“How do you like it now?” called the officer in a jovial voice.
Grace saw his lips move and knew he was speaking to her, though she could not hear a word he said.
“I can’t hear you, sir.”
“I thought so. Pinch your nose and swallow hard several times,” he shouted, himself performing the same operation on his own nose.
Grace followed his direction, faintly heard, and something snapped in both ears. For the moment she thought she had ruptured her eardrums, but to her amazement discovered that she could hear as well as ever.
“I think I am perfectly all right now, sir,” she said. “How queer!”
“Decreased pressure,” answered Major Colt briefly. “We will make our weather report now if you will be good enough to remove the thermometer from the pocket behind you and throw it overboard.”
“Throw it overboard? Do you mean it, sir?”
He nodded.
Grace thrust her hand into the pocket and, finding the instrument, dropped it over the side. To her surprise it stopped with a jolt when just below the level of the basket. It was attached to a slender wire. “Please haul it in in five minutes,” the major ordered. Then he gave through the telephone the wind velocity, which Grace was amazed to learn was thirty-eight miles an hour; then the barometer reading, and then he called for the temperature.