Where is he? Who is he? What mother bare him? It is 57! And he is _there!_--on high--caught, to the skies. The tumbling of four ballast bags from the balloon was marked: the balloon darted high, wildly high; and with her, seated on the bar, the cord between his thighs, darted high Fred Bates. Exultant! the five hundred faces wax fire-eyed, each heart a flame of madness. But yonder is Warder Black taking trembling, yet careful, aim: now the report is echoing from the two Tors, the granite-works; and that smoke no sooner thins than a whole volley of crackling musketry is winging toward that dot under the clouds. And it was hideous--pitiful--the quailing heart waited and was still to see the dot dissever itself from its rod: he had been hit: was in the middle of the vast and vacant air: and wheeling he came. A shockingly protracted interval did that fall fill up: the five hundred, gazing as at some wonder in heaven, did not, could not, breathe: the outraged heart seemed to rend the breast in a shriek. Would it _never_ end, that somersault? Wheeling he came. In reality it occupied much less than a minute: and now he is no more ethereal, but has grown, is grossly near, attended by the raving winds of his travelling: is arrived. And the thump of his coming was heard. As he touched the earth he jerked out circular.... Here was a tragedy remembered many a year at Colmoor, and always with feelings of the deepest awe. XVII OLD TOM'S LETTER The fate of Bates filled Hogarth's mind with a gloom so funereal, that now his strength, his great patience, all but succumbed. One evening, while his broom lay stuck out under the notch of his cell-door in order that Warder Black might count him, he took his tin knife, and began to scratch over the hills and valleys of his corrugated wall some shining letters: VEN He was now, after long reflection, convinced that he was the victim of a plot of Baruch Frankl's: yet in his heart was little rancour against Frankl, nor, when he wrote his “V E N”, was he thinking specially of Frankl--hardly knew of whom, or what. It may have been of the system of things which had given to Frankl such vast powers over him; but, the “N” finished, he pshawed at himself, and threw the knife down. If something was wrong, he knew not at all how to right it, supposing the world had been his to guide. But a simple incident was destined to transform his mood--a letter from old Tom Bates, the father of Fred. And as hitherto we have seen him passive, bearing his weight of pain with patience, after that letter we shall find him in action. Old Bates' letter was handed him three weeks after the scratching of his vague “VEN”. “DERE MISTER HOGARTH: