"Monsieur, I salute you," said he, with utmost coolness.
"By what right—"
"Am I here? By the right which the impossibility of your getting rid of me confers."
I was amazed! His calmness put me out of countenance, and I had nothing to reply. I looked at the intruder but he took no notice of my astonishment.
"Does my weight disarrange your equilibrium, monsieur?" he asked. "You will permit me—" and without waiting consent, he picked up two bags and threw them into space.
"Monsieur," said I, taking the only course now possible, "you have come; very well, you will remain; but to me alone belongs the management of the balloon."
"Monsieur," said he, "your urbanity is French all over: it comes from my own country. I morally press the hand you refuse me. Make all precautions, and act as seems best to you. I will wait till you have done—"
"For what?"
"To talk with you."
The barometer had fallen to twenty-six inches. We were nearly six hundred yards above the city; but nothing betrayed the horizontal displacement of the balloon, for the mass of air in which it is enclosed goes forward with it. A sort of confused glow enveloped the objects spread out under us, and fortunately obscured their outline.
I examined my companion afresh. He was a man of thirty years, simply clad. The sharpness of his features betrayed an indomitable energy, and he seemed very muscular. Indifferent to the astonishment he created, he remained motionless, trying in the meantime to distinguish the objects below us.
"Miserable mist!" said he, after a few moments.
I did not reply.
"You owe me a grudge?" he went on. "Bah! I could not pay for my journey, and it was necessary to take you by surprise."
"Nobody asks you to descend, monsieur!"
"Eh, do you not know, then, that the same thing happened to the Counts of Laurencin and Dampierre, when they ascended at Lyons, on the 15th of January, 1784? A young merchant, named Fontaine, scaled the gallery, at the
