om their balloon. Professor Ariel had cast everything overboard with maniacal celerity, and now, clad only in his undershirt and trousers, was hacking at the trailing ladder to cut that off.

een such whirling masses of mad, black, revengeful clouds. These centred from all sides upon the site of the lost city. They rushed toge

selves loose from the clutches of the elements. The four in the c

face, throwing down his knife. "The wire is too strong. We

es of greater stability, was made of wire woven over with

recovered her equipoise. She

loose her overskirt. But the whirlwind caught the car and

to the balloon as best he might. It was a fearful chance. The professor cut a rope and made bowline chairs. Each sat in his noos

he presence of heart to support the

. The maddened elements clutched at it. Balls of fire danced upon the ground beneath, and darted here and there from cloud to cloud. As the professor gave the last cut and the balloon soared aloft, there was a report as if a thousand rounds of artillery were concentra

overtaken them all and pet

. Ticks opened his eyes and gas

cle. Beneath stretched the panorama of a stricken country. The highest peaks of the Buzzard mountains were below the balloon. The storm raged over the lake and the lost city like a mock storm, it was so dis

es together. "I know now what it all means. I kn

n Swift; then he touched the young lady with gentle def

d from his eyes. "Say, mister," his devil-may-care manner returning to him in the ful

ed. Mechanically he searched the pockets of his trousers. Out of his pistol pocket he pulled a flask of brandy-all that survived to him of his

aside the professor's long

afety roused the girl considerably. Possibly S

Mr. Ticks, who drank, and

t touch any. He was experiencing a finer intoxication. His eyes met those of the girl, who had been the unconscious cau

e so tight, sir. I'

asked Mr. Ticks of t

sment, but Swift, deeming it safe to allow

ep the conversation in his own hands. "This gentleman and myself a

smile. "I am, or at least I was, society reporter on the R

sell? Do you know that its cause is t

" interrupted the girl with a shudder. "I

ged so strangely. You touched an iron post and a spark shot out and gave you a shock. I couldn't stay, so I begg

e for the Pla

et, that's m

ate at what exact hour t

he doomed city. The four wriggled uncomfortably in the improvised seats. The ropes

rg cathedral is two hundred and fifty feet high, and it is a terrible sight to look over its stone balustrade. No one forgets his sensation when he leans over the top of the Eiffel tower, a t

dollars as we are feet high. We're safe enough here

t was a little matter of falling ten thousand feet or so

mosphere. It prostrated me. There were a number of boats near me. These were all of the new patent. They were steel. I saw great balls of fire dance from boat to boat. Then there came from the city a light such as

sted Mr. Ticks in

eople. There wasn't even a dead body to keep me company. I, only I, was left, living and alone upon the hissing water.... When I was able I rowed back. The shore looked horrible and ridged, as if molten lead had been poure

n't tell night from day. I can't say whether it was four or five days. I said five. I must have been faint a good deal. The worst thing was being alone.

r. "I think you had better rest. You are tired out. This is different, you know. You need

liloquized Mr. Ticks, lo

but I was always afraid. Everybody laughed at me, but I did what I do at home. I cut off the legs of a chair and fixed them in glass tumblers. I always sit in my office on glass t

is the cause of Russell's fate? of

visitation of Providence-but I don't know for what."

s, slowly. "Yes, she is right. The sin of presu

, its mysterious fate, his mission, everything but the girl. He had awa

elow!" interrupt

had magically cleared away. The sunlight now pierced the whole landscape for the first ti

afety-valve cautiously. "The devil has been c

railroad tracks, along the roads, hurrying to the city of doom. Linemen began to extend the wires; trackmen began laying new tracks. Fully fifty thousand impatient men were madly plunging these twenty miles from differen

it will, we will be on the groun

arkled in repor

minutes the High Tariff was within a few hundred feet of

notebook!" cried

s companion, shyly,

by this attention had he not been

to Mr. Ticks, "that this

afety-valve so skilfully that in another minute they grazed the serrated ground. They were not hurt. One wide swe

s compel me to postpone my part of the contract. But, as we are responsibl

he followed the High Tariff in its cap

ble sight before them: a sight never permitted to mortal view before, and we

steel grain elevators, its gilded capitol, its granite churches, its hundred factories, its indestructible depots. Where were they? Where was the "busy hum of men"? Not a girder, not a column

et heated as if a conflagration had passed over the place. Where but five days ago haughty, frowning, iron blocks of stores, of hotels and exchanges stood, there were ragged gullies and deep fissures and jagged ravines, shining in the sunlight with a black, streaked crust. The sight was dreary and dead and deserted as

piece of this plutonian sla

. Then again: "Here is platinum fused with iron and anot

is lucky," he said meditatively; "if we had been landed a few more feet to the left