Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1875 — MY RALLOON ADVENTURE. [ARTICLE]

MY RALLOON ADVENTURE.

BY JOHN BERWICK HARWOOD.

“ You, and you only, Ned, can save me. It’s my bread, the balloon is, and not mine only, but that of little Polly, at school far away in England there. And they’ll make no more of ripping the 1 Defiance’to ribbons than I would of chipping the shell of an egg at breakfast , those peppery Marseillais.” The situation was, to say the least of it, exceedingly awkward. It was the evening of a fete day, in brilliant, sultry, autumn weather—such as may be looked for in the south of France—and th% Ducasse, or local festival of Bt. Maure, a village lying on the coast some two leagues eastward oOtarseilles, had drawn thither a swarm of the population of the old Phcecean city. There was dancing in progress—the merry twang of the fiddles, floating upward through the vine-tendrils that hung across the open window, reached my ears as I stood beside the bed—but the great attraction of the evening was to be a balloon ascent, in the midst of fireworks, on the part of an English aeronaut who, in the glowing language of the handbills and posters that had for ten days past advertised the trip, was described as “the famous, the intrepid Oliver Killick, le lioi des Airs." As for myself, I was simply a young English artist, Edward Holmes by name, not long since returned from a protracted course of art-study in Rome, and who found it hard enough, by touching up photographs, “ finishing” the sketches of ■amateurs and taking, at the lowest rate of remunsration, the portrait of whoever favored me with a sitting, to procure the wherewithal to live. I had been accidentally thrown a goad deal in the company of Mr. Killick, who had for some time been exhibiting liis balloon in various towns of the South, and who had shown me some kindness as a fellow-country-man ; while I, on my part, had a regard for the old man, whose quaint anecdotes of his experiences as a traveling balloonist were often amusing, and half of whose earnings, as- I knew, were sent home for the benefit of his little grandchild. And now a serious difficulty had, at the last moment, arisen. There, in the gar-, den of the village inn, fenced off by ropes and stakes from the pressure of the crowd that surged around, was the Defiance, fully inflated, straining at the cords that fastened it to the earth and ready for use, while on his bed lay the unlucky “ King of the Air,” groaning and disabled. He had sent for me to visit him in his looms shortly after the occurrence of the accident—it was a mere stumble over a loose plank and a fall down-stairs—and though I sympathized with him most sincerely I had been quite at a loss for an expedient. Mr. Killick was a heavy, elderly man, and in the fall had severely sprained his right wrist and injured his thumb, besides receiving a cut on the left temple frpm which the blood slowly trickled. “ That’s nothing,” he said, half querulously, as I examined the hurt; “ I’ve had worse in touching ground many’s the day. It’s the thumb that does signify, the thumb and the wrist. I can’t handle the valve-ropes with this crippled arm any more than a school-girl could do it. And what’s to happen now?” My first idea was that the accident and , the consequent inability of the balloonist to give the promised exhibitiofl should be notified and an apology made to the public; but the veteran decidedly negatived this apparently-obvious proceeding. He reminded me of the irascible character of a mob everywhere, and above ail of a Southern French mob, and assured me of what I could readily believe, that no excuse would be accepted by the fiery Marseillais, balked of the long-looked-for treat of an ascent. They would certainly destroy the balloon, and not improbably execute Lynch law in some form on the aeronaut, while the very loss of the Defiance would be a serious disaster to its owner. Then, too, a rich landed proprietor of the neighborhood—a vain

young man, with a tasie for notoriety—had offered fifteen Louis d’or to be taken up as a passenger; and to disappoint M. Victor de Villeneuve and lose 300 francs was also an unwelcome contingency. To my great surprise Mr. Killick proposed that I should go up in his stead and undertake for the occasion the office of aeronaut. I had indeed accompanied him while we were both at Nice in two short ascents and had learned from him to manage the valves and ballast, the rudiments of the art of ballooning. I was young, active and had a steady head, and the owner of the Defiance was quite willing to intrust her to me if I would but so far oblige him. I have never been quite able satisfactorily to explain to myself how it was that I was startled or cajoled into assenting. Perhaps the novelty of the notion acting on a somewhat adventurous fancy made me yield more readily to the old man’s entreaty than would otherwise have been the case. I said “ Yes,” and was held to my word. “ Hist! walls have ears and certainly arbors have,” whispered the landlord of the inn as he led me cautiously round by the back door into the partially-illumi-nated space without. “ Wrap your overcoat well about you and hide your face with this red handkerchief. We mustn’t let the people see as yet it’s a raw hand that’s to go aloft. TrOn de l’air! once up, we can laugh it off.” This was all very well for the' innkeeper, whose only wish was to keep the rabble in good humor and avoid a riot, which might lead to the pillage of his cellar and the demolition of his furniture, but I began inwardly to question the wisdom of my own choice. However, it was too late to withdraw. One glance at the sea of keen, olive-com-plexioned faces, the flashing eyes and impassioned gestures of the spectators was enough to show the risk that would attend the giving of willful offense. I could have imagined much such a throng gathered around the blood-stained arena of old Rome. They were gay enough, laughing blithely, but it would not have required much to arouse the volcanic fires that slumbered beneath that joyous aspect. There was the Defiance majestically poised above the ground like a vessel riding at anchor. There was nothing for it but to carry out, as best I might, the madcap enterprise on which I had embarked. “ Come, you had better get into the car and be ready,” said the landlord, still in an undertone, as he passed me through the cordon of police that kept back the foremost of the spectators. “Don’t talk, but if anybody speaks to you wave a flag —that does as well. M. de Villeneuve writes me word he’ll not arrive till the last moment, when we start the fireworks. As soon as he’s beside you up you go, remember.” I was now in the rocking, swaying car, and, stooping down, I ascertained that the bags of ballast, the coil of spare rope, the flags and telescope were at my feet; then I assured myself that the grapnel was provided with its tough cord, and the whizz of a rocket and a descending shower oi colored spangles of fire gave a warning note of preparation.

More rockets now soared aloft, amidst the huzzas of the crowd, and then, springing from the driving-seat of a light* open carriage drawn by a gray horse, there appeared the figure of a stout, well-dressed man, who elbowed his way so quickly through the throng that I had. scarcely time to conjecture that this must be the volunteer companion of my aerial voyage, M. Victor de Villeueuve, beforg he scrambled into the car, and was at my side. “ Allons, let go, mes braves!” he cried, in a sharp, imperious tone, to the men who held the ropes. “ Bas les cordes! do you hear?” A voice raised in accents of command seldom fails of its effect, however questionable may be the right of him who uplifts it, and the men addressed, in their astonishment, mechanically obeyed. The balloon rose a little, nothing now restraining its upward flight save the trigger-cord, firmly moored to a post below, the spring being in my grasp. “ Slontons, camarade! Off we go!" exclaimed the passenger, with a jovial laugh that had scarcely the ring of honest mirth in it. Perhaps M. de Villeneuve, for an his swaggering deportment, was ill at ease as to the results of our voyage, and strove to carry it off gayly; such were my thoughts as the Catherine ' wheels began to revolve in cascades of whirling fire and the crowd to cheer. It was the moment for our start, but I hesitated to pull the trigger, for now a strange bustle and confusion below attracted my attention. A mounted gendarme, his saber and carbine clanking, had ridden up at the full gallop of his reeking horse, followed at some distance by three others, who spurred furiously forward. There were a few hurried questions, then a smothered outcry, a roar of voices, and a swaying backward and forward of the excited populace. I looked down at the crowd of upturned man, stay! ” cried out the brigadier of the foot-police. “ Let go, fool! ” thundered the man who sat beside me in the car. “ But it is the police that ” I began, thinking that M. de Villeneuve had suddenly taken leave of his senses. “Comedown! stop—haul the rope!” was the shout from below; but as the words reached my ear my companion bent forward. Something flashed in his hand —a dagger-knife—and the cord was cut, and the balloon darted upward. “In the name of the law—ah! you won’t? Tiens!” cried a gendarme, discharging his carbine, an example that was followed by his comrades; but the balls whistled idly by, while we rose and rose until the inn and the gardens and the shouting crowd and the sputtering fireworks had diminished to pigmy size, and presently disappeared altogether, and the balloon rode on, solitary, through the fields of air. “A. nous deux, maintenant!” said M. de Villeneuve, with a chuckle that wa« incomprehensible to me. “ A singular salute our friends gave us, eh, when they bade us bon voyage ?” The moon, half full, hadnow risen, and

I could see the face of my companion—the swarthy, keen face of a man forty years of age, with short, dark hair, slightly grizzled, fiery-black eyes, and very white, strong, sharp-pointed teeth, which gave him, when he smiled, somewhat the expression of a laughing wolf. He was a man of powerful frame, and the fingers of the gloved hand which he now laid upon my arm were as strong and supple as steel. “ Avow,” said this strange passenger, with a grin that an ogre might have envied—“ avow that you take me for a queer specimen of the French provincial gentry, hein ? But first, how comes it that the pere Killick is absent, and a blanc-bec of your age has the honor to be my pilot?” I told him briefly and in offended tones what had occurred, and how it was that he and I found ourselves together so far above terra firma , at the same time cautioning him not, as he had done before, to take it on himself to interfere with the management of the balloon. “ We must now,” I added, “ look out for a place to descend, for the wind is freshening, and ” “ Let it freshen!” rudely interrupted M. de Villeneuve. “ Sets fair for Spain, does it not?” “For Spain?” I echoed in surprise. Could this self-conceited country gentleman really deem that we were bound on such a journey as that? I could not help laughing as I said: “Why for Spain, monsieur?” “Well, Italy would have served me as well had the wind been a westerly one. I talk both languages equally, and know every wine-shop in Cadiz as well as I do those of Genoa,” answered M. de Villeneuve, again chuckling. “Ha, lad, what are you about that you finger that rope?” “I am opening the valve above,” I answered coldly, “ because it is time now to sink to a lower level and descend ”

“ Descend, eh?” briskly put in my fel-low-voyager. “We may as well understand each, otlieratonce. Hands off the rope, I say, if you would keep the roof on your skull,” he added threateningly, as he drew a revolver from within his waistcoat and deliberately pointed the barrel at my head. “I’ll show you who’s captain up here.” My brain reeled and my blood ran cold as the horrid thought flashed upon me that I was, At that fearful height above the earth, in company with a madman. Nothing surely save insanity could account for the extraordinary behavior of M. de Villeneuve. But I suppose I put a tolerably good countenance on the matter, for my formidable companion laughed again, but less ill-naturedly, as he said: “You face it out well, boy. I like a youngster who shows a heart somewhat bigger than a chicken’s. And I’m not so bad as I look—never do this!”—he drew his hand as he spoke edgeways, with a meaning gesture, across his throat—- “ When I can get my little profits by quieter means. But you stare at me as if I were a mountebank selling quack medicines. Can you guess why those gendarmes were so peremptory an hour ago? Because they wanted the pleasure ot my company back to Toulon, that’s all. Did you never hear, Anglais, of Risque-son-cou ?” “ Risque-son-cou ?” I repeated in perplexity. “ Ay, Pierre Paul Grincheux, if you please, dit Risque-son-con,” said the man, with an odd sort of pride; “ it’s a name, if you read the reports of our tribunals, that you may have met with. Toulon, Brest, Lambessa—l know every one of these charming retreats like my pocket. I have had enough sea air for one while, so I gave myself leave of absence.” And then I remembered to have seen a paragraph in a local paper announcing the escape from Toulon of a criminal of the worst and most dangerous type, who had not as yet been recaptured, and whose grotesque nickname of Neck-or-Nothing had been earned by fifty prison-breakings and hair-breadth evasions from, justice. And here was I, Edward Holmes, artist, voyaging by night in a balloon in company with a runaway galley-slave well armed with knife and pistol, and more than a match in strength for me even had he been less well provided. My terrible companion was only too much disposed to be talkative; and as we swept onward before the freshening wind he was kind enough to favor me with a few brief anecdotes of his past career, in which the jocose and horrible seemed to mingle in cynic confusion. The one point on which he was uncommunicative was the manner of his recent escape from Tpulon; or how-—probably owing to the complicity of others—he became possessed of his weapons. But he told graphically of the ten days of hardship and hunger which he had endured while skulking among the rocky hills by night and lying hidden among thorny brakes by day, until at last he broke into a pcean of triumph in relating hpw he had encountered and robbed the true M. de Villeneuve on his way to the village fete. “ Twenty shining naps in his purse, the idiot! ” he said exultingly,” and three thousand franca besides in notes. Well, well! I left him gagged and bound to a tree, after I haa taken the freedom to change clothes with him; and there he stands, no doubt, trembling, but fortunate to keep a whole skin. And I found in his pocket the letter of M. Killick, promising to take him as a passenger in the balloon here, and so—■ ■” And so the idea had presented itself to this daring and ready-witted ruffian to personate the victim of his recent robbery, and thus to procure the means of flight m what was certainly an unexampled fashion, while I was the luckless scapegoat of his audacious enterprise. Meanwhile the wind, as I have said, was rising, and as we hurried on I looked downward and saw by the shimmer of the moonlight on the tremulous waves that the sea was below us. I could not forbear from an exclamation of dismay. The desperado at my side also looked down. “Bah! sea or land—what matters it?” he said recklessly. “ Throw out ballast; do you hear me ?” and unwillingly I complied. The balloon instantly rose, and it presently became perceptibly colder, so that I shivered, ana had to chafe my hands together to prevent them from stiffening.

My companion’s iron frame showed no signs of suffering from the abrupt lowering of the temperature; but after a time the Defiance seemed to be nearer to the sea, for I heard the low roar of the waves; and then Risque-son-cou impatiently threw out another bag of ballast, and we rose. Vague, like the visions of a dream, are my recollections of the voyage of that miserable night, spent thus, and in such company. I suffered much from cold and fatigue, and it was mechanically that I obeyed the directions of the escaped gal-ley-slave, who had now assumed the command. There was no doubt about the fixity of his determination to continue the desperate flight until we should be across the French frontier. How long our aerial journey might prove, undertaken as it was without warm clothing, provisions or brandy, I could not conjecture, while it was certain that we were hurrying along at a swift pace—how swift I had no means of calculating—before the pressure of the strong wind. So far as I could tell the direction of the wind was a uniform one, steadily from northeast by east. The sea which I had seen beneath us was, no doubt, a part of the gulf, lying somewhere between the mouths of the River Rhone and the Spanish border, but the remainder of our route was in theory mere guesswork. A slight shift in the wind might cduse us to be carried out into the broad Mediterranean—even did we not drift beyond the straits into the broader Atlantic to perish, as many a balloon voyager has died, without a record of his fate. Whereabouts we were I could not tell. The dark, blurred outlines of what lay beneath seemed to indicate hills and woods, not sea. “ If we come down in France, myyoung friend,” said the strident voice of the escaped convict, as we floated through masses of misty vapor, the condensed moisture of which wetted me to the skin, “you may bid adieu to whatever home ties and*British affections vour insular heart may cherish. It’s no fault of yours, you will say, if the wind carries this flapping gas-bag to Poitou or the Nivernais. No, but is Risque-son-cou to wait while the young Englishman crawls to the nearest brigade of gendarmerie to give notice that his fellow-traveller was Peter Paul Grincheux, forcat en rupture de ban ? Thank you. I prefer to keep my own counsel. So sure as we drop where Napoleon is Emperor, and the Official Journal posted on the walls of the Postede Police, I prove that one can keep a secret better than two.” I am not, I hope, unduly timorous, but I own that my heart sank within me as 1 heard these words, uttered with an emphatic ferocity which left no doubt of the speaker’s resolve. I had fully made up my mind, should the desperado at my side begin to realize his threats, that I should not be by any means passive in the struggle; but his weapons and his strength left little hope of a satisfactory ending to such a contest.

“There’s something wrong with the valves,” said my companion roughly, an hour later ; “ the gas, diablel is coming down, and we are sinking. It’s for you, aeronaut, to ascend the netting and stop the escape of gas.” I whs very reluctant to obey. To climb the netting of a balloon when at a great height above the earth is never a very pleasant task; but. to do so, leaving behind me a ruffian who might at any moment pistol or stab me as I descended, thus relieving himself from an inconvenient witness, was indeed irksome. However, Risque-son-cou evinced such vehement pertinacity, and swore so many grisly oaths, that at last I complied; and having adjusted the valve crept back to the car, sick and giddy, but unhurt. The moon had faded aw r ay. There were pale crimson streaks in what I took to be the eastern sky, and below lay piled-up,; gloomy masses of black cloud, through which gleamed at intervals something white and lustrous, like the marble pinnacles of the cathedral at Milan. “ We’re steering straight. Fatality, for once, befriends me,” exclaimed the desperate sharer of my journey; “ for, mille bombes! those are the peaks of the Eastern Pyrenees. Chuck over ballast, boy;don’t let us ground on them.” We were, in reality, floating among the serrated summits and snow-clad mountain-tops of the huge chain of mountains that forms a natural barrier between Gaul and Spain. Below the sullen cloud-banks menaced elemental war, and already low-muttering growls of thunder reverberated among the serrated ridges beneath us. “Throw over more ballast,” commanded my ruffianly companion. I flung out, with some misgivings, the remainder of the last bag of sand and small pebbles, but the “ Defiance” did not rise with its former buoyancy. Much gas had been lost. The once smooth surface of the silk, painted in gaudy of pink and blue, was wrinkled now and*nuttered loosely in irregular festoons. More than once it seemed as though we must be dashed against some one of the towering peaks above which the balloon slowly revolved. _— Crash after crash, peal upon peal, rang out the deep diapason of the thunder, echoed from glen to glen and from ridge to ridge, while far ana wide the lightning sent its flaming arrows across the darkening sky. How strange it was to see beneath ujbthose forked shafts of dazzling light, to hear from beneath us those awful rolls of heaven’s own terrible artillery and to float helplessly above the raging tempest Day had broken; the sun was rising, red and angry, in the stormy eastern sky, and as a current of air wafted the balloon rapidly forward I could dimly distinguish forest and meadow and spurs of woodclothed hills lying to the southward of us. The snowy peaks, rosy-pink in the morning radiance, were being gradually left behind us. “ Hurrah! as you say, you other islanders," cried dut the gajley-slave triumphant ly, as he, too, scanned the landscape. “ Vive la joiel We’re well across the frontier now, and Pierre Paul Grincheux is as safe as any other Frenchman from the odious summons to trudge back to the chain-gang and the rattan of the gardechiourme! Thank your stars, Englishman " A stunning *peal of thunder cut short

his boastful discourse, and as it did so the Defiance heeled over and was driven like a dead leaf before the gale by the sudden rush of a mighty wind that bore us .almost to the surface of the ground and hurried us along with headlong rapidity. Fields, woodlands, houses seemed to pass us by with feverish haste, and still we sped onward, so near nowto the earth that I momentarily expected that we should become entangled in the trees that loomed so near us. What was that, like a mer of glancing water, on the dusty high road beneath us, the yellow road like a ribbon winding amid rocks and thickets ? Troops on the march, no doubt, the sunlight glinting on their bayonets. I could see that as we approached they came confusedly to a halt. “Again, hurrah!” shouted the galleyslave. “A cheer, noble Spaniards, for your guest, Pierre Paul, now safely ” As he spoke I saw the earth very near us, saw the soldiers ran to right and left, as though to clear the way for our passage, and then, with a sickening crash, the balloon and the car seemed to strike against a rock, and a thousand sparks of fire filled my bewildered eyes, and then all grew dark.

“ He’ll live, this one, never fear,” said a cheery voice speaking in the Spanish language, which I partially understood, as I awoke to find myself lying on a trucklebed in a wayside cottage, surrounded by a group of officers, while a regimental surgeon was feeling my pulse. “Give him a few more drops of the brandy! Only a couple of ribs the worse, I think.” ‘ ‘ And—and the man who was with me ?” I asked feebly. The doctor shook his head. “Not your father or your brother, I trust, caballero?” he said. “ Ah, then, I may tell you that his head was dashed against a rock, and his neck—a tough one, by the by—very effectually dislocated?’ And so it was. Risque-son-cou had shared the proverbial fate of the pitcher that goes too often to the well. Strange to say .my fortune was to a qualified extent made by the accident which had so nearly put ail end altogether to my worldly anxieties. The kina protectors who had picked me up, a wayworn stranger, with two ribs broken, by the roadside, had me conveyed along with them on a litter to the garrison town of Girona, whither they were bound, and in the military hospital of this place 1 was cared for until youth and a robust constitution enabled me to get the better of the fever that ensued. My story was noised abroad and all Barcelona seemed eager to sit for its portrait to the young English artist who had visited Spain in so singular a manner; and thence with good professional recommendations I passed on to Madrid, Paris and London ana have never since known the actual pressure of want. I afterward heard that a subscription set on foot at Marseilles compensated Mr. Killick for the loss of his balloon, but he and I never met again .—Hearth and Home. ——- •