I screamed with all my might, and prepared to fling myself out when we came to the earth again, but my captor, seizing each article that lay on the floor of the car, hurled forth, with the frenzy of a madman, ballast, stores, water-keg, cooking apparatus, everything, indiscriminately. For a moment this unburdening of the balloon did not have the effect one would suppose—that of making us shoot swiftly up into the sky, and I trusted that Phillip and the men who had helped us at the gas-works had got hold of the grapnel line, and would haul us down; but, looking over the side, I perceived that we were flying along unfettered, and increasing each minute our distance from the earth.
We were off, then, Heaven alone could tell whither! I had lost the protection of my husband, and fallen utterly into the power of a lover who was terrifying and hateful to me.
Away we sped in the darkness, higher and higher, faster and faster; and I crouched, half-fainting, in the bottom of the car, while Kenneth Moore, bending over me, poured his horrible love into my ear:—
"Minnie! My Minnie! Why did you try to play me false? Didn't you know your old playmate better than to suppose he would give you up? Thank your stars, girl, you are now quit of that scoundrel, and that the very steps he took to ruin you have put it in my power to save you from him and from your wilful self."
I forgot that he did not know Phillip and I had been married that morning, and, indignant that he should speak so of my husband, I accused him in turn of seeking to destroy me. How dared he interfere with me? How dared he speak ill of a man who was worth a thousand of himself—who had not persecuted me all my life, who loved me honestly and truly, and whom I loved with all my soul? I called Kenneth Moore a coward, a cruel, cowardly villain, and commanded him to stop the balloon, to let me go back to my home—back to Phillip Rutley, who was the only man I could ever love in the whole wide world!
"You are out of your senses, Minnie," he answered, and he clasped me tightly in his arms, while the balloon mounted higher and higher. "You are angry with me now, but when you realize that you are mine for ever and cannot escape, you will forgive me, and be grateful to me—yes, and love me, for loving you so well."
"Never!" I cried, "never! You are a thief! You have stolen me, and I hate you! I shall always hate you. Rather than endure you, I will make the balloon fall right down, down, and we will both be dashed to pieces."
I was so furious with him that I seized the valve-line that swung near me at the moment, and tugged at it with all my might. He grasped my hand, but I wound the cord about my arms, held on to it with my teeth, and he could not drag it from me. In the struggle we nearly overturned the car. I did not care. I would gladly have fallen out and lost my life now that I had lost Phillip.
Then Kenneth took from his pocket a large knife and unclasped it. I laughed aloud, for I thought he meant to frighten me into submission. But I soon saw what he meant to do. He climbed up the cordage and cut the valve-line through.
"Now you are conquered!" he cried, "and we will voyage together to the world's end."