"Get ready to slip down steadily into the car."
"I am ready," replied Kenneth.
"Then go!" came from Phillip.
"Easy does it! Steady! Don't hurry! Get right down into the middle of the car, both of you, and keep quite still."
We did as he told us, and as Kenneth joined me, we heard a faint cheer from above, and the message:—
"Safe on the top of the balloon!"
"Look, Minnie, look!" cried Kenneth; and on a cloud-bank we saw the image of our balloon with a figure sitting on the summit, which could only be Phillip Rutley.
"Take care, my dearest! take care!" I besought him.
"I'm all right as long as you two keep still," he declared; but it was not so.
After he had been up there about ten minutes trying to mend the escape-valve, so that we could control it from the car, a puff of wind came and overturned the balloon completely. In a moment the aspect of the monster was transformed into a crude resemblance to the badge of the Golden Fleece—the car with Kenneth and me in it at one end, and Phillip Rutley hanging from the other, the huge gas-bag like the body of the sheep of Colchis in the middle.