PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 108, March 9th, 1895.
edited by Sir Francis Burnand
TALL TALES OF SPORT AND ADVENTURE.
I.—THE PINK HIPPOPOTAMUS. (continued.)
Far below lay the globe like a huge ball of glowing light, patchedhere and there with dark tracts, and intersected with lines brighterthan the surrounding brightness. That was my goal. But here I wasstill swiftly soaring from it. Oh, if I could but change my direction;for such was the still unexhausted force of the momentum acquired bythe explosion that I knew I should not drop down for many a long day.If I could only manage to speed diagonally down towards the earth, Icalculated that I could take advantage of the waves of the air to movein a kind of switchback fashion towards the earth, and possibly, as Ineared the ground, I might either hook myself on to some tall tree orplunge into a river or an ocean and save myself by my unequalledpowers of swimming. And here a sudden thought struck me. In life I hadrespected the Ayah, but now she was dead and was far beyond thepossibility of feeling. I do not say of resenting, a discourteousaction. Time was slipping away; the earth was visibly diminishing; themoment for action had come. Slowly and with determination I drew up myright leg, and letting it out backwards with the force of a Nasmythhammer, delivered my foot full against the body of the Ayah.Everything happened as I had anticipated. There was a dull andmelancholy thud as the lifeless body went off at its involuntarytangent, while I flew sidelong and in a downward direction, my wholecourse being changed by the impetus of the kick.
How long I flew like this I know not. At such a crisis moments arecenturies. After a time I re-opened my eyes and looked about me. Wherewas I? Could it be? Yes—no—and yes again. All that I saw wasfamiliar. The towers, the cupolas, the domes, the minarets, thebattlements—all these I had seen before. Scarcely two hundred yardsbelow me lay the Diamond City from which I had that very nightascended.
"With a rush and a swoop I was upon him."
I ought to explain that, as I had expected, partly owing to thewell-known laws of gravitation, partly owing to the celebratedair-wave theory, first propounded by my friend, Dr.Hasewitz, Regius Professor of Phlebotomy inthe University of Bermuda, I was now proceeding in a series ofgigantic serpentine curves through the air. At the moment of which Iam speaking I was at the top of one of these curves, and I calculatedthat, with luck, I should just be able, on my downward course, toclear the western gate of the city, and then, having come to within afew feet of the ground, I should speed upward again and onward heavenknows whither. In a flash it occurred to me that ifGanderdown was ready at his appointed postbeyond the gate, I might in passing be able to seize him and bear himwith me in my wild flight. I pulled out my watch. The hands pointed tofive minutes past twelve, and as we had fixed midnight for ourmeeting, I knew that my henchman, the very soul of punctuality, wouldbe at the rendezvous. Yes, there was the faithful old fellow, armedand provisioned to the teeth, standing stolidly as was his custom,apparently paying but little a