The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-11-04

And here was I, Edward Holmes, artist,
voyaging by night in a balloon in COM
Pany with runaway galley-slave we'll
armed with knife and pistol, and more than
q match in strength for me even had he
been less we'll provided. ,....-
My terrible companion was only too
much disposed to be talkative; and as we
swept onward before the freshening wind
he was kind enough to favor me with a
few brief anecdotes of his past career, in
which the jocose and horrible seemed to
mingle in cynic confusion. The one point
on which he was uncommunicative was
the manner of his recent escape from
ToulOn; or how-probably owing to the
completely of others-he became possessed
of his weapons. But he told graphically
of the ten days of hardship and hunger
which he had endured while skulking
among the rocky hills by night and lying
hidden among thorny brakes by day, until
at last he broke into a pecan of triumph
in relating how he had encountered and
robbed the true M. de Villeneuve on his
way to the village tete.
Twenty shining maps in his purse, the
idiot" he said exultingly," and three
thousand francs besides in notes. Well,
we'll! I left him gagged and bound to a
tree, after I had taken the freedom to
change clothes with him; and there he
stands, no doubt, trembling, but fortunate
to keep a whole skin. And found in his
pocket the letter of NJ. Killick, promising
to take him as passenger in the balloon
here, and So"
And so the idea had presented itself to
this daring and ready -witted ruffian to per-
senate the victim of his recent robbery,
and thus to procure the means of flight in
what was certainly an unexampled fashion,
while I was the luckless scape-g goat Of his
audacious enterprise.
Meanwhile the wind, as have said, was
rising, and as we hurried on l looked
downward and saw by the simmer of the
moonlight on the tremulous waves that
the sea was below US. Icould not forbear
from an exclamation of dismay.
The desperate at my side also looked
down.
"Bah! sea or land-what matters it?"
he said recklessly. "Throw out ballast
do you hear me ?' and unwillingly COM
piled.
The balloon instantly rose, and it pres
emily became perceptibly colder. so that I
shivered, and had to chafe my hands
together to prevent them from stiffening
MY companions iron frame showed no
signs of suffering from the abrupt lower
ing of the temperature; but after time the
Defiance seemed to be nearer to the sea,
for heard the low roar of the waves; and
then Risque-son-cou impatiently threw
out another bag of ballast, and we rose.
Vague, like the visions of dream, are
my recollections of the voyage of that
miserable night, spent thus, and in such
company. Isuffered much from cold and
fatigue, and it was mechanically that I
obeyed the directions of the escaped gal
ley-slave, who had now assumed the COM
mand. There was no doubt about the
fixity of his determination to continue the
desperate flight until we should be across
the French frontier. How long our aerial
journey might prove, undertaken as it was
without warm clothing, provisions or
brandy, could not conjecture, while it
was certain that we were hurrying along
at swift pace-how swift had no means
of neutrality-suspicious. the pressure of the
strong wind.
So far as could tell the direction of the
wind was uniform one, steadily from
northeast by east The sea which I had
seen beneath us was, no doubt, part of
the gulf, lying somewhere between the
mouths of the River Rhone and the Span
ish border, but the remainder of our
route was in theory mere guesswork. A
slight shift in the wind might cause us to
be carried out into the broad Mediterra.
nean-even did we not drift beyond the
straits into the broader Atlantic to perish,
as many balloon voyager has died, with
out a record of his fate. Whereabouts we
were could not tell. The dark, blurred
outlines of what lay beneath seemed to in
dictate hills and woods, not sea.
"Ifwe come down in France, my young
friend" said the strident voice Of the es-
capped convict, as we foated through
masses of misty vapor, the condensed
moisture of which wetted me to the skin,
"you may bid adieu to whatever home ties
and British affections your insular heart
may cherish. It's no fault of yours, you
will saw, if the wind carries this tapping
gas-bag to Potion or the Nivernais. No,
but is Risque- son-cOu to wait while the
young Englishman crawls to the nearest
brigade OF gendarmerie to give notice that
his fellow traveller was Peter Paul Grin
cheux, forcat en- rupture de ban? Thank
you. I prefer to keep my own counsel.
So sure as we drop where Napoleon is
Emperor, and the Official Journal posted
on the walls of the Poste de Police, lprove
that one can keep q secret better than
two"
lam not, hope, unduly timorous, but
I own that my heart sank within me as
heard these words, uttered with an en-
phatic ferocity which left no doubt of the
speakers resolve. l had fully made up
my mind, should the desperate at my side
begin to realize his threats, that should
not be by any means passive in the
struggle; but his weapons and his strength
left little hope Of satisfactory ending to
such contest.
"There's something wrong with the
valves" said my companion roughly, an
hour later; 1.-THE gas, diable! is coming
down, and we are sinking. It's for you,
aeronaut, to ascend the netting and stop
the escape of gas"
was very reluctant to obey. To climb
the netting of a balloon when at a great
height above the earth is never a very
pleasant task; but to do SO, leaving be-
hind me ruffian who might at any mo-
ment pistol or stab me as descended,
thus relieving himself from an inconven-
lent witness, was indeed irksome. How.
ever, RisQueson-cou evinced such vehe.
mentpertinacity, and swore so many grisly
oaths, that at last complied; and having
adjusted the valve crept back to the car
sick and giddy, but unhurt.
The moon had faded away. There were
pale crimson streaks in what took to be
the eastern sky, and below lay piled-up
gloomy.masses of black cloud, through
which cleaned at intervals something
white and lustrous, like the marble
pinnacles of the cathedral at Milan.
"We're steering straight. Fatality, fol
once, befriends me-" exclaimed the des
perate sharer of my journey; for, mill
bombes! those are the peaks of the Eastern
Pyrenees. Chuck over ballast, boy dom
let US ground ON them" w.. -. ...
:. We were, in reality, floating among
the serrated submits and snow-clae
mountain-tops of the huge chain o
mountains that forms natural barrier be
tween Gaul and Spain. Below the .suller
cloud banks menaced elemental war, ant
| already low-muttering growls of thunder
reverberated among the serrated ridges be
meath us.
| l.1 a -