Richards and I have talked it over every evening we have been alone together, and we can't make head or tail of the affair.

Richards thinks it wasn't the girl at all who went up on that pole, but a sort of balloon in her shape.

But then, as I say, there was the girl standing among us before she took her place on the pole.

We saw her sit down and settle herself on the cushion so that she was balanced right.

So it could not have been a balloon then, and if it were a balloon afterwards, when did she change?
At any rate the light below was sufficient to see well until she was forty or fifty feet up, and after that she shone out, and we never lost sight of her until she was ever so high.