Meanwhile the thunder roared and crackled, and the lightning blazed about them, and the balloon, driven this way and that by contrary currents of wind, swung from side to side, staggering back to the perpendicular; while the frail car, falling with each lurch and recovery to the utmost limit of the binding ropes, shook and whirled and bumped its miserable occupants till they were actually sick with terror and physical discomfort. ‘Oh! oh!’ moaned Lucius. ‘I shall die! Oh! why did I ever come? I shall be killed! Oh! if it were only not so very dark!’ Suddenly there was a shout from Ephraim. Lucius knew in a dim unconscious way that he had risen to his feet and was leaning over the car during a temporary lull in the mad gyrations of the balloon, and in a few moments more old Blue Bag, bursting grandly through the storm, soared peacefully amid tranquil skies into the broad light of day. ‘By time!’ ejaculated Ephraim, wiping the sweat from his face, which was deadly pale. ‘Thet war on’y jest in time. Thet war none too soon. What an or’nery skunk I must hev been ter fergit it.’ ‘What did you do?’ chattered Lucius, still in deadly terror. ‘Why, hove out a big lump er ballast, er co’se,’ returned Ephraim, who was fast getting his quivering nerves under control again. ‘And I do hope it’ll fall plump on one er them pesky Yanks and knock the nat’al stuffin’ out er him.—Don’t ye take on so, Luce. I ’low it war awful while et lasted—awful; but we’re all right now. Old Blue Bag don’t set me back again, I tell ye.’ Lucius cast one despairing look upwards. ‘Right!’ he groaned. ‘Can’t you see that we’re going up and up, and we’ll never come down again until the balloon has been shivered into atoms. You’ve lost the cord.’ Ephraim followed the glance. Matters were certainly about as bad as they could be. The valve cord, tangled in the rigging of the balloon, lay twisted far up on the side of the latter, absolutely out of reach. ‘Umph!’ grunted Ephraim. ‘Waal, it’s a mercy thar’s more ways than one. I’ll make a hole in her side.’ He pulled out his clasp-knife, and with a sigh for the dire necessity of it, prepared to stab the child of his invention. But, as he stood at the edge of the car, his fingers, numbed with cold and wet, lost grip of the knife in their efforts to open the strong blade, and with a silence more eloquent than the loudest crash, it slipped down into the cloud depths below. A cry of horror broke from Lucius as what seemed to him their only means of salvation disappeared, but Ephraim shouted loudly: ‘Lend us yourn, quick! It’s gettin’ ez cold ez a iceberg. Smart, sonny!’ ‘I haven’t got it,’ whimpered Lucius. ‘I put it out to bring, but I forgot it. Oh! oh! oh! I shall be killed! I shall be killed!’ He flung himself upon the floor of the car, grovelling abjectly in the desolation of his spirit.