IT WAS then ten o’clock. We had traveled by actual measurement on the map, one hundred and eighty kilometers. The heat was increasing rapidly and the sensitive bubble over our heads had become more erratic than ever. Down it would drop a few thousand feet, if a cloud happened to darken the sun, and then up three or four thousand, as soon as the cloud had passed on.

This constant “bobbing” up and down at a terrific pace, added to the heat and lack of sleep, was gradually telling on our nerves. Ten hours in a basket, under such circumstances, is about as much as any ordinary man can stand. Without wasting any time in idle discussion, we decided to atterrir—in other words, to land, as soon as the necessary arrangements for this important operation had been completed.

The “Rolla” was then at nine thousand feet; we had lost the wind on our way up, and below, in the west, the storm was rapidly gaining on us.

We had still four sacks of sand ballast of the nine we had taken up with us. Every knot that held them to the basket was carefully examined; a precaution of vital importance, as we would soon be above the clouds again, if any of them escaped us in the varied incidents that might attend our descent. The lunch-basket and our coats were also securely fastened, and the anchor partly unlashed and made ready to be dropped.

I held the barometer, with eyes glued upon its face, ready to call out our future altitudes. My companion, with the valve-rope in his right and the ballast-spoon within reach, was still gazing earnestly at the fields in the distance, where we hoped we might stand alive a few minutes later.

Not a word had been spoken for some time, when the captain said:

“Our landing, I think, will be a hard one. I dislike the way those trees are scattered beyond that narrow valley. We never should have allowed the storm to reach our heels,—but it has to go now——,” and his hand gives the valve-rope a long and heavy pull.

We can hear the gas sputter as it leaves the creaking silk.

Instantly the barometer drops. We have started on our final descent.

The captain’s fondness for “valving” had set us falling again at an awful speed, and the sand he was throwing out was rising around the “Rolla” in little thin clouds, and dropping like hail on the silk above us.

I looked down. The earth was rising!—rising to meet us, like a fabulous mother eager to receive her children in her outstretched arms.

I stood hypnotized and cold, until called back to my barometer. I saw that the captain’s teeth were set, but his eye was clear and serene.

We now realize to its full extent the gravity of the situation.

The needle is jumping in my hands. “Twenty-two hundred metres—twenty-one-fifty—twenty-one——!” The storm is not a mile behind us, and the heavy wind that precedes it rolls in graceful waves over the wheat and barley fields.

“Seventeen hundred and fifty metres—seventeen hundred—sixteen hundred——!”

We are falling at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. Everything below us is moving at lightning speed.

“Twelve hundred and fifty—twelve hundred—eleven hundred metres——!”

My voice is slightly hoarse, but I call out the numbers as fast as I see them, and they follow each other in rapid succession.

“Nine hundred—eight hundred and fifty—eight hundred metres——!”

The sudden change of altitude makes us both very deaf; but I can still hear the captain say:

“Haul in the other sack of sand!—We must keep up long enough to clear that forest and land in the field beyond, this side of the large clump of trees.”

The ballast is doing better work, and we are not falling so rapidly; but only half of the treacherous forest has been cleared: there is more and enough of it, that stands threatening below us.

“We shall never sail over it,” mutters the owner.

At this moment we swing into a violent gale, forerunner of the storm behind us. The “Rolla” quivers in its net, seems to hesitate for a mere second, and bravely leaps ahead.

“Too much of a good thing——,” and above us the valve is roaring furiously.

“Whatever happens, don’t jump!” cries the captain.

Of course, had I done so at any time, he would have shot up in the air ten or fifteen thousand feet.

“Attention! Voici le moment psychologique——.”

Like a hawk swooping down on its prey, and with the same graceful curve, the “Rolla” clears, with ten feet to spare, the crest of the last trees.

We hear the guide-rope dragging in the branches.

As quick as a flash the captain has the anchor overboard. But the gale is driving us on, and the iron teeth fail to bite the sod.

We clutch at the hoop and the rigging above, and with a crash, the basket strikes the earth.

The shock throws us back into it.

The balloon bounds on several hundred feet, rolling like a huge football. We are dragged, tossed, bumped, and bruised. Everything in the basket is smashed, and the claret on the captain’s face looks like blood.

I barely have time to disengage my neck from a couple of slender and wiry net ropes that are doing their best to strangle me.

A peasant, mowing near by, hears our cries; he drops his scythe, and kicking off his wooden shoes, tugs at the guide-rope lustily.

The anchor has found a soft spot, suddenly the cable tightens, and our aerial trip is ended.

By this time a few excited villagers have come to the rescue from the neighboring fields.

As we crawl from under the tangled mass of net-work and rigging, a terrorized child falls in a fit at the sight of this unusual performance, rolling in the grass and screaming with fright.

We are both rather pale and a bit weak in the knees; but, oh! the exquisite sensation to feel the good old Earth under our feet again!

A few steps away, “Rolla” lies panting in the sunshine.

With every gust of wind he seems to exhale his life.

His quivering form is sinking rapidly; we hear his heavy sighs and watch his quivering skin.

The plucky little fellow makes another desperate effort to rise up to the spheres he has conquered; but his strength at last betrays him, and he falls back on the green, empty, motionless, dead.

Paris, June, 1901.

“In the pilgrimage many things happen that are not to the taste of the pilgrim.”

Sheik Ali Mohammed: The Rose of Bagdad.