At this crisis of affairs, a solemn-visaged man, dressed in black, with a white neckcloth, stepped forth from the dense crowd, to the edge of the boundary which inclosed the balloon, and beckoning to Mr. Green, said, in a very modest manner, and in a low tone:
"I will go with you, sir, with pleasure; I should be glad to go. I wish to escape, for a while, at least, from this infernal noisy town."
The aeronaut was only too glad to accept the proposition, as some sort of salvo to his disappointed auditory, whose denunciatory vociferations were increasing every moment.
Mr. Green, standing up in the car of his tossing and impatient vessel, now announced, that "a gentleman present, in the kindest manner, had volunteered to make the ascent with him," and that the "monster-balloon" would at once depart for the vague regions of the upper air.
This announcement was hailed with acclamations by the assembled multitudes; and giving some necessary orders to his assistants, who had become fatigued with holding the groaning ropes that had until now confined the "monster" to the earth, the balloon was liberated, and rose slowly and majestically over the vast crowd of spectators and the wilderness of brick and mortar, and towers and steeples, and spacious parks, that lay spread out below, and gradually melted into the celestial blue.
What followed is best represented by the partially remembered words of the aeronaut himself, as shadowed forth in the memorandum already referred to.
"As we rose above the metropolis, and its mighty mass began to melt into indistinctness, my companion, whose bearing and manner had hitherto most favorably impressed me, began to manifest symptoms of great uneasiness. As we were passing over Hanwell, dimly seen among the extended suburbs of the great city, his anxiety seemed to increase in an extraordinary degree. Pointing, with trembling finger, in that immediate direction, he said:
"'Can they see us from THERE? can they reach us in any way? can they telegraph us?—CAN they, I say?'
"Surprised at the excitement, and at the abrupt alarm of one who had been so remarkably cool and self-possessed at starting, I replied:
"'Certainly not, my dear sir; we are half a mile from the earth, at least.'