A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands
stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward.

Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,--Little's! But in
the same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled
from his feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into
space.


CHAPTER VII.*


* The right of dramatization of this and succeeding chapters is
reserved by the writer.


Lady Caroline fainted. The cold watery nose of her dog on her
cheek brought her to herself. She dared not look over the edge of
the car; she dared not look up to the bellying monster above her,
bearing her to death. She threw herself on the bottom of the car,
and embraced the only living thing spared her,--the poodle. Then
she cried. Then a clear voice came apparently out of the
circumambient air:--

"May I trouble you to look at the barometer?"

She put her head over the car. Little was hanging at the end of a
long rope. She put her head back again.

In another moment he saw her perplexed, blushing face over the