Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/407

 "O, have it as you please!" I retorted. It was not worth arguing with the man.

"What is the hour?"

I told him that my watch had run down. His had done the same. Dalmahoy did not carry one. We searched the still prostrate Sheepshanks: his had stopped at ten minutes to four. Byfield replaced it and underlined his disgust with a kick.

"A nice lot," he ejaculated. "I owe you my thanks, Mr. Ducie, all the same. It was touch and go with us, and my head's none the better for it."

"But I say," expostulated Dalmahoy. "France! This is getting past a joke."

"So you are really beginning to discover that, are you?"

Byfield stood, holding by a rope, and studied the darkness ahead. Beside him I hugged my conviction—hour after hour, it seemed: and still the dawn did not come. He turned at length.

"I see a coast line to the south of us. This will be the Bristol Channel, and the balloon is sinking. Pitch out some ballast, if these idiots have left any."

I found a couple of sandbags and emptied them overboard. The coast, as a matter of fact, was close at hand. But the Lunardi rose in time to clear the cliff barrier by some hundreds of feet. A wild sea ran on it: of its surf, as of a grey and agonising face, we caught one glimpse as we hurled high and clear over the roar: and, a minute later, to our infinite dismay were actually skimming the surface of a black hillside. "Hold on!" screamed Byfield, and I had barely time to tighten my grip when—crash! the car struck the turf and pitched us together in a heap on the floor. Bump! the next blow shook us like peas in a bladder. I drew my legs up and waited for the third.