e, they would have looked upon
it as the saddest of calamities. Now, however, they stood regarding the
burning of that abandoned balloon, with as much indifference as is said
to have been exhibited by Nero, while contemplating the conflagration of
the seven-hilled city!

CHAPTER FIFTY THREE.

ANOTHER SPELL OF DESPAIR.

Never, during all the days of their sojourn in that "Valley of Despond,"
did our adventurers feel more despondence, than on the afternoon that
succeeded the bursting of their great air-bubble--the balloon. They
felt that in this effort, they had exhausted all their ingenuity; and so
firmly were they convinced of its being the last, that no one thought
about making another. The spirits of all three were prostrate in the
dust, and seemed at length to have surrendered to despair.

Of course, it was not that sort of despair which takes possession of one
conscious of coming and certain death. It was far from being so dire as
this; but for all it was a bitter feeling. They knew they could
continue to live, perhaps as long there, as elsewhere upon the earth;
but what would life be worth to them, cut off from all communication
with the world?--for now, to the fulness of conviction, did they believe
themselves thus isolated.

In disposition not one of the three had the slightest particle of the
hermit. Not one of them, but would have shuddered at the thought of
becoming a Simon Stylites. You might suppose that, with books and
Nature to study, Karl could have made shift. True, with such companions
he might have lived a less irksome life than either of the others; but
even with these to occupy him, it is doubtful whether Karl could have
passed the time; for it is not very certain, that a man--knowing himself
alone in the world, and for ever to be alone--would care either for the
books of men or the book of Nature.

As for Caspar, the thought that their lonely existence was to be
perpetual, was enough at times to send the blood rushing coldly through
his veins.

The Hindoo felt the affliction as much as either of his companions in
misfortune; and sighed as much for his bamboo hut on the hot plains of
Hindostan, as they for their home in the far fatherland of Bavaria.

It is true their situation was not so bad as if each had been left alone
by himself. Many a poor castaway upon a desert island has been
condemned to a far more unhappy fate. They knew and acknowledged this.
Each had the other two