nto our bones. I'm
going to have some exercise. My coat will be best over you."

Had it not been so excruciatingly cold we might have enjoyed the
grandeur of our sail through the bright, clear heavens, the big brown
balloon swelling broadly above us. Phillip tried to keep up our spirits
by calling attention to these things, but Kenneth said little or
nothing, and looked so despondent that, wishing to divert his thoughts
from his disappointment concerning myself, which I supposed was his
trouble, I heedlessly blurted out that I was starving, and asked him to
give me some breakfast.

Then it transpired that he had thrown out of the car all the provisions
with which we had been supplied for our journey.

The discovery took the smiles out of Phillip's merry face.

"You'll have to hold on a bit, little woman," said he. "When we get to a
way-station or an hotel, we'll show the refreshment contractors what
sort of appetites are to be found up above."

Then I asked them where we were going; whereabouts we had got to; and
why we did not descend. Which elicited the fact that Kenneth had thrown
away the instruments by which the aeronaut informs himself of his
location and the direction of his course. For a long time Phillip
playfully put me off in my petition to be restored to _terra firma_, but
at last it came out that the valve-line being cut we could not descend,
and that the balloon must speed on, mounting higher and higher, until it
would probably burst in the extreme tension of the air.

"Soon after that," said Phillip, with a grim, hard laugh, "we shall be
back on the earth again."

We found it difficult to enjoy the trip after this prospect was made
clear. Nor did conversation flow very freely. The hours dragged slowly
on, and our sufferings increased.

At last Phillip made up his mind to attempt a desperate remedy. What it
was he would not tell me, but, kissing me tenderly, he made me lie down
and covered my head with his coat.

Then he took off his boots, and then the car creaked and swayed, and
suddenly I felt he was gone out of it. He had told me not to look out
from under his coat; but how could I obey him? I did look, and I saw him
climbing like a cat up the round, hard side of the balloon, clinging
with hands and feet to the netting that covered it.

As he mounted, the balloon swayed over with his weight until it was
right above him and he could hardly hold on to the cords with his toes
and his fingers.