Being young in the art of balloon management, Mr. Andrée could not imagine how quickly events happen in aerial navigation. Before he could grasp a rope the Swea had vanished in the air, and he was left alone on the island, without any food or covering, exposed to the cold of those latitudes during a long and dismal October night. Naturally enough, he found in his pocket a box of matches, for the manufacture of these useful objects is a specialty in his native country. He gathered a few dry weeds and dead shrubs and lighted a fire. While warming his tired and hungry body he had plenty of time to meditate over the hardships of his unenviable position. The island, which seemed allotted to him by fate, was not two furlongs long and one wide, and had no water. It was one of the thousand rocky and barren islets composing the Finnish archipelago, and there was but slight possibility that any vessel sent from Sweden could discover his retreat in time to save him from the most terrible of fates, death from hunger and thirst. As soon as the sun was up on the following morning Mr. Andrée ran to the crest of a little rocky eminence, and kept screaming at the top of his voice for more than an hour. Then he sat down exhausted and burst into tears. Finally his swollen eyes perceived a cloud of smoke upon the horizon. Surely it must be a steamer! No doubt the steamer was rapidly nearing the island! The unfortunate aeronaut wrecked from the skies was about to be rescued! In his joy he danced and resumed his screamings. For a while he was elated. He had some right to believe that he had been seen from the deck, as the ship was steering straight towards the island. But the vessel changed its course, and in spite of the balloonist's piercing cries, disappeared. This unlucky departure would have driven many a resolute man to despair. For Mr. Andrée it was a lesson. He at once understood that it was impossible for any one on a vessel to see a human figure on this desolate island, and that he must contrive a more showy signal than his body, notwithstanding he was tall and strongly built. After having meditated for half an hour--an eternity under the circumstances--he made a sort of stout stick by tying together with weeds a lot of branches torn from the shrubs. At the end of this stick he attached his trousers, and waved them wildly over his head, after having mounted to the top of the hill. [Illustration: ANDRÉE'S ESCAPE FROM THE ISLAND.]