SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12852, 28 April 1905, Page 3

SHORT STORY.

UP IN A BALLOON. [TRANSLATED 'FROM THE FRENCH, JOSEPH ~ JIOXTET.] A boar of applauso burst from a thousand throats; the balloon had started. Like a falcon whose eyes the hunter had suddenly uncovered it rose into the air, superb, erect, and with the grace and rapidity of a bird. Already it was scarcely possible to distinguish at the edge of the' basket the heads of the two aeronauts mounting with it. Leaning from their fragile rampart of osier both of them, saw, decreasing and effacing themselves from second to second, below and around them, the forms and dimensions of terrestrial objects. What was that mass of white and grey things above which they floated, irregular, notched on the edges and threaded in all directions with lines of black? Naples! Yes, Naples, which they were quitting, a city reduced to the proportions of a hive. - • ■ • But to the right and left, before and behind them, what a marvellous horizon! Vesuvius was there, sleeping her unquiet sleep; then further along the jagged line of the Apennines and of Jie other coast, and further than the eye could reach the sea, the vast sea, blue and scintillating under the yellow sun! Suddenly in the profound stillness- of the azure a woman's voice resounded clear as a tinkling crystal. "Olivier," she said, "Olivier, your hand." "With pleasure Lea; allow me," and this time the vol was that of a man. "Thanks!" and she whom lie had called Lea reseated herself and closed her eyes with a shudder. The man turned his head and regarded his companion, who, very pale, had thrown herself upon the bench encircling the basket. "What is the matter with you';" he demanded. "Are you ill?" " I was afraidvertigo seized me—it, is over now"—passing, her hand across her eyes.

"Do you regret your fancy':'' "No, certainly not; but a first experience* surprises the nerves a. little. Don't worry yourself," she added; "i shall become inured to it."

Tho gentleman. made 110 reply, but, upright beside her, contemplated her fixedly. Truly a charming picture in her jaunty tourist dress, fitting like a glove the rounded outlines of her supple figure, a man's cap coquettishly posed upon the golden hair knotted carelessly at the back of her neck, the dull pallor that had settled upon her face but heightening tho light of her splendid eyes. The young woman also regarded her companion, a man of grave and scholarly mien, at the present moment, however, troubled or morose. And you, Olivier," she said in turn, in lie: - singing voice, noticing liis-'.lowering brow, " whence comes that sombre air?" Olivier still answered nothing, but, leaning again from the edge of he basket, watched their course. "Wo mount too rapidly," he said at last, and seizing a cord that hung within reach of his hand he drew upon it lightly. Instantly there was a sensation of slackening, then of arrest, and finally of a movement in the contrary direction. "Are wo descending for good, and all?" Lea demanded. " No," he responded; "we shall remount immediately." "When, then'.'" "When 1 please; 1 have only to reclose the escape, pipe that releases "the gas. You see this cord that 1 hold in my hand? Jt is that which regit; lates our course." "And should it break?" "It cannot; it is solid. But if. by a sort, of miracle, it. should disappear, we should hi lost!" "Lost?" "Yes, lost; the balloon is so powerfully inflated with hydrogen it would carry us to the regions where the air becomes irrespirable. AYe should bo asphyxiated." "Happily, it would retire, it seems to me. two miracles, for the cord—it is double, is it. not?" "In effect, yes; in reality, no. Lean this way a little more. Do you notice above there something that loctks like a loop? The corr passes through it; tliesa are its two ends that I bold in my hands. They are joined, of course, but a stroke of a knifo would suffice to separata them. See. now that the ends are liberated I have only to draw upon one; - tho cord elides through the link, fall?' at my feet, and, behold! we start for the great voyage!" The young man, as he spoke, suited the action to the word. Tho rope rattled through the fastening, dropped to his band, to be launched a second later into space. The young woman leaped to her feet*, shivering and bewildered.

•" Olivier she cried, "Olivier, what are you' doing? Are you , mad." "Mad,'' ho echoed, his tone ominously calm; "no, 1 am not mad." Then—what do you mean'.' What do, you wish?" "I wish—that which is* going to happen. —I wish that wo should dio together, here, ill' the wide heaven, far from the earth that I have execrated ever since I learned to know you there a? you really are— since the mud of which £ is made splashed the ' idol that my superstition adored in you!" Lea uttered a cry of astonishment, in which fright predominated. '' "1!" she • stammered; "is it of me?" "Protest not," continued Olivier; "all pretence is useless; with a word I will convince you. For ten days I have known that you had betrayed me —that you had deceived me like a girl. I know that you have a lover; yes, a blockhead, an imbecile—that Count Moreno, who followed us from Venice; whom we found again at Milan, at Florence, at Home; whom you have forced me to receive a; a travelling companion; to whom I have, given my hand daily, fool that 1 am! and who doubtloss has laughed with you at my naive confidence. Yes. I know all this! How have I learned it? It matters little. Hare it that- I followed you, if you wish—that 1 spied upon you. The word does not trouble mg In the least, I swear it. The essential is to know it, and 1 know it with a certainty that admits of no doubt—my eyes have been scared by the fiery points of the evidence! It is you who have done this—you, the noblest, the purest, the ideal, even, for you were all this to me, as you know too well —in fact, a divinity before whom I have bent the knee of respectful and mastered passion. Yes, I have respected you. never even daring to profane by so much as a thought the purity of the feeling that binds us. But why should I repeat to you all this? You know it as well as I—that six months before we left New York you had become widowed and liberated, and that I, affianced to a beautiful girl, who loved me truly, broke with her and left her to follow you, according to a sacred promise. Siuoo then, despite conventionalities and all social convenanoos, I have travelled in your train, and travelled there with your permission, defying the opinion of men, the gossip of the prude and the prejudiced. Both of us rich enough to pay for our independence and to impose upon the world respect for our fancy, we have done as we pleased. Have I said a word, a single one, that betrayed in me the cowardly thought of abusing the . advantage that our singular position has given Trie over you? Have I not always and in everything been a submissive slave to your will and caprices? " ' You wished me to wait,' you said to me; ' that the term of yocr widowhood had not expired; that you must, give to the usages of tlif> world th© pitiful alms of this concession; but that when the regular delay had elapsed you would be mine, mine alone!' A touching scruple! easily satisfied since it pleased you that I should be the only dune! The exception was flatter—permit me to thank you! In truth. Lea, it has been for you a piquant role to play. You would have made a most excellent comedienne, you, to whom love is but poetical aspirations, ethereal dreams, aimless flight? into the azure—you who have the voice of a siren, the face of an angel, the heart—ah, well, we will talk not -of your heart, mon ami, but of your whim of the moment! Behold it realised—behold your dream—a page from your phantasy! We are here, as you so often wished to be, alone soaring in an eagle's flight—alone in (he skies! I' was youi own idea this hiring the balloon of 'the aeronaut, mounting it. and departing with me thus: a caprice of the season, to finish worthily (he d;.ys of the Neapolitan carnival. I accepted it—it was my revenge jou offered me—l seized it, 1 'say; I learned the art; we are together —and now it is to vengeance that. I deliver you, the vengeance of the > heavens mocked by your poetical fictions, your (sacrilegious lies arid ironies. Ah, but they will avenge themselves cruelly, those impassible judges! And know you the punishment they' will inflict? Listen while I tell you. One day two adventurers of the air, too bold and venturesome like us, experienced it. They were found in .'heir aerial cradle, rigid and frozen, the visage tumefied, the blood running from their ears, their eyes, their mouths— end that awaits you. "Soon, my dearest, a reel foam will heighten the cannine of your smiling lips, red drops show themselves at the tip,? of

your ears like pendants of coral, and your beautiful eyes shed" tears of blood." The young woman, wild with horror, threw herself upon her knees trembling convulsively. "You would not do tht«, Olivieryou could not; it is too cruel. For God's sake do not make me die this frightful death!" Olivier shrugged his shoulders. \ " I could not hinder it if I would,." he answered. "1 am not able." '' Then," cricd Lea, flinging herself upon him and seizing" the knife that lie still held in his hand. "I will save myself will pierce this wicked web!" And she raised her eyes to the rounded belly of the balloon so far abovo then).

"Try it!" said Olivier, coldly. And Lea did, grasping the cordage with her delicate fingers, placing her foot upon the edge of the car, and striving with all her strength to lift herself within striking reach. Vertigo seized her, and she fell to her knees gasping for breath, the knife escaped from her bold and turned in the air. She remained where she hud fallen, half unconscious. • "See," cried Olivier, in his mocking voice, "how the hot sun of the south warms the balloon and dilates the gas-— we shall lit© now with redoubled speed!" Lea raised her head, contemplating the cloud about them, the man beside 'her with a bewildered air. "You would do this," she ' murmured, "you who loved me—" All at once, even as she spoke, she started with joy—tho light of hope- illumined her face. Slowly, softly, she carried her hands to tho folds of her dress and drew forth an object small, glittering, and that she carefully dissimulated behind the fold of her handkerchief. "Reason is lost upon a madman," said she. "Nevertheless, my dear, you have reckoned without your host. A good American travels not without her revolver !" . fcihe raised her arm; two reports followed, and, traversed from end to end by two balls, "The Aerostat" began to descend. For an instant Olivier paled and leaned from the basket; but quickly rose. • "So be it," he answered: "we are in the middle of the sea—blue for blue. We can die there—lll the water—the same as in the sky." The balloon, growing smaller and smaller as the gas escaped, went faster and faster —the speed had become frightfulthe speed of the thunderbolt.: Olivier himself, blind, suffocated, his lungs like fire, knelt upon the floor of the car awaiting the end. And in the silence of the sunlit heavens the airship pursued its dizzying course.

_ Naples, March 10, 1833My dear Olivier, hare but this moment received news of you. They assure me that you are better—that you will live. •I am charmed. I am better also—you will certainly learn this with pleasure. I hare bestowed » roll of back bills upon th* fisherman who rescuad us and brought us to land in his barque, both of us, it ap pears, unconscious, and you. half drowned. Behold one vioor devil who will be able to fay without metaphor that fortune fell upon from the skies! Travelling - , however, my friend, is decidedly too dangerous in your company. 1 have come to believe that some day or other it will bring me misfortune. Pardon this superstition, hatched in my brain in the classic country of jcttatura, and suffer that lionce forth 1 pursue alone my voyage " to the oolmtrr of the blue." Then, my clear assassin, without too much rancour,—Lea. TO-MORROW (SATURDAY) readel's should not fail to obtain a copy of the llk.rai.T), as it will contain the opening instalments of that most interesting of serials, "A FOOL AND HIS FOLLY."