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wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would have been utterly lost to
posterity, I had therefore every reason to be grateful; although, in
point of fact, I was still too stupid to be anything at all, and hung
for, perhaps, a quarter of an hour in that extraordinary manner, without
making the slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly
tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not fail to
die rapidly away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and dismay, and a
chilling sense of utter helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so
long accumulating in the vessels of my head and throat, and which had
hitherto buoyed up my spirits with madness and delirium, had now begun
to retire within their proper channels, and the distinctness which was
thus added to my perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me
of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness
was, luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came to my
rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and struggles, I
jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length, clutching with a vise-like
grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it, and fell
headlong and shuddering within the car.
"It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then,
however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my great relief,
uninjured. My implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost
neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I had so well secured them in
their places, that such an accident was entirely out of the question.
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