Tales from Many Sources. Vol. V

"Done it!" he heard the captain cry in a voice that sounded curiously remote.

"Done what?" said Josiah, anxiously looking up.

"Why, the chimney-stack. Just cleared it by half a foot. I didn't like to say much about it, but it was a pretty near touch-and-go affair. That's the worst of filling a balloon. You must do it near a gasworks, and there's sure to be a stack of chimneys at hand."

It seemed but a moment since Josiah had heard the captain call out "Let go all," and there they were in space a thousand feet above the level of the land, sailing calmly along in bright warm sunlight, and with no more motion perceptible than if they were still sitting in the room in King Street—that cherished apartment which Josiah felt his eye would never light on more.

"This won't do," said the captain sternly; "we've got in the wrong current, and instead of going out to sea we are going inland. In half an hour we'll be at Canterbury."

"I have heard Canterbury's a very nice old town," said Josiah. "It wouldn't be a bad place to stop at; and if the wind's contrary to-day, it might be right to-morrow."

The captain said nothing, and Josiah, looking up to see what effect his suggestion might have, noticed for the first time that on a face usually smiling there were possibilities of a fixed hard look which it evidently didn't beseem him to trifle with.

The balloon slowly rose till the aneroid marked a height of 1,500 feet and still the current drove it steadily north-west. Looking southward, Josiah beheld a sight which, if it were the last he was ever to look upon, was at least a glorious glimpse of earth, and sky, and sea. There lay the Channel gleaming in the sun, a broad belt of silver. Beyond it, like a cloud, was France. Dover had vanished even to the crest of the castle on the hill. But Josiah knew where it was by the mist that lay over it and shone white in the rays of the sun. Save for this patch of mist, which seemed to drift with the voyagers far below the car, there was nothing to obscure the range of vision. Josiah could not at any time make out forms of people. The white highways that ran like threads among the fields, and the tiny openings in the towns and villages which he guessed were streets, seemed to belong to a dead world, for nowhere was there trace of living person. The strange stillness that brooded over the earth was made more uncanny by cries that occasionally seemed to float in the air around them, behind, before, to the right or to the left, but never exactly beneath the car. They could hear people calling, and the captain said that they were running after the balloon and cheering. But Josiah could distinguish no moving thing. Yes; once he saw some pheasants running across a field below and pointed them out to the captain. The captain laughed, a strange resonant laugh it seemed in this upper stillness, and said they were "a lot of chestnut horses capering about in the field." A flock of sheep in another field huddled together, looked like a heap of limestone chippings. As for the fields, stretched out in illimitable extent, far as the eye could reach, they seemed to form a gigantic carpet, with patterns chiefly diamond-shaped, and in colour shaded from bright emerald to russet brown.

"This won't do," the captain said again, and seizing a bag of ballast he emptied it. The balloon swiftly rose, and the aneroid marked 2,500 feet. The villages seemed mere spots, the pattern of the carpet grew blurred. Nothing was distinguishable—nor horse, nor sheep, nor any living thing.

"Hurrah!" cried the captain, "we're off now."

Nearer and nearer came the belt of silver which seemed to girdle continent and island. They were close to Dover, and could make out the town. Josiah, knowing well the irregular plan on which the streets are laid out, was struck by the manner in which, as looked down upon from this height, they formed themselves into beautifully defined curves, straight lines, and other highly respectable geometrical shapes. They saw the castle and the pier with what seemed to be ants crawling on it. A little patch of colour, that to Josiah looked like a ball of scarlet worsted, was, the captain said, a sentry on duty.

"There's Shakespeare's Cliff," said the captain. "The Earl of Gloucester should be with us now:—

How fearfulAnd dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low!The crows and choughs that wing the midway airShow scarce so gross as beetles; half-way downHangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:The fishermen that walk upon the beachAppear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoyAlmost too small for sight."

"I'll look no more," said Josiah, who also knew his Shakespeare.

"Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sightTopple down headlong."

It was passing strange and at first dreadful, this intense silence and this strangeness of the familiar earth. But after a while everything like terror passed away from Josiah's mind. He began to feel the fascination of the thing. His spirits rose as he breathed the delicious air, and when the captain said, "We are over the water now," and Josiah looking down discerned the sea gleaming below, he could have clapped his hands for joy.

"This is splendid," said the captain. "We'll be across in half an hour. We'll catch the train for Paris, and you shall dance at the Closerie to-night."

Josiah didn't dance, and didn't know what the Closerie might be. But he was not without susceptibility to the allurement of a quiet dinner in Paris, and began to feel the exhilaration of having accomplished a perilous feat, to which he would certainly drag in some reference in his great work. It would be difficult, as he was as far as possible remote from Underground England. But it might be worked in some antithetical sentence.

After they had sailed for the space of ten minutes the captain, who had been throwing out bits of paper which they left far behind, suddenly said a bad word.

"We are becalmed," he continued, and truly the bits of paper flung out floated idly round the balloon. "We must get out of this."

He cast out the ballast, bag after bag, and higher still they soared. Nevertheless, whenever they flung out the bits of paper, they floated here and there, some dropping back into the car.

"There goes our last bag of ballast," said the captain, "and may luck go with it. We are lost men unless it takes us into another current, which let us hope won't be coming from the East and carry us out into the Atlantic."

Up again they mounted, how many feet Josiah didn't know, but he was sensible of a sudden iciness in the atmosphere, a tingling of the blood at his finger ends, and a strong disposition to bleed at the nose. The captain threw out some more bits of paper. Still they circled round and round, dropping into the car or falling to the distant earth now utterly out of sight. They had passed through the cloud, and had above them a chilly sun and an intensely blue sky. Below them were the clouds, on one of which was clearly caught the shadow of the balloon. Josiah, when he moved his head, could see an answering motion on the cloud, and recognised the reflection of the captain's figure, sitting stern and erect, with his teeth set and a look of angry determination on his brow.

This frightened Josiah a great deal more than the captain's words. He felt that they were lost in space, and that the end must speedily come. This terrible look on the captain's face made him sick at heart.

"Mr. Smith," said the captain, speaking scarcely above a whisper, but his voice sounded as if he were shouting from the housetops, "you told me you were not a married man."

"Yes," said Josiah, "I have never been married."

"That is so, or I should not have asked you to come with me. And you have not many relations?"

"No," said Josiah, "there are not many that would miss me."

"Very well," said the captain; "I have; but your life is as valuable as mine, and I would hold you at no disadvantage. The fact is, we are becalmed, and there is no prospect of any wind reaching us here till night, when we shan't know which way we are drifting, and may as well give up all hope. There is wind overhead, I know, and it is going straight for France. If we could get up another thousand feet or so, we should catch the current and be over land in ten minutes. But all the ballast has gone, and there is only one thing to be done."

"What's that?" asked Josiah faintly.

"One of us must go overboard," said the captain.

Josiah felt his heart sink within him.

"I am not sure that it would be much use my going over," the captain continued, discussing the matter as quietly as if he were arranging what they should have for dinner. "I'm such a thundering weight, you'd shoot up till you bumped your head against Jupiter; and besides, you would not know what to do with the balloon if I was gone. Still, I think we should have equal chances. Now, I'll give you the first chance. You get hold of me and try to push me over. If I go, you will find the balloon shoot up; but don't be frightened: you'll be all right in a bit, and can let out a few feet of gas. If you can't get me over—well, I must try to get you over. Hold on a bit till I light a cigar."

In the calm still air the captain struck a light, bending low in the car to avoid contact of flame and gas, bit the end of a cigar, and lit it. Josiah, shaking with terror, could see in the shadow of the balloon on the cloud the smoke curling up from the cigar and lazily spreading itself out.

"Now, old chappie," said the captain, "I'm ready. Heave hard, and over I go."

What was the use of disputing with a man like this? Josiah never had been inclined to fight with men of strong will. He was certain he could not move the captain, but he was able to try, and try he did. He got one foot over the car, the captain encouraging him and cheerfully smoking.

"Very well done, old man. A few more tugs, and over we go. I'll just have time to finish my cigar before I get to the bottom."

Josiah tugged and tugged till he felt the warm blood rushing through his veins and his breath came short But though he might move one of the captain's colossal legs, which seemed to his disordered fancy to be the size of the Monument, he could do no more. The captain sat passive, encouraging him by every kindly phrase he could think of. But it was of no use, and after ten minutes' violent struggling Josiah threw himself back in the car.

"Very sorry, old man," said the captain, with a tone of unmistakable sincerity. "Thought once you'd have done it; but I've got a little out of training lately and run up half a stun. Now I must see what I can do with you."

First of all he tore off some slips of paper and threw them out. Josiah looked at them with hungry eyes. Round and round they spun, falling back into the car or dropping to the world beyond the clouds. There was no hope of movement for the balloon.

"Well, Mr. Smith, it's your turn now. I must see what I can do. It's not nice for either of us, but it would be no nicer to stay here and be starved to death or blown out to sea. You won't feel anything after the first rush. Good-bye. I am sorry there will be no opportunity of my communicating with you as to the result of this interesting experiment. I don't suppose," the captain added, his love of scientific research increasing his unfeigned regret for the inconvenience Josiah was about to suffer, "that ever before ten stun was dropped out of a car in a lump. I reckon I'll get as high as most people have been. Now, if you've any message, just hand it over. If I can do anything for you in King Street or anywhere else, you may depend upon me."

"No," said Josiah, gulping down a rising sob; "if you will only say I went off bravely and didn't flinch, that will be all. Perhaps you might write a few lines by way of preface to 'Underground England,' pointing out that I died in the interests of science."

"Certainly, my dear fellow, it shall be done," said the captain, with quite a glow of honest energy. "If you'd like a little monument or anything of that sort, I'll see it's run up. Now, over you go. Time's getting on, and I don't want to miss the Paris train. Give us a shake of your paw, then shut your eyes, for I fancy I shan't have much difficulty with you. Heave your watch over or take it with you!"

"If you wouldn't mind accepting it," said Josiah, pulling out his fine old turnip-shaped time-piece, "as a memento of our friendship—which, though brief, has I trust been sincere—it would give me great pleasure."

"Certainly," said the captain, weighing it in his hand critically, and thinking to himself that it might serve as ballast in a last emergency. "I'll hang it over my bed, and will think of you whenever it ticks. Nothing more to say?"

"No," said Josiah; "only, please to drop me feet first."

The captain took him in his arms as if he were a child, held him for a moment over the side of the car, and with a cheery farewell dropped him.

Josiah felt his hat go, and could see the balloon shoot up with tremendous rapidity, though, as he reckoned, the rate of velocity would need to be divided by about half, as he was simultaneously descending rapidly. He felt the rush of air, and shrank from the moment, coming nearer and nearer, when he should strike the earth. He seemed an unconscionably long time falling. Still, through the clouds he went, and, it seemed to him at the end of five minutes, began to get glimpses of the earth. Down he went like a shot. The rushing noise in his ears grew more intolerable. There was a swift upgrowth of the hedgerows, a sudden vision of cows and horses, and of people running across fields. Then a heavy bump, and Josiah, opening his eyes, found himself lying on the floor in the room in King Street.

On the table were an empty claret bottle and two tumblers. The room was full of the smoke, now growing stale, of cigars. Josiah was shivering with cold, and the room was dark save from what light flickered in from the lamp down the street. He struck a light, and there in its accustomed place on the mantelpiece was his watch, the hands pointing to three o'clock. Dazed and shivering he crept into bed, where he thought the matter over, and amid much that was bewildering groped his way to the conclusion that Captain Mulberry really had come into his room, had spent an hour with him, smoked cigars, drunk claret, and then gone off. He remembered standing at the head of the stairs shaking hands with him, and promising to dine with him at his club one day in the following week. Then he had gone back and lain on the couch, where, overcome with the unaccustomed tumbler of claret and dazed with the tobacco smoke, he had fallen asleep, dreamed, and rolled off on to the floor.

HENRY W. LUCY.

NUMBER 7639

PART I

A poor garret on the sixth floor of one of the poorest houses in the poorest quarters of Paris, does not give much opportunity for a detailed description. There is little to be said about the furniture, which in this case consisted of a rickety old table, a wooden stool, and a small charcoal stove, all of the commonest kind, but all clean, and the room was not quite without adornment. The window, to be sure, was in the roof, but pinned to the wall were a few newspaper prints in strong blacks and whites, and—most remarkable of all—there was an alcove for the bed, which was carefully shut off from the room by a gaily variegated chintz. In spite of its poverty and bareness, there was nothing squalid or unwholesome about the place.

The house itself was a tall narrow slip. People of different callings, and different degrees of respectability, lived in it; on the whole it had not a bad character. The landlord was an immensely fat man, called Plon—a name which, irresistibly converted into Plon-Plon, seemed to give an aristocratic air to the house—and he lived and made shoes in a small room at the foot of the lowest flight of stairs, so that he acted as his own concierge, and boasted that no one came in or out without his knowledge. Probably some of his lodgers contrived to elude his vigilance, but he was as obstinate in his belief as an old Norman has a right to be, and was a kind-hearted old fellow in the main, though with the reputation of a grognard, and a ridiculous fear of being discovered in a good action. Perhaps with this fear, the more credit was due to him for occasionally running the risk, as when he saw young Monnier, the artist, coming down the stairs one evening with a look in his eyes, which Plon told himself gave him an immediate shuddering back-sensation, as of cold water and marble slabs. Plon did something for him, perhaps knocked off the rent, but he implored Monnier to show his gratitude by saying nothing, and he never gave him more of a greeting than the sidelong twist he vouchsafed to the other lodgers. For the rest, his benevolence depended in a great measure upon his temper, and he prided himself upon being very terrible at times.

With five floors we have nothing to do, and need waste no time over them. The inmates mostly went out early and came in late, but the house kept better hours than its neighbours, for the simple reason that those who arrived after a certain time found themselves shut into the street for the night. They might hammer and appeal in the strongest language of their vocabulary, but Plon snored unmoved, and nothing short of a fire in the house would have turned him out of his bed. Gradually this became so well understood, that his lodgers accommodated themselves to it as to any other of the inexorable laws of fate.

On the sixth and highest floor the crowded house resolved itself into comparative quiet. Besides the garret of which we have spoken, there were two other rooms, but for some years past these had been used merely as store-rooms for furniture. No one knew to whom the furniture belonged, some curious speculators avowing that Plon had a child—a girl—at school in Normandy, and had collected it as part of her dowry; others that some mysterious tie of gratitude bound him to the owner. Whoever was right or wrong, the rooms remained closed and unlet.

The garret itself was inhabited by a young widow, whose story was sufficiently sad. She was the daughter of a farmer in the north of France, and married to a glazier, Jean Didier by name, with whom she had come to Paris in search of work. If there had been no war, and, above all, no Commune, things might have gone well with the young couple, but, unhappily, one followed the other, and there was an end of peace. Jean was no fool, but he was too certain that he was extremely wise not to make mistakes, and he possessed enough of the French nature to be easily influenced by the brag and fine promises which filled the air at that time. It is always satisfactory to reflect on changes which assure us the highest step of a ladder, which ordinarily takes a life-time for a step. Jean talked a great deal about it, not only to Marie, who would have been safe, but to others who agreed with him more thoroughly, and were dangerous. Nevertheless, when the Commune, in March, 1871, broke into actual life, and Jean began to see what it all meant, he was terrified by the outburst and held back. Things which look seductive in theory, have a way of losing their gloss when they appear as hard realities, with accompaniments which do not belong to the ideals; and the rabble rout of half-drunk citizens who marched, shouting, through the streets of the 19th arrondissement, frightened Marie out of her senses. She clung to Jean, and implored him not to join them on pain of breaking her heart. To do him justice, common sense, perhaps aided by a desire to keep out of the way of rifle-balls, was proving stronger than bombast; and, to do him justice again, he was desirous to keep others than himself from danger.

It was this which brought about the catastrophe. May came, and with it the conquering troops from Versailles poured into the city. It was sufficiently clear what the end would be; Jean, who never distrusted his own reasoning powers, insisted, in spite of his wife's prayers and Plon's expostulations, in going out into the streets, and trying to dissuade some of his comrades from fighting. He promised to return immediately, but he did not come, Marie became almost frenzied with terror. She would have rushed out to seek him, but that she knew not where to turn, and if he came, wanting help, and she was not there to give it, matters might go hardly with him. The din of battle drew nearer, shells were falling, bullets were whizzing, it seemed hardly possible that any one could escape, and yet, men went by shouting and singing, mad with either drink or excitement. Plon, after entreating Madame Didier to come farther into shelter, shut himself into his little room with a white face, and was seen no more. Everything seemed to grow more horrid as the night drew on.

At about ten o'clock, Plon, hearing voices in the passage, peeped out. There still stood Madame Didier, wan as a ghost, but with the restless excitement gone. A man was speaking to her, an elderly, grimy, frightened-looking man, with a bald head. He was telling a story in a dull, hopeless kind of way, as if at such a time no one story was particularly distinguished from another, and pity had to wait for quieter seasons.

"He was shot in the next street; Jean says he never wished to go with them, but they forced him along. After that he got into a doorway, where he might have hidden himself, but Fort saw him, and denounced him. Fort might have left him alone, as it was he your husband was trying to persuade, but at such a time men look after their own skins. They dragged him out and set him up with some others against a wall, and that was the end of him, and of a good many others."

His listener flung up her hands with a gesture of wild despair, and turned her face to the wall, speechless. The man, who was by trade a trieur or chief chiffonnier, seeing Plon's head appear, turned round and addressed himself to him.

"Fort is a traitor, he has denounced others. They will be here presently searching for arms. It is short work I can tell you."

"And my—my locataire is shot!" murmured Plon, panic-struck. But the man whose mission was ended, turned round without another word and went out into the lurid darkness.

The landlord made a trembling effort to stagger across the passage, and to pluck at Marie's gown. When he spoke, his voice quavered with fright.

"Come, come, Madame Didier, go upstairs, and—and—cry there like a good woman. Here it isn't safe. Besides, if they know who you are, I might be compromised. Poor Jean! Heavens!–"

For a volley of rifle shot poured down the street, a rush of feet followed; and Plon fled precipitously to his den, double-bolted his door, and rolled his mattress round him for protection. Marie Didier slowly turned her head, and, as if recognising the wisdom of his advice, felt her way along the wall and groped up the dark staircase. No one had lit the small oil lamp on the premier, but light from burning houses flashed in at windows; a child had been killed by the fragment of a shell, and the mother was loudly wailing; some were peering out of their doorways; they stared at Marie, who crept up like a ghost. In this rookery the young couple had kept themselves apart, and had no friends. But it was instinctively known that something had happened to Jean, and only one woman was bold enough to question the wife. She answered steadily in a strange strained voice:

"They are searching the houses. We shall have them soon."

It was, however, an hour before a party of soldiers made a rough visitation. They dragged Plon out of his mattress, and made him climb the stairs, panting and protesting. When they reached the top garret, Marie was sitting in the darkness, with her arms on the poor table; she did not move as they entered.

"Bring in the lantern!" shouted the sergeant. "Now, good woman, who have you got hiding here?"

She turned a white face upon him, speechless. Plon, who was recovering his pomposity, pressed forward, and laid a hand on the soldier's arm.

"Don't worry her, sergeant," he said, "her husband has just been shot."

"Serve him right," said the man brutally. "Are there more of the brood about?"

"Not a soul. They lived here alone, these two."

"Well, we'll see."

"No cupboards here," said a soldier, whose face was bleeding from a bayonet scratch.