"What are your plans?" said I, with effort.
"You have never crossed the sea?"
I grew frightfully pale, terror froze my veins.
"It is a pity," said he, "that we are being wafted towards the Adriatic! That is only a streamlet. Higher! we shall find other currents!"
And without looking at me, he lightened the balloon by several bags of sand.
"I allowed you to open the valve, because the dilatation of the gas threatened to burst the balloon. But do not do it again."
I was stupified.
"You know the voyage from Dover to Calais made by Blanchard and Jefferies. It was rich in incident. On the 7th of January, 1785, in a northeast wind, their balloon was filled with gas on the Dover side; scarcely had they risen, when an error in equilibrium compelled them to threw out their ballast, retaining
