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Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, scarcely had he backed his startled horse, when there came a sound of a crushing blow, a groan, and a soldier staggered back from the balloon-car, his hands to his head, where the shattered helmet hung by one torn gilt cord. In the same instant the marquis, dishevelled, white as a corpse, rose from the wicker car, shaking his steel box above his head.

The question it would have led me to ask was postponed by the account Phillip gave of his presence in the balloon-car how by springing into the air as the grapnel swung past him, dragged clear by the rising balloon, he had caught the irons and then the rope, climbing up foot by foot, swinging to and fro in the darkness, up, up, until the whole length of the rope was accomplished and he reached my side.

Others gathered round the bar, and a few looked at the drop-curtain as if they thought their ascetic glances would cause it to roll up and disappear. The overture at length ended. The stage was disclosed, and a man came forward with a smirk, and a wriggle of gigantic feet, to sing a song. But Cuckoo Bright, Valentine, and Julian, from their balloon-car, still surveyed the world.

Breathless, haggard, he planted his heels in the turf, and, dropping the noose, set one foot on it. All around him horsemen crowded up, lances slung from their elbows, helmets nodding as the restive horses wheeled. And now for the first time he saw the Marquis de Nesville, face like a death-mask, one hand on the edge of the wicker balloon-car, which stood in the midst of a circle of cavalry.