you, and keep quite still."

We did as he told us, and as Kenneth joined me, we heard a faint cheer
from above, and the message:--

"Safe on the top of the balloon!"

"Look, Minnie, look!" cried Kenneth; and on a cloud-bank we saw the
image of our balloon with a figure sitting on the summit, which could
only be Phillip Rutley.

"Take care, my dearest! take care!" I besought him.

"I'm all right as long as you two keep still," he declared; but it was
not so.

After he had been up there about ten minutes trying to mend the
escape-valve, so that we could control it from the car, a puff of wind
came and overturned the balloon completely. In a moment the aspect of
the monster was transformed into a crude resemblance to the badge of the
Golden Fleece--the car with Kenneth and me in it at one end, and Phillip
Rutley hanging from the other, the huge gas-bag like the body of the
sheep of Colchis in the middle.

And now the balloon twisted round and round as if resolved to wrench
itself from Phillip's grasp, but he held on as a brave man always does
when the alternative is fight or die. The terrible difficulty he had in
getting back I shudder to think of. It is needless to recount it now.
Many times I thought that both men must lose their lives, and I should
finish this awful voyage alone. But in the end I had my arms around
Phillip's neck once more, and was thanking God for giving him back to
me.

I don't think I half expressed my gratitude to poor Kenneth, who had so
bravely and generously helped to save him. I wish I had said more when I
look back at that time now. But my love for Phillip made me blind to
everything.

Phillip was very much done up, and greatly dissatisfied with the result
of his exertions; but he soon began to make the best of things, as he
always did.

"I'm a selfish duffer, Minnie," said he. "All the good I've done by
frightening you like this is to get myself splendidly warm."

"What, have you done nothing to the valve?"

"Didn't have time. No, Moore and I must try to get at it from below,
though from what I saw before I started to go aloft, it seemed
impossible."

"But we are descending."

"Eh?"

"Descending rapidly. See how fast we are diving into that cloud below!"

"It's true! We're dropping. What can it mean?"

As he spoke we were immersed in a dense white mist, which wetted us
through as if we had been plunged in water. Then suddenly the car was
filled with whirling snow--thic