reckoned it would come out all right, so we went on
steering east, but went up on a higher level so we
wouldn’t hit any steeples or mountains in the dark.
It was my watch till midnight, and then it was Jim’s;
but Tom stayed up, because he said ship captains done
that when they was making the land, and didn’t stand
no regular watch.
Well, when daylight come, Jim give a shout, and we
jumped up and looked over, and there was the land
sure enough — land all around, as far as you could see,
and perfectly level and yaller. We didn’t know how
long we’d been over it. There warn’t no trees, nor
hills, nor rocks, nor towns, and Tom and Jim had took
it for the sea. They took it for the sea in a dead
ca’m; but we was so high up, anyway, that if it had
been the sea and rough, it would ‘a’ looked smooth, all
the same, in the night, that way.
We was all in a powerful excitement now, and
grabbed the glasses and hunted everywheres for Lon-
don, but couldn’t find hair nor hide of it, nor any
other settlement — nor any sign of a lake or a river,
either. Tom was clean beat. He said it warn’t his
notion of England; he thought England looked like
America, and always had that idea. So he said we
better have breakfast, and then drop down and inquire
the quickest way to London. We cut the breakfast
pretty short, we was so impatient. As we slanted
along down, the weather began to moderate, and
pretty soon we shed our furs. But it kept ON moder-
ating, and in a precious little while it was ‘most too
moderate. We was close down now, and just blistering!
We settled down to within thirty foot of the land —
that is, it was land if sand is land; for this wasn’t any-
thing but pure sand. Tom and me clumb down the
ladder and took a run to stretch our legs, and it felt
amazing good — that is, the stretching did, but the
sand scorched our feet like hot embers. Next, we see
somebody coming, and started to meet him; but we
heard Jim shout, and looked around and he was fairly
dancing, and making signs, and yelling. We couldn’t
make out what he said, but we was scared anyway, and
begun to heel it back to the balloon. When we got
close enough, we understood the words, and they
made me sick:
“Run! Run fo’ yo’ life! Hit’s a lion; I kin see
him thoo de glass! Run, boys; do please heel it de
bes’ you kin. He’s bu’sted outen de menagerie, en
dey ain’t nobody to stop him!”
It made Tom fly, but it took the stiffening all out of
my legs. I could only just gasp along the way you do
in a dream when there’s a ghost gaining on you.
Tom got to the ladder and shinned up it a piece and
waited for me; and as soon as I got a foothold on it
he shouted to Jim to soar away. But Jim had clean
lost his head, and said he had forgot how. So Tom
shinned along up and told me to follow; but the lion
was arriving, fetching a most ghastly roar with every
lope, and my legs shook so I dasn’t try to take one of
them out of the rounds for fear the other one would
give way under me.
But Tom was aboard by this time, and he started the
balloon up a little, and stopped it again as soon as the
end of the ladder was ten or twelve feet above ground.
And there was the lion, a-ripping around under me,
and roaring and springing up in the air at the ladder,
and only missing it about a quarter of an inch, it
seemed to me. It was delicious to be out of his reach,
perfectly delicious, and made me feel good and thank-
ful all up one side; but I was hanging there helpless
and couldn’t climb, and that made me feel perfectly