"Two birds with one stone," said Dorlan. "The boys have taught this audience how to laugh. I can show them an act of bravery. One bird!
"There must be a great force somewhere directing the affairs of the universe. His plannings puzzle me. Men have accidentally gone from balloons to solve the great mystery of all things. Bird number two! Morlene evidently does not care."
Elbowing his way through the crowd, Dorlan clambered upon the platform and said: "Gentlemen, the phases of Negro character are as varied as those of other men. There is in us the sense of the humorous and the possibilities of the tragic. We can partake of life to satiety, we can die of grief. These boys have made you laugh. Allow me to awaken in you higher emotions. I will make the ascension and descent and thus prevent the marring of our evening's entertainment."
The medicine man looked at Dorlan in astonishment, approached him and talked with him a short while. Concluding that Dorlan was sane, knew what he was about, and would not undertake the feat if incapable of successfully performing it, the man now had the balloon prepared. The audience, glad that they were not to be robbed of their expected pleasure, cheered lustily when it was found that Dorlan was to make the trip into the air.
Dorlan stepped into the balloon and was soon being whirled upward. His soul felt a measure of relief as he rose above the staring crowd, above the tall buildings, as he entered the regions of floating clouds, as he passed upward toward the brightly shining moon and the quiet light of the stars. On and on he swept.
The pure air into which he had now come refreshed his spirit and he could look at matters with a clearer vision. "Think," said Dorlan, as he stood in the balloon and gazed into the stellar depths, "how long it took this universe to evolve unto its present state. Think of the seemingly slow process of world formation now going on in the Nebulae scattered through those realms yonder." His mind reverting to his attitude toward Morlene, he said:
"And here I am impatient because that dear girl on whose heart the woes of the world now rest has not hastened in deciding that I had harnessed the forces that will solve one of the most difficult problems that ever perplexed mankind."
The utter unreasonableness of expecting so early an answer upon a question that demanded such earnest thought, now appeared to him as almost criminal. He saw that the time allowed Morlene, in what he regarded as his saner moods, was thoroughly inadequate. These moments of elevation and reflection restored hope to his bosom.
Stimulated by the thought that Morlene was not necessarily lost to him as yet, Dorlan now caused the balloon to start toward the earth. He would have liked to come down all the way in the balloon since he was no longer yearning for death, but he remembered his brave speech and the expectations of the crowd below. So, in spite or his keen desire to live, he decided to maintain his honor in the eyes of the waiting audience and descend in the parachute at whatever cost. Not knowing what would be his fate, Dorlan sprang out of the balloon, trusting to the parachute. At a terrific speed he shot downward toward the earth. For a few seconds the parachute seemed that it was not going to bear him safely to earth, but, happily for the innocent Morlene, soon readjusted itself. Down, down, down, it came bringing to the murky atmosphere, to the crowded streets, to the regions of jarring ambitions, the troubled spirit that sought in an hour of despair to fly its ills.
Dorlan reached the ground in safety and received the congratulations of the spectators, who, guided by the light attached to the balloon, had succeeded in locating the possible point of descent.