They paid their visit of respect to the American minister, who insisted on their lunching with him, and laughed heartily over Bob's financial experience. Late in the afternoon the officers returned to Seoul by train, and were glad enough to reach the deck of the _Osprey_, fanned by the cool breezes of the Yellow Sea. As they distributed the gifts they had brought, and recounted their adventures in the Korean capital, while Dave, Staples, and Dobson shouted at the midshipman's woful face when the "temporary Rockefeller" was described, they little guessed what was befalling their old friend the war correspondent, whom we left in company with the renegade Stevens, running away with one of General Kouropatkin's war balloons. Larkin's first movement, as they rose above the roofs of Liaoyang, was to throw out a whole bagful of ballast, with plenty of which the air-ship was fortunately stocked. The two men crouched low in the basket to avoid stray bullets from the victorious Japanese army, and in ten minutes they were out of all danger from that source. Fred had made more than one ascension, in a professional capacity, from Boston Common, and felt quite at ease as the swelling bag above his head bore him farther and farther from the scene of the late battle. Not so Stevens. He continued to crouch in the bottom of the wicker car, and his teeth fairly chattered with fright. "Come, come, old chap," said Larkin cheerfully, "we're all right now. It's only a question of making a safe landing somewhere in the rear of the Jap army. I'm sorry to leave my friends the Muscovites, but needs must when the wind drives. I wish the inventors would hurry up with their dirigible balloons! Sit up, man, and take in this view. You may never have such a chance again." The panorama spread out beneath them was indeed a wonderful one. The wind, following the direction of the mountain range, was now sweeping them rather to the south than to the east, and at a height of about a mile the balloon passed swiftly over lower Manchuria with its fair streams, valleys and cornfields. Here and there a blur of smoke indicated a military encampment, and long trains of waggons could be made out, conveying stores to the front or wounded men toward the sea. The earth presented the odd appearance of a shallow cup, rather than of a convex surface. Now and then the landscape was blotted out by a low-lying cloud which, travelling in a different current, was quickly left behind. Once or twice, from a cottony puff of smoke, Larkin guessed that his big aërial craft was a target for Japanese riflemen; but no bullet came near to corroborate his surmise. Stevens, meanwhile, recovered nerve enough to sit upright and peer once or twice over the edge of the car; but each time he sank back with a shudder. "I always was giddy in high places," he muttered, resuming his former abject attitude. Larkin glanced at the pallid face, and felt a touch of pity for the miserable fellow.