The clouds rolled in glittering masses beneath us. The balloon threw large shadows on this heap of clouds, and was surrounded as by an aureola. The thunder rumbled below the car. All this was terrifying. “Let us descend!” I cried. “Descend, when the sun is up there, waiting for us? Out with more bags!” And more than fifty pounds of ballast were cast over. At a height of three thousand five hundred yards we remained stationary. The unknown talked unceasingly. I was in a state of complete prostration, while he seemed to be in his element. “With a good wind, we shall go far,” he cried. “In the Antilles there are currents of air which have a speed of a hundred leagues an hour. When Napoleon was crowned, Garnerin sent up a balloon with coloured lamps, at eleven o’clock at night. The wind was blowing north-north-west. The next morning, at daybreak, the inhabitants of Rome greeted its passage over the dome of St. Peter’s. We shall go farther and higher!” I scarcely heard him. Everything whirled around me. An opening appeared in the clouds. “See that city,” said the unknown. “It is Spires!” I leaned over the car and perceived a small blackish mass. It was Spires. The Rhine, which is so large, seemed an unrolled ribbon. The sky was a deep blue over our heads. The birds had long abandoned us, for in that rarefied air they could not have flown. We were alone in space, and I in presence of this unknown! “It is useless for you to know whither I am leading you,” he said, as he threw the compass among the clouds. “Ah! a fall is a grand thing! You know that but few victims of ballooning are to be reckoned, from Pilâtre des Rosiers to Lieutenant Gale, and that the accidents have always been the result of imprudence. Pilâtre des Rosiers set out with Romain of Boulogne, on the 13th of June, 1785. To his gas balloon he had affixed a Montgolfier apparatus of hot air, so as to dispense, no doubt, with the necessity of losing gas or throwing out ballast. It was putting a torch under a powder-barrel. When they had ascended four hundred yards, and were taken by opposing winds, they were driven over the open sea. Pilâtre, in order to descend, essayed to open the valve, but the valve-cord became entangled in the balloon, and tore it so badly that it became empty in an instant. It fell upon the Montgolfier apparatus, overturned it, and dragged down the unfortunates, who were soon shattered to pieces! It is frightful, is it not?” I could only reply, “For pity’s sake, let us descend!” The clouds gathered around us on every side, and dreadful detonations, which reverberated in the cavity of the balloon, took place beneath us. “You provoke me,” cried the unknown, “and you shall no longer know whether we are rising or falling!”