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. Everything below us is moving at lightning speed.
“Twelve hundred and fifty—twelve hundred—eleven hundred metres——!”
My voice is slightly hoarse, but I call out the numbers as fast as I see them, and they follow each other in rapid succession.
“Nine hundred—eight hundred and fifty—eight hundred metres——!”
The sudden change of altitude makes us both very deaf; but I can still hear the captain say:
“Haul in the other sack of sand!—We must keep up long enough to clear that forest and land in the field beyond, this side of the large clump of trees.”