It is easy enough for any active young fellow to climb on a bar if he has a good purchase with his hands; but the best acrobat in the world, suspended he knows not how far from the earth, in mortal danger and mortal terror, can't do it. I saw that Ted couldn't. I saw his terrified and distorted face turned up to mine. I won't describe what I felt in that moment. But in the half darkness I felt the rope that the balloon had been held by slap against my face. I reached up and caught it. Then I crawled along the bar to Ted. I wanted to save him; but I also knew, if he let go, the valve would come open, and we would both be dashed into limitless space. He saw me coming toward him. I suppose he thought I meant to push him off, for he uttered the first loud sound I had heard in that awful stillness--a piercing scream of anguish. I saw him clutch the bar with a wild determination that gave me courage to proceed. I made the rope into a big loop, and threw it around his body. It caught the first time, and I drew it up under his arms. Then he seemed to realize that I was trying to save him. I took the ends of the rope, and, holding on firmly to the bar, wrapped the ends securely around it, and tied them, hard and tight. Then I reached over and grasped the valve rope, and began to pull it gently. I suppose the gas in the balloon had been considerably exhausted before, for as soon as I touched the valve we began to go down frightfully fast. I closed it up for a few moments, and noticed we were descending slowly. I opened the valve again the least in the world, and we began to go down pretty fast--not so alarmingly fast; but it had flashed through me that perhaps if we went too slowly in the beginning the gas would be exhausted before we reached the bottom and we would be dashed to pieces, and I didn't understand enough about balloons to know that the same quantity of gas would carry us the same distance fast or slow. Presently I saw a line of light which I took to be the river, then the masts of shipping in the harbor, then the church steeples, the houses, the street lamps. Oh, God! I heard the cries of human voices--so close, so close! and when we were only a few feet from the ground I got dizzy and fell--far, far into space--and went to sleep before I reached the bottom. * * * * * The next morning was Christmas morning. Ah, what a day! May be people think that professional acrobats haven't any religious instincts; but I know I went to church that day, and found Jenny there, and afterward we took a walk out into the country. It was a very happy walk, and it was God's day, and she had screamed "Oh, Ned!" after all, the night that Jack made the row. This gave me much solid satisfaction. Before I got out of my bed that morning (I had had a regular fainting spell, and had tumbled off the trapeze about ten feet from the ground, but had been caught) I opened my eyes and saw Ted standing over me. He looked like a ghost.