relieved of their weight, was
taken by the wind, and like a wounded bird which revives for an instant,
disappeared into space.
But the car had contained five passengers, with a dog, and the balloon
only left four on the shore.
The missing person had evidently been swept off by the sea, which had
just struck the net, and it was owing to this circumstance that the
lightened balloon rose the last time, and then soon after reached the
land. Scarcely had the four castaways set foot on firm ground, than they
all, thinking of the absent one, simultaneously exclaimed, "Perhaps he
will try to swim to land! Let us save him! let us save him!"
Chapter 2
Those whom the hurricane had just thrown on this coast were neither
aeronauts by profession nor amateurs. They were prisoners of war
whose boldness had induced them to escape in this extraordinary
manner.
A hundred times they had almost perished! A hundred times had they
almost fallen from their torn balloon into the depths of the ocean. But
Heaven had reserved them for a strange destiny, and after having, on
the 20th of March, escaped from Richmond, besieged by the troops of
General Ulysses Grant, they found themselves seven thousand miles
from the capital of Virginia, which was the principal stronghold of the
South, during the terrible War of Secession. Their aerial voyage had
lasted five days.
The curious circumstances which led to the escape of the prisoners
were as follows:
That same year, in the month of February, 1865, in one of the coups de
main by which General Grant attempted, though in vain, to possess
himself of Richmond, several of his officers fell into the power of the
enemy and were detained in the town. One of the most distinguished
was Captain Cyrus Harding. He was a native of Massachusetts, a
first-class engineer, to whom the government had confided, during the
war, the direction of the railways, which were so important at that time.
A true Northerner, thin, bony, lean, about forty-five years of age; his
close-cut hair and his beard, of which he only kept a thick mustache,
were already getting gray. He had one-of those finely-developed heads
which appear made to be struck on a medal, piercing eyes, a serious
mouth, the physiognomy of a clever man of the military school. He was
one of those engineers who began by handling the hammer and pickaxe,
like generals who first act as common soldiers. Besides mental power,
he also possessed great manual dexterity. His muscles exhibited
remarkable proofs of tenacity. A man of action as well as a man of
thought, all he did was without effort to one of his vigorous and
sanguine temperament. Learned, clear-headed, and practical, he
fulfilled in all emergencies those three conditions which united ought to
insure human success--activity of mind and body, impetuous wishes,
and powerful will. He might have taken for his motto that of William of
Orange in the 17th century: "I can undertake and persevere even
without hope of success." Cyrus Harding was courage personified. He
had been in all the battles of that war. After having begun as a
volunteer at Illinois, under Ulysses Grant, he fought at Paducah,
Belmont, Pittsburg Landing, at the siege of Corinth, Port Gibson, Black
River, Chattanooga, the Wilderness, on the Potomac, everywhere and
valiantly, a soldier worthy of the general who said, "I never count my
dead!" And hundreds of times Captain Harding had almost been among
those who were not counted by the terrible Grant; but in these combats
where he never spared himself, fortune favored him till the moment
when he was wounded and taken prisoner on the field of battle near
Richmond. At the same time and on the same day another important
personage fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than
Gideon Spilen, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been
ordered to follow the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern
armies.
Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American
chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain exact
information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible time.
The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are
genuine powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with.
Gideon Spilett ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great
merit, energetic, prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having
traveled over the whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council,
resolute in action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when
in pursuit of information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a
perfect treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious
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