They left London late one November day, and, rising under a north-west wind, skirted the north of Kent. Passing presently over Canterbury, they wrote a courteous message to the mayor, and dropped it in a parachute. Some time later, when the short autumn twilight was beginning to wane, they saw beneath them the gleam of white waves, and knew they had reached the boundary of the hitherto much-dreaded sea. Immediately afterwards they entered a heavy sea fog, which hid all things from their sight, and darkness and dead silence reigned around. [Illustration: THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE CHANNEL.] This lasted for fifty minutes, when they emerged from the cloud and found the bright lights of Calais beneath them. It was then quite dark, and they sped on through the night over unknown towns and villages whose lights gleamed fainter and fewer as the time went on. Then once again they entered the fog-bank, and for long hours no sign or sound of earth reached them more. As the night wore on they suddenly had a startling and alarming experience. Their balloon, which had been flying near the earth, was presently lightened by the discharge of ballast, and rose to a height of 12,000 feet into the air. Immediately afterwards, when all around was wrapped in the deepest silence and the blackest darkness, there came the sound of a sharp explosion from over their heads, followed by a rustling of the silk, and immediately the car received a violent jerk. The same thing was repeated again and yet again, and it is small wonder that the awful conviction then seized the party that there, in the darkness, in the dead of night, at that fearful height, their balloon had burst, and they were falling headlong to the ground. Great indeed must have been their relief when they found this was not the case, and discovered the real reason of their alarm. It is the tendency of a balloon when flying near the ground to assume an elongated or pear shape; and while their balloon was in this position the netting, which was wet with dew, had frozen hard and tight around it. Immediately they rose to great heights the gas had expanded, and the balloon had become globular in shape, with a result that the stiffened ropes sprang to their new position with the crack and jerk which had so startled the party. When day broke next morning they found themselves over long tracts of desolate forest land, and fearing they were approaching the wild, inhospitable steppes of Russia, they descended with all speed, and discovered they were in the Duchy of Nassau, in Germany, near Weilburg, where they were received with the wildest enthusiasm and delight. From start to finish they had accomplished a voyage of 500 miles in eighteen hours.