There would be still nearly two months before we were willing to attempt our journey inland. We did not much care to face darkness in unknown wastes, and our continuous day would not begin until late in October. We were determined, however, to make much sooner the trial ascension for the purposes of observation, and to test the carrying power of the Cloudcrest. By the middle of September our days were of good length, and on the twentieth the divisions of light and darkness would be equal. We decided to make our preliminary ascension on that day.
It was only by chance that Edith Gale missed taking part in this momentous event. She had begged to be allowed to do so, and while neither Gale nor I approved of her going, we had more than half consented when Ferratoni came to our rescue by suggesting that we ought by all means to make the carrying test with just those who expected to undertake the voyage later.
This, both Gale and I declared, was a weighty argument, and my fiancée at length yielded, though I must confess with but a poor show of either filial or spousal obedience. She had been quite prepared to undertake a voyage, too, and even this wild notion had not been surrendered without severe reasoning.
“One of this firm’s got to stay with the ship,” Gale had said, finally. “Now, if you’re going with the balloon, Johnnie, who’s going to stay? Nick or me?”
She gave it up, then, and perhaps she had never been really serious in the matter. Only she couldn’t bear the thought of our going away into the undiscovered lands without her. No one but Ferratoni and Mr. Sturritt were to accompany Gale and myself on the voyage inland, and Mr. Sturritt only on condition that the balloon in its trial ascension proved amply buoyant. He had counted on it from the first, having been with Gale in every undertaking for many years. Then, too, he wished to attend personally to our experiments with the food lozenge.
We were astir early on the morning of the twentieth, and had the gas going and the balloon inflated by ten o’clock. It was a clear winter morning, but still, and to us it seemed warm. Our entire population was gathered for the occasion.
“So you gwine to sail off into space, now, is yeh?” observed Zar, as we prepared to start.