“It is a cheerful outlook, Major. I thank you for your frankness, just the same. It is considerable satisfaction to know just what the probabilities are.”
As she was speaking, the officer, with glasses to his eyes, was studying the terrain ahead of them. Grace applied her own glasses to her eyes and gazed off to the eastward. She could make out the narrow ribbon of water, a crooked ribbon it was, that marked the course of the Rhine. Beyond it were rugged, terraced hills which she knew were vineyards, here and there the towers of a castle relieving the monotony of the hills. She was interrupted by a shout from the pilot.
“Here we go back,” he cried. “In another level now. That’s good.”
It was not long before they had swept over the marching American army, now so far below them that it could be made out only with the binoculars. The major liberated a little gas, whereupon the big bag was caught in a blast and driven to the eastward again. This time he let the ship go. There was no other safe course to follow. As it swept through the air it gained in altitude again, but did not go so high as before. Soon the earth was blotted out by a sea of clouds, which only now and then broke sufficiently to give the aviators a view of what lay beneath the cloud-sea.
“We must go lower,” the pilot told her, opening the gas valve ever so little, whereupon the balloon slowly sank through the clouds and the earth grew into their vision.
Something pinged through the air close at hand. Grace Harlowe had heard that sound many times since she arrived on the western front, and so had the major. It was a bullet, probably a rifle bullet. She flashed a significant glance at her companion and he nodded.
Ping! Another bullet had flung itself up from the earth.
The major threw over some ballast, which in this instance proved to be one of his sailing instruments.
“Sorry, but I had to do it,” he explained in answer to her look of inquiry. “Of course I might throw myself out, but that would be too much ballast and you never would stop going heavenward until the outfit blew up.”
Grace laughed and the officer joined in the laugh. The balloon had quickly shot through the clouds and was sailing along, the basket just grazing the tops of them. It was a wonderful spectacle, which the Overton girl, despite her serious situation, found time to gaze upon, and marvel at the beauties of cloudland.