wn as well as I could. But there was nothing I could
cling to. Even the water-spouts, if I could have reached the face of
the houses, were embedded in the walls. At an open window, near
which I was slowly blown, I saw two little boys going to bed by the
light of a dim candle. I was dreadfully afraid that they would see
me and raise an alarm. I actually came so near to the window that I
threw out one foot and pushed against the wall with such force that
I went nearly across the street. I thought I caught sight of a
frightened look on the face of one of the boys; but of this I am not
sure, and I heard no cries. I still floated, dangling, down the
street. What was to be done? Should I call out? In that case, if I
were not shot or stoned, my strange predicament, and the secret of
my invention, would be exposed to the world. If I did not do this, I
must either let myself drop and be killed or mangled, or hang there
and die. When, during the course of the night, the air became more
rarefied, I might rise higher and higher, perhaps to an altitude of
one or two hundred feet. It would then be impossible for the people
to reach me and get me down, even if they were convinced that I was
not a demon. I should then expire, and when the birds of the air had
eaten all of me that they could devour, I should forever hang above
the unlucky town, a dangling skeleton with a knapsack on its back.

Such thoughts were not reassuring, and I determined that if I could
find no means of getting down without assistance, I would call out
and run all risks; but so long as I could endure the tension of the
straps I would hold out, and hope for a tree or a pole. Perhaps it
might rain, and my wet clothes would then become so heavy that I
would descend as low as the top of a lamp-post.

As this thought was passing through my mind I saw a spark of light
upon the street approaching me. I rightly imagined that it came from
a tobacco-pipe, and presently I heard a voice. It was that of the
Alpine Club man. Of all people in the world I did not want him to
discover me, and I hung as motionless as possible. The man was
speaking to another person who was walking with him.

"He is crazy beyond a doubt," said the Alpine man. "Nobody but a
maniac could have gone up and down that mountain as he did! He
hasn't any muscles, and one need only look at him to know that he
couldn't do any climbing in a natural way. It is only the excitement
of insanity that gives him s