ltitudes, though the millionaire was too busy with his fears to
observe the fact.

In half an hour the machine had rushed down to five hundred feet above
the sea: Tinker switched the planes to the same angle upwards: and the
momentum drove her up the incline of the air with little diminished
speed. Then he turned a tap and let the stored gas, compressed in an
aluminum cylinder, flow into the balloon, and restored the whole
machine to its former buoyancy. Moving more and more slowly the higher
it rose, the flying-machine once more gained the height of 3000 feet,
and once more swooped down from it. At the beginning of the upward
sweep, Tinker said, "Another swoop like that will bring us to Paris."

The financier, who had spent the time qualifying for a place among the
invertebrates, only groaned. Tinker was disgusted; but he said, "Cheer
up! You're the first man who has ever crossed the Channel in a
flying-machine. You'll be in the History books!"

The car rose and rose: Tinker had just resolved to swoop from 3500 feet
this time, when of a sudden she rose out of the windless area into a
stiff breeze, icily chill. They learnt what had happened by the
balloon bumping down on their heads with apparent intent to smother
them, and in a breath the car was spinning round, and jerking furiously
to and fro. The millionaire screamed and bumped about the car, and
bumped and screamed. Tinker set his teeth, jammed the flying-machine
into the teeth of the wind, switched down the planes, and tried to
drive her down. It was no use; she was whirled along like a piece of
thistledown. Then he opened the valve and let her sink. In three
minutes she had fallen below the wind, and was shooting swiftly on the
downward swoop. The financier was staring at him with a frenzied eye.
Tinker closed the valve, and said with a joyous brightness, "She was
quite out of control for a good five minutes!"

[Illustration: "She was quite out of control for a good five minutes!"]

The financier frankly gave it up; with a rending gasp he fell back in a
dead faint.

Tinker shrugged his shoulders, regulated the pace of the machine by
letting gas flow from the cylinder into the balloon till it was of the
proper buoyancy, then roped the senseless financier to the bottom of
the car, and came back to the helm.

The wind they had risen into had been blowing towards the east, so they
had not lost ground during their tossing, but they had been driven