第89章 CHAPTER XXV. THE MODERN AIRSHIP--IN SEARCH OF THE

We knew that our course at starting lay towards the west, and if we were maintaining that course a travel of scarcely more than sixty miles would carry us out to the open sea. We had already been aloft for two hours, and as we were at an altitude at which fast upper currents are commonly met with, it was high time that, for safety, we should be coming down; yet it was morally certain that it would be now many hours before our balloon would commence to descend of its own accord by sheer slow leakage of gas, by which time, beyond all reasonable doubt, we must be carried far out over the Atlantic. All we could do was to listen intently for any sounds that might reach us from earth, and assure us that we were still over the land; and for a length of time such sounds were vouchsafed us--the bark of a dog, the lowing of cattle, the ringing trot of a horse on some hard road far down.

And then, as we were expecting, the sun climbed up into an unsullied sky, and, mounting by leaps and bounds, we watched the cloud floor receding beneath us. The effect was extremely beautiful. A description written to the Times the next morning, while the impression was still fresh, and from notes made at this period, ran thus:--" Away to an infinitely distant horizon stretched rolling billows of snowy whiteness, broken up here and there into seeming icefields, with huge fantastic hummocks. Elsewhere domes and spires reared themselves above the general surface, or an isolated Matterhorn towered into space. In some quarters it was impossible to look without the conviction that we actually beheld the outline of lofty cliffs overhanging a none too distant sea." Shortly we began to hear loud reports overhead, resembling small explosions, and we knew what these were--the moist, shrunken netting was giving out under the hot sun and yielding now and again with sudden release to the rapidly expanding gas. It was, therefore, with grave concern, but with no surprise, that when we next turned to the aneroid we found the index pointing to 9,000 feet, and still moving upwards.

Hour after hour passed by, and, sounds having ceased to reach us, it remains uncertain whether or no we were actually carried out to sea and headed back again by contrary currents, an experience with which aeronauts, including the writer, have been familiar; but, at length, there was borne up to us the distant sound of heavy hammers and of frequent trains, from which we gathered that we were probably over Bristol, and it was then that the thought occurred to my daughter that we might possibly communicate with those below with a view to succour.

This led to our writing the following message many times over on blank telegraph forms and casting them down:-- "Urgent.

Large balloon from Newbury travelling overhead above the clouds. Cannot descend. Telegraph to sea coast (coast-guards) to be ready to rescue.--Bacon and Spencer."

While thus occupied we caught the sound of waves, and the shriek of a ship's siren. We were crossing a reach of the Severn, and most of our missives probably fell in the sea. But over the estuary there must have been a cold upper current blowing, which crippled our balloon, for the aneroid presently told of a fall of 2,000 feet. It was now past noon, and to us the turn of the tide was come. Very slowly, and with strange fluctuations, the balloon crept down till it reached and became enveloped in the cloud below, and then the end was near. The actual descent occupied nearly two hours, and affords a curious study in aerostation. The details of the balloon's dying struggles and of our own rough descent, entailing the fracture of my daughter's arm, are told in another volume.*

We fell near Neath, Glamorganshire, only one and a half miles short of the sea, completing a voyage which is a record in English ballooning--ten hours from start to finish.

* "By Land and Sky," by the Author.