Toward the middle of the afternoon we got everything ready to land, and we felt pretty good, too, and proud; and we kept watching with the glasses, like Columbus discovering America. But we couldn’t see nothing but ocean. The afternoon wasted out and the sun shut down, and still there warn’t no land anywheres. We wondered what was the matter, but reckoned it would come out all right, so we went on steering east, but went up on a higher level so we wouldn’t hit any steeples or mountains in the dark. It was my watch till midnight, and then it was Jim’s; but Tom stayed up, because he said ship captains done that when they was making the land, and didn’t stand no regular watch. Well, when daylight come, Jim give a shout, and we jumped up and looked over, and there was the land sure enough—land all around, as far as you could see, and perfectly level and yaller. We didn’t know how long we’d been over it. There warn’t no trees, nor hills, nor rocks, nor towns, and Tom and Jim had took it for the sea. They took it for the sea in a dead ca’m; but we was so high up, anyway, that if it had been the sea and rough, it would ’a’ looked smooth, all the same, in the night, that way. We was all in a powerful excitement now, and grabbed the glasses and hunted everywheres for London, but couldn’t find hair nor hide of it, nor any other settlement—nor any sign of a lake or a river, either. Tom was clean beat. He said it warn’t his notion of England; he thought England looked like America, and always had that idea. So he said we better have breakfast, and then drop down and inquire the quickest way to London. We cut the breakfast pretty short, we was so impatient. As we slanted along down, the weather began to moderate, and pretty soon we shed our furs. But it kept _on_ moderating, and in a precious little while it was ’most too moderate. We was close down now, and just blistering! We settled down to within thirty foot of the land—that is, it was land if sand is land; for this wasn’t anything but pure sand. Tom and me clumb down the ladder and took a run to stretch our legs, and it felt amazing good—that is, the stretching did, but the sand scorched our feet like hot embers. Next, we see somebody coming, and started to meet him; but we heard Jim shout, and looked around and he was fairly dancing, and making signs, and yelling. We couldn’t make out what he said, but we was scared anyway, and begun to heel it back to the balloon. When we got close enough, we understood the words, and they made me sick: “Run! Run fo’ yo’ life! Hit’s a lion; I kin see him thoo de glass! Run, boys; do please heel it de bes’ you kin. He’s bu’sted outen de menagerie, en dey ain’t nobody to stop him!” [Illustration: “Run! Run fo’ yo’ life!”] It made Tom fly, but it took the stiffening all out of my legs. I could only just gasp along the way you do in a dream when there’s a ghost gaining on you.