CHAPTER XII.

THE ATTEMPTED MURDER IN THE AIR.

_The proposal to go up in a balloon accepted--Green's young and pretty wife--A very strange conversation--An unpleasant looking knife--Jealously--Madness and attempted murder._

People may have thought differently, but there was really no occasion for his jealousy; the man was mad. Knowing his eccentric habits, you ask me how I could have been so foolish as to accompany him alone in that terrible balloon ascent, and I reply that it never occurred to me that he believed that I was in love with his wife. He had gone up in balloons fifty times without meeting with any accident, and when he pressed me to join him in that midnight voyage I had but little hesitation in accepting the invitation.

As you are aware, I have done a few things in my time, and the idea of a new sensation was agreeable to me. It may come with the infirmities of old age, but as yet fear has not entered into my composition. It appeared to me that my nerves were quite as good as his.

It was a scientific experiment to test certain air currents, and you no doubt recollect that the result was watched with considerable interest. But few people know the dreadful scene that was enacted in mid-air in an unusually dark night. Unmistakable signs of insanity showed themselves a few days afterwards, and he had to be taken to Hanwell. I went to see him the other day, and he told me in the greatest confidence that he was the Devil, and that he had sat to Martin for his famous painting of "Satan in Council" from him. It was a sad case; he was a man of infinite talent, and the doctors gave but little hope of his recovery.

Yes, his wife is to be pitied. She is not more than twenty-five, and there are no two opinions about her beauty, and I can testify that her mind is quite in keeping with her person. A more fascinating woman I never met, and it may be strange to say that I have only admired her as a sister. I have known her since she was two years of age, and she has never taken any important step in life without consulting me. She was early left an orphan, and there never was a brother nor a sister. Green first met her at Harrogate, and was soon over head and ears in love.

I never saw a man so deeply influenced with the tender passion. His position and wealth there could be no mistake about, and when Lizzie Norton asked me whether she should accept his offer of marriage, I thought it a good chance for the friendless girl. It was her frequent consultations with me about her husband's daily increasing eccentricities which created the scandal, and the state of his health may have to some extent influenced me to ascend with him into the clouds.

Light a cigar and I will endeavour to bring back to my memory what took place. The balloon was a new one, called the Sunbeam. We went up from the Crystal Palace.

It was a beastly night, raining in torrents, and nearly dark. The lamp which was lighted at starting went out from some cause or other (he may have extinguished it on purpose before we had ascended many hundred feet), and an attempt made to kindle it did not succeed.

The sensations of the ascent were certainly novel, if not pleasant. We hung over London for some time, and then, after rising to a considerable height, drifted towards Brighton, where I was fortunate enough to be landed safely. But when you hear the particulars of the trip you will say that it was long odds against my ever reaching the earth alive.

It was an anonymous letter that first aroused his mad and groundless jealousy, and he had watched my interviews with his wife--arranged for his good--and believed that we were deceiving him. I repeat that we were both innocent of any such intention, although appearances may have been against us.

The man or woman who penned that ill-natured epistle was as near as possible being the cause of a murder. Green had provided himself with a cook's knife, a nasty weapon to look at, and it was by the merest chance he did not thrust it in my heart. Scientific experiments are all very well in their way, but I prefer not pursuing such studies in mid-air in the company of a maniac.

One of the first things he said to me was--

"Life is not worth much up here."

I agreed with him that we were running some extra risk, and added that I hoped the construction of the balloon was not deficient.

"The balloon is right enough," he hissed in my ear, as we rushed through the air at the rate of forty miles an hour; "there are other things to dread."

There was a peculiarity about the tone of his reply which I did not like. I enquired what was the nature of the other risks, but he gave me no answer, and busied himself for a few minutes with the mechanism of our ærial car.

"You have faced death before?" he asked abruptly.

I told him that such was the case; that over ladies fair I had been obliged to fight a duel or two in different parts of Europe.

This answer seemed to enrage him, for at once exclaimed in a passionate voice--

"Toujours les dames. Is it true you are so fortunate?"

"Report credits me with more than my due. Like other men roving about Europe, I have had my adventures."

His next question startled me, and I began to suspect that there was something wrong.

"What do you think of my wife?" was what he asked.

"That you are a man to be envied."

"But that it not the answer. Do you think her pretty?"

"There can be no doubt of that."

I endeavoured to change the subject by drawing his attention to a bank of clouds we were about to pierce in our upward career, but it was in vain.

"You admire her very much?"

"No one can help admiring her," I answered.

"I never could understand why you did not marry her."

"The truth, is that it never occurred to me to ask her. Our friendship was that of brother and sister. Although no more beautiful object could be found, old fellow, it seems a little out of place to discuss your wife."

"What did I bring you here for?"

"Then your purpose in getting me to ascend with you was to talk about Mrs. Green? It strikes me that a more convenient and comfortable place could have been found somewhere on the earth. You are a funny fellow," I said.

"What I have to say is better without witnesses. Here I can be judge and executioner."

This extraordinary answer put me on my guard, and I watched his movements as well as I could in the uncertain light which was beginning to appear in the heavens. Contrary winds had carried us rapidly in different directions, and until we had a little more light it was impossible to tell where we were. It was not a very pleasant position to be cooped up in such close quarters with a jealous husband, whose mind was evidently unhinged, and I thought that the sooner our voyage was finished the better. So far as strength went I was the stronger of the two, but a struggle in a balloon floating a few miles above the earth was to be avoided. I tried what silence would do.

"She would have married you. She thinks nobody like you," he began again.

"I tell you I never thought of her as my wife. What possesses you, Green, to speak to me in this absurd fashion?"

"Jealousy--revenge," he hissed, and I could just perceive him playing with something which looked disagreeably like a knife.

This was serious, and unseen by him--he seemed absorbed in thought--I took measures to descend as rapidly as possible. There was no disguising the fact that I was in a balloon alone with a madman!

"We will make for the sea," he muttered to himself. "One thrust, and over he goes."

"Not if I know it," I thought. "There will be a little discussion before that undesirable end is attained."

"Was woman ever loved so much before?" he began, speaking to himself. "For her I was ready to sacrifice my present, my future, my hereafter, my life; nothing that a man could do would have been left undone for one approving smile, one kiss from her pouting lips.

"Ah! to think that other lips have pressed hers, that other arms have encircled that matchless form, drives me mad--mad! Yet she looks an angel of purity. How often have I stayed awake to watch the childlike sleep. No impure thought was haunting the quiet mind. If she had but whispered the name of a rival she would never have risen from the couch again. But that letter--ah! that letter. I have it here; it speaks of secret meetings, and calls me--the fiend--the duped, or complaisant husband. And the letter was not wrong. I watched them meet secretly myself. Oh! Lizzie, was such a love as mine to be thrown away like a used glove? Would to God we had never met. No, I won't say that. I cannot forget the days of rapture I spent with you, my darling. It is not you I blame; it is he, the husband's friend, I must destroy. Time for action. This good knife will revenge my lost honour. No man shall boast that he has kissed those lips and live. Now we will make for the sea, and then one thrust and over he goes!"

He was right in saying it was the moment for action. He had worked himself into such a mad fury I expected every moment to be attacked. All the time he was raving the balloon was--unknown to him--rapidly descending, and we were close to the earth, so close that by throwing out the grappling irons I made certain of stopping our further progress, and it was not a bit too soon.

To throw out the irons and knock that dangerous knife out of his hand as he rose to attack me was the work of a second. The next minute I pinned him down in the bottom of the car, and prevented any further unpleasantness.

With the dawn of morning workpeople came over the Brighton Downs and assisted me to secure the Sunbeam and her poor demented owner.

His ascents into the air had finished, and the next occasion that I go up in a balloon with a friend I shall previously put him through a series of searching questions about love and jealousy, if he should happen to possess that much desirable acquisition--a young and pretty wife!