Page:Wells - The War in the Air (Boni & Liveright, 1918).djvu/75

Rh thing a balloon was. The car was of brown coarse wicker-work, and comparatively small. The rope he tugged at was fastened to a stout-looking ring, four or five feet above the car. At each tug he drew in a yard or so of rope, and the waggling wicker-work was drawn so much nearer. Out of the car came wrathful bellowings: "Fainted, she has!" and then: "It's her heart — broken with all she's had to go through."

The balloon ceased to struggle, and sank downward. Bert dropped the rope, and ran forward to catch it in a new place. In another moment he had his hand on the car. "Lay hold of it," said the man in the car, and his face appeared close to Bert's — a strangely familiar face, fierce eyebrows, a flattish nose, a huge black moustache. He had discarded coat and waistcoat — perhaps with some idea of presently having to swim for his life — and his black hair was extraordinarily disordered. "Will all you people get hold round the car?" he said. "There's a lady here fainted — or got failure of the heart. Heaven alone knows which! My name is Butteridge. Butteridge, my name is — in a balloon. Now please, all on to the edge. This is the last time I trust myself to one of these paleolithic contrivances. The ripping-cord failed, and the valve wouldn't act. If ever I meet the scoundrel who ought to have seen —"

He stuck his head out between the ropes abruptly, and said, in a note of earnest expostulation: "Get some brandy! — some neat brandy!" Some one went up the beach for it.