superhuman effort, rose, and violently repulsed this insensate.

"Four!" said he.

The car was overset. I instinctively clung to the cords which held it,
and climbed up the outside.

The unknown had disappeared in space!

In a twinkling the balloon ascended to an immeasurable height! A
horrible crash was heard. The dilated gas had burst its envelope! I
closed my eyes. A few moments afterwards, a moist warmth reanimated me;
I was in the midst of fiery clouds! The balloon was whirling with
fearful rapidity! I felt myself swooning! Driven by the wind, I
travelled a hundred leagues an hour in my horizontal course; the
lightnings flashed around me!

Meanwhile my fall was not rapid. When I opened my eyes, I perceived the
country. I was two miles from the sea, the hurricane urging me on with
great force. I was lost, when a sudden shock made me let go; my hands
opened, a cord slipped rapidly between my fingers, and I found myself on
the ground. It was the cord of the anchor, which, sweeping the surface
of the ground, had caught in a crevice! I fainted, and my lightened
balloon, resuming its flight, was lost beyond the sea.

When I recovered my senses, I was in the house of a peasant, at
Harderwick, a little town of Gueldre, fifteen leagues from Amsterdam, on
the banks of the Zuyderzée.

A miracle had saved me. But my voyage had been but a series of