stuck fast, and all my efforts to open it were without avail. I must have spent an hour or more in the attempt, during which time I had been driving in a rising wind across North Wales. At last I desisted, and determined to extemporize a valve, as I had done once before, by cutting a small opening in the balloon and thrusting through it the neck of a beer-bottle, broken off, and with the cork still in it. By taking the cork in or out I was enabled to emit or check the flow of gas, and it was not long before I was near enough to the ground to throw out my grapnel. It dragged for some distance along the level summit of a cliff without finding anything to catch on, and finally dropped from the summit into a small bay formed by an indentation in the cliff. I could see the road which ran along the cliff, and a man on horseback riding on it. Almost at the same moment I was menaced by a sudden danger; I saw that I must rise at once at least a hundred feet in order to avoid a pinnacle which lay directly in my path. I thrust the cork into the bottle-neck and threw out every ounce of ballast I possessed, which was about two hundredweight. As I finished I heard a sudden and loud cry beneath me, and, looking downward, was horrified to see that my grapnel in its swing had struck the rider in the back, and had caught firmly in his coat. The sudden rise of the balloon had taken place at the same instant, and had lifted the rider from the saddle, and then, his weight bringing the slant of the rope to the perpendicular, had dragged him several yards along the ground. Then, as the balloon rose, it lifted him clear off it, and it was at this moment that he uttered the cry which attracted my attention. I rushed to the cork and withdrew it; but the escape of gas was no compensation for the tremendous loss of ballast. In a few seconds the grapnel with its burden were above the cliff, which they had hardly cleared when the cloth in which the grapnel held suddenly gave way, and Mr. Carboyne fell upon the level summit. The hook of the grapnel had, however, passed under the strap of his knapsack, which it lifted from his shoulders as he fell. I afterwards drew it up into the car, and now produce it. The balloon, released from his weight, shot upwards like an arrow, and in a few minutes he was lost to sight. Before this I could, however, distinctly see his friend searching for him in the roadway, and going towards the verge of the precipice, into which the handkerchief of the deceased had fluttered; it having fallen from him, as did his hat, before the coat gave way. As for me, it was many hours before I could descend, and when I did so I was taken by some peasants swooning from the car. They tended me with every care, but until last night I was too ill to make any attempt to travel. Now, I have come here with all speed, having heard of this inquiry, and knowing that I, and I only, can prevent suspicion from falling on the innocent."
"The missing knapsack!"
The Coroner (turning to the jury): "Gentlemen, I said just now that this case was the most extraordinary that has ever occurred in my experience, and though Mr. Milford's statement has explained by perfectly natural causes every detail of the mystery, I am bound to say so still."
