s and tumbled into the cockpit. The next
instant the big boom and the heavy blocks swept over our heads, the
main-sheet whipping past like a great coiling snake and the _Mist_
heeling over with a violent jar. Both men had jumped for it, but in some
way the little man either got his knife-hand jammed or fell upon it, for
the first sight we caught of him, he was standing in his boat, his
bleeding fingers clasped close between his knees and his face all
twisted with pain and helpless rage.

"Now's our chance!" Paul whispered. "Over with you!"

And on either side of the rudder we lowered ourselves into the water,
pressing the net down with our feet, till, with a jerk, it went clear,
Then it was up and in, Paul at the main-sheet and I at the tiller, the
_Mist_ plunging ahead with freedom in her motion, and the little
white light astern growing small and smaller.

"Now that you've had your adventure, do you feel any better?" I remember
asking when we had changed our clothes and were sitting dry and
comfortable again in the cockpit.

"Well, if I don't have the nightmare for a week to come"--Paul paused
and puckered his brows in judicial fashion--"it will be because I can't
sleep, that's one thing sure!"

AN ADVENTURE IN THE UPPER SEA

I am a retired captain of the upper sea. That is to say, when I was a
younger man (which is not so long ago) I was an aeronaut and navigated
that aerial ocean which is all around about us and above us. Naturally
it is a hazardous profession, and naturally I have had many thrilling
experiences, the most thrilling, or at least the most nerve-racking,
being the one I am about to relate.

It happened before I went in for hydrogen gas balloons, all of varnished
silk, doubled and lined, and all that, and fit for voyages of days
instead of mere hours. The "Little Nassau" (named after the "Great
Nassau" of many years back) was the balloon I was making ascents in at
the time. It was a fair-sized, hot-air affair, of single thickness, good
for an hour's flight or so and capable of attaining an altitude of a
mile or more. It answered my purpose, for my act at the time was making
half-mile parachute jumps at recreation parks and country fairs. I was
in Oakland, a California town, filling a summer's engagement with a
street railway company. The company owned a large park outside the city,
and of course it was to its interest to provide attractions which would
send the townspeople over its line