Ten per cent of it is admiration
for the Southern victory at Bull Run, and ninety per cent of it is
hatred--at least by their ruling classes--of republican institutions,
and a wish to see them fall here."
"I suspect you're right," said Dick, "and we'll have to try all the
harder to keep them from being a failure. Look, there goes our balloon!"
Every day, usually late in the afternoon, a captive balloon rose from
the Northern camp, and officers with powerful glasses inspected the
Southern position, watching for an advance or a new movement of any kind.
"I'm going up in it some day," said Dick, confidently. "Colonel Newcomb
has promised me that he will take me with him when his turn for the
ascension comes."
The chance was a week in coming, a tremendously long time it seemed to
Dick, but it came at last. He climbed into the basket with Colonel
Newcomb, two generals, and the aeronauts and sat very quiet in a corner.
He felt an extraordinary thrill when the ropes were allowed to slide and
the balloon was slowly going almost straight upward. The sensation was
somewhat similar to that which shook him when he went into battle at
Bull Run, but pride came to his rescue and he soon forgot the physical
tremor to watch the world that now rolled beneath them, a world that
they seemed to have left, although the ropes always held.
Dick's gaze instinctively turned southward, where he knew the
Confederate army lay.
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