us!"

The situation was indeed appalling. The ladder, for purposes of greater
stability, was made of wire woven over with manila. The sharp knife
could not cut that useless weight.

In this crisis the young lady recovered her equipoise. She began to take
off her shoes.

"It will help a little," she said. Then she began shyly to loose her
overskirt. But the whirlwind caught the car and nearly upset it. It
swirled and almost touched the ground.

"Up!" cried the professor. He caught the girl and tied her in
dexterously. Every man held himself in the ropes that bound the car to
the balloon as best he might. It was a fearful chance. The professor cut
a rope and made bowline chairs. Each sat in his noose and held on for
dear life. The professor, who never lost his coolness, worked as if he
had done this before. And indeed he had.

Swift had the presence of mind or the presence of heart to support the
young lady in this perilous moment.

Cut! cut! The car had been caught in a counter eddy, and was five
hundred feet or so in the air, but rapidly descending. Then the last
strand parted. Relieved of several hundred-weight, the balloon bounded
up. It was buffeted and whirled and tossed from cloud to cloud. The
maddened elements clutched at it. Balls of fire danced upon the ground
beneath, and darted here and there from cloud to cloud. As the professor
gave the last cut and the balloon soared aloft, there was a report as if
a thousand rounds of artillery were concentrated in one shot. There was
a dazzling streak of light. It smote the adventurers blind. It smote
them deaf. It stunned them into insensibility. Like limp corpses the
four sat as they were whirled on high, each clasping his arms
instinctively about the rope that held him.

It seemed as if death had overtaken them all and petrified them with its
touch.

"I have solved the problem." Mr. Ticks opened his eyes and gasped. "By
my faith, where are we?"

Far below were opaque blackness, storm and wind. Above, the blue,
infinite ether. The sun shone brilliantly. It warmed the balloon. It
expanded the gas. The _High Tariff_ kept rising. The stillness was a
miracle. Beneath stretched the panorama of a stricken country. The
highest peaks of the Buzzard mountains were below the balloon. The storm
raged over the lake and the lost city like a mock storm, it was so
distant and so unimportant. Now and then there was a flash of yellow
light and a distant reverberation. The s