We found it difficult to enjoy the trip after this prospect was made clear. Nor did conversation flow very freely. The hours dragged slowly on, and our sufferings increased.
At last Phillip made up his mind to attempt a desperate remedy. What it was he would not tell me, but, kissing me tenderly, he made me lie down and covered my head with his coat.
Then he took off his boots, and then the car creaked and swayed, and suddenly I felt he was gone out of it. He had told me not to look out from under his coat; but how could I obey him? I did look, and I saw him climbing like a cat up the round, hard side of the balloon, clinging with hands and feet to the netting that covered it.
As he mounted, the balloon swayed over with his weight until it was right above him and he could hardly hold on to the cords with his toes and his fingers. Still he crept on, and still the great silken fabric heeled over, as if it resented his boldness and would crush him.
Once his foothold gave way, and he dropped to his full length, retaining only his hand-grip of the thin cords, which nearly cut his fingers in two under the strain of his whole weight. I thought he was gone; I thought I had lost him for ever. It seemed impossible he could keep his hold, and even if he did the weak netting must give way. It stretched down where he grasped it into a bag form and increased his distance from the balloon, so that he could not reach with his feet, although he drew his body up and made many a desperate effort to do so.
"CLINGING WITH HANDS AND FEET TO THE NETTING."
But while I watched him in an agony of powerlessness to help, the balloon slowly regained the perpendicular, and just as Phillip seemed at the point of exhaustion his feet caught once more in the netting, and, with his arms thrust through the meshes and twisted in and out for security, while his strong teeth also gripped the cord, I saw my husband in comparative safety once more. I turned to relieve my pent-up feelings to Kenneth, but he was not in the car—only his boots. He had seen Phillip's peril, and climbed up on the other side of the balloon to restore the balance.
But now the wicked thing served them another trick; it slowly lay over on its side under the weight of the two men, who were now poised like panniers upon the extreme convexity of the silk. This was very perilous for both, but the change of position gave them a little rest, and Phillip shouted instructions round to Kenneth to slowly work his way back to the car, while he (Phillip) would mount to the top of the balloon, the surface of which would be brought under him by Kenneth's weight. It was my part to make them balance each other. This I did by watching the tendency of the balloon, and telling Kenneth to move to right or left as I saw it become necessary. It was very difficult for us all. The great fabric wobbled about most capriciously, sometimes with a sudden turn that took us all by surprise, and would have jerked every one of us into space, had we not all been clinging fast to the cordage.
At last Phillip shouted:—