It was a murky night, but the moon shone fitfully at intervals. As we shot up from the roof I heard a wild cry, and then another, louder and wilder, from the people in the street, who saw us darting upward to a hideous death. For my own part, I don't remember anything for a while, but I clung instinctively to the trapeze and braced myself against the horizontal bars. I could feel that we were rushing through currents of air, but the balloon was steady, and as soon as I recovered my senses at all I looked steadily upward. We were going through clouds, and I could feel that Ted was crawling toward me on the trapeze. At last he got quite close to me. His white, desperate face was fearful in the ghastly uncertain glare. The moon shone out, and I saw that the small rope connecting with the safety-valve was fastened around his wrist. He held it up to me. "You understand what this means?" he said. "If I go over, the valve comes open." I understood well enough. "Now," he said, "we can settle about Jenny Hobbs." It was cold, and my teeth were chattering, but I managed to say: "It's all settled, it strikes me. We are both dead men." "Not I," said he. "I have been studying up balloons on the sly. I know all about this one. I can manage her. Now tell me, will you give up Jenny Hobbs? If you don't--" He pointed to the clouds scurrying beneath us. "You are a sneak and a coward," I said. "We've both got to die this Christmas Eve, but you'll meet your Maker a murderer and a suicide." The balloon, it seemed to me, was stationary then. He crept closer and closer to me. I could see the whites of his eyes. I thought my time had come. I could not remember any words of prayer, but my soul uttered its inarticulate cry for mercy, which God can hear. Suddenly the balloon gave a furious lurch, and before my very eyes I saw him jerked violently backward. I have no clear recollection of what happened next. I suppose, with an acrobat's instinct, he clutched the bar. But I felt the balloon descending with a horrible rush that no human being could describe. Then it slacked up, and I saw Ted clinging with both hands to the trapeze, but his legs were dangling frightfully in the air. The rope was still tied to his wrist, and the spring of the valve had closed.