The rope is not likely to break; and if it did we both should probably be dead before we ever reached the earth." That last statement sank deep into my consciousness; but I fear I did not hearken so attentively as I ought to the continuation of the lieutenant's conversation, because, right in the middle of his remarks, something had begun to happen.
An officer had stepped up alongside to tell me that very shortly I should undoubtedly be quite seasick--or, rather, skysick--because of the pitching about of the basket when the balloon reached the end of the cable; and I was trying to listen to him with one ear and to my prospective traveling companion with the other when I suddenly realized that the officer's face was no longer on a level with mine.

It was several feet below mine.

No; it was not--it was several yards below mine.

Now he was looking up toward us, shouting out his words, with his hands funneled about his mouth for a speaking trumpet.

And at every word he uttered he shrank into himself, growing shorter and shorter.
It was not that we seemed to be moving.