We were then still above the clouds, which were shedding torrents of rain on to the earth, and it was impossible for us to see through the thick night which lay cold and damp under our feet. We tried in vain to find our bearings and to guess how or where the balloon would strand us. Would we be cast on terra firma or into the sea; on mountains or on to the trees of a forest? It was a critical moment. Lighten the balloon, quickly! And in a moment we were all occupied in lifting our ballast--big sacks of sand--out of the hold, and the inhabitants of the country over which we were passing must have been astonished at seeing a sudden rain of gravel mixed with the showers of water which were drowning the countryside. But we could not deal quickly enough with the ballast, and the balloon continued to sink. It descended with a rapidity that made us shudder and drove us to work with feverish activity. We heaved over the sacks of ballast as briskly as real sailors who have done nothing else all their lives. Each of us laboured at our task, and the sand fell like hail. Suddenly the daylight disappeared and darkness enveloped us. We were inundated by a cold, intense fog and pierced to the skin by icy dampness. We were running through a veritable aerial tunnel, to use a permissible metaphor. The clouds which the storm had just before been rolling at our feet were now all round our balloon and us. When the balloon had passed through them, dripping with rain and frost, I saw with amazement that we were just above an immense wood which pointed its spikes at us like so many threatening spears. We were inevitably about to land in the middle of this wood and in the branches of its trees. I remained standing in order to see better, but what I saw was terrifying. A thick and endless forest extended under our eyes, showing thousands of branches like so many terrible defences ready to tear us. Nowhere was there a clearing which might give us hope. The balloon continued falling, in spite of its being lightened, with all the speed of its enormous weight. I could not help looking, like a man who cannot help himself and who sees himself being hurled into an inevitable abyss. “If we could only pass the wood!” I had scarcely uttered these words when a terrible noise was heard. We were shaken by a frightful shock, which seemed as if it would dislocate all our limbs. The car was thrown among the trees and bounded against them, breaking them into small fragments. It was a terrible fall, but when it came to the point and I felt the first signs of the end I gave a sigh of relief. “This is it, at last--this is the end!” The unknown, which one fears and trembles at and cannot avoid, is always more terrible than the reality, once one has seen the latter face to face.