bending on a
very thin stalk--overhung a gravelled yard; and lo! from the centre of
it stared up at us, rigid with amazement, the faces of a squad of
British red-coats!

I believe that the first glimpse of that abhorred uniform brought my
knife down upon the rope. In two seconds I had slashed through the
strands, and the flaccid machine lifted and bore us from their ken. But
I see their faces yet, as in _basso relievo_: round-eyed, open-mouthed;
honest country faces, and boyish, every one: an awkward squad of
recruits at drill, fronting a red-headed sergeant; the sergeant, with
cane held horizontally across and behind his thighs, his face upturned
with the rest, and "Irishman" on every feature of it. And so the vision
fleeted, and Byfield's language claimed attention. The man took the
whole vocabulary of British profanity at a rush, and swore himself to a
standstill. As he paused for second wind I struck in:

"Mr. Byfield, you open the wrong valve. We drift, as you say,
towards--nay, over the open sea. As master of this balloon, I suggest
that we descend within reasonable distance of the brig yonder; which, as
I make out, is backing her sails; which, again, can only mean that she
observes us and is preparing to lower a boat."

He saw the sense of this, and turned to business, though with a snarl.
As a gull from the cliff, the _Lunardi_ slanted downwards, and passing
the brig by less than a cable's length to leeward, soused into the sea.

I say "soused": for I confess that the shock belied the promise of our
easy descent. The _Lunardi_ floated: but it also drove before the wind.
And as it dragged the car after it like a tilted pail, the four drenched
and blinded aeronauts struggled through the spray and gripped the hoop,
the netting--nay, dug their nails into the oiled silk. In its new
element the machine became inspired with a sudden infernal malice. It
sank like a pillow if we tried to climb it: it rolled us over in the
brine; it allowed us no moment for a backward glance. I spied a small
cutter-rigged craft tacking towards us, a mile and more to leeward, and
wondered if the captain of the brig had left our rescue to it. He had
not. I heard a shout behind us; a rattle of oars as the bowmen shipped
them; and a hand gripped my collar. So one by one we were
plucked--uncommon specimens!--from the deep; rescued from what Mr.
Sheepshanks a minute later, as he sat on a thwart and wiped his
spectacles, justly termed "a pr