For half an hour longer we floated on, over fields and hedges that gave one no impression so much as that of irregular patchwork.
We could trace the lanes and main roads, and presently we noticed what seemed to be a well marked "non-slipping" pneumatic bicycle track running through the land. There were ridiculous little white sticks beside it, and we knew it for a railway line. The sight of it began to remind us of certain considerations we would fain have forgotten. To quit these realms for earthly cares and earthly limitations, to exchange our steady car, open to the pure, unbreathed air, for a stuffy, jolting train, was a hard thing to do. But the evening was approaching, the balloon once more dropping, and quickly too, and we had but one more bag of ballast. "This looks a good place for landing, Jack," said the captain, and so it did.
A broad stretch of level fields, some grass and some with the corn just cut, no trees and not even a hedge, only a long way ahead a high road with telegraph posts, and beyond that again the railway running north. So we made ready for the end. Jack came down from the ring, the captain took the end of the valve rope ready to pull, I was placed in the centre with orders to stand with my knees bent, to hold on fast to a rope on each side, and to prepare for a big bump. Nearer and nearer the earth we swooped, and as we bore down we could perceive that the wind we had been perfectly unconscious of above, and which we fondly hoped had abated, was blowing as stiffly as ever, and sweeping over the open plain fresh and strong.
We left a young plantation behind us, just shaved a patch of growing wheat, and then hovered over a field where the corn was reaped, and the sheaves, piled in shocks, stretched in neat rows to the high road far ahead. It was the very spot.
"Now!" cried our aeronaut, as he tugged the valve rope with all his force and held it taut. Over went the anchor, and instantly the earth made a sudden violent rush upwards and hit the car with a stunning crash that shook every bone in one's body. We actually landed on a corn shock, scattering the sheaves right and left, and the great floundering balloon pulled us over flat on one side, so that for a moment the wheat ears brushed our faces as we lay, all in a heap, holding on with might and main, till in a moment we lifted again.
But then an untoward event occurred. Under ordinary circumstances, the many-pronged anchor, let fall from a height, buries itself deeply in the ground, and thus moored, after two or three rebounds, the balloon subsides. But no rain had fallen for many a day, and in that iron-baked soil the grapnel hooks could penetrate scarce half an inch. The balloon rose, plunging and straining, and in a moment the wind had caught the fast emptying silk and carried it madly forward, the useless anchor dragging vainly along the impenetrable ground, and the unfortunate car, all on its side, bumping, banging, leaping, and tearing in its wake. Along we trailed, the wind flapping and roaring in the silk, every stick in the wicker basket creaking and straining as it skipped and bounded from one corn shock to another, while its four inhabitants, bruised and breathless, gripped the sides, set their teeth, and wondered what was coming next.
We could do nothing but hold on for dear life and hope for the best, and all the while the telegraph posts and wires drew nearer and nearer.
In the end those telegraph wires proved our salvation. Only a field beyond them ran the Great Northern, and to have caught our anchor in its boundary fence and fallen on the rails, as we assuredly might have done, would have been a far from pleasant or safe proceeding. As it was, the tight wires caught the netting, so that the great silk bag fell over one side while the car remained the other, and although the dying monster struggled hard, aided by the sweeping wind, to rise again, it had not life enough, so fast its vital force was ebbing, to lift us above the obstacle.
Then, as we lay heaving and straining yet with every gust, came shouts and hurrying feet, and half a dozen lusty harvesters, panting and excited, tore down to the rescue, and brawny sunburnt arms took tight hold on the ropes, and red jovial faces peered over the side of the basket on the four storm-tossed voyagers within. And by the time we had all scrambled out on to the grass, glad to stretch our limbs and find that none were broken, the whole countryside was alive and rushing up, on foot, on horseback, on bicycles, in carts and carriages, to where the huge balloon lay prostrate in the road, blocking the way and quivering yet in its mortal throes.