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THE PALGRAVE HANDBOOK
OF AFRICAN COLONIAL AND
POSTCOLONIAL HISTORY
Edited by Martin S. Shanguhyia
and Toyin Falola
The Palgrave Handbook of African Colonial
and Postcolonial History
Martin S. Shanguhyia · Toyin Falola
Editors

The Palgrave
Handbook
of African Colonial
and Postcolonial
History
Editors
Martin S. Shanguhyia Toyin Falola
History Department, Maxwell School of University of Texas at Austin
Citizenship and Public Affairs Austin, TX, USA
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY, USA

ISBN 978-1-137-59425-9 ISBN 978-1-137-59426-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59426-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017950403

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any
other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation,
computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher
nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material
contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains
neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover credit: ilbusca/Getty Images

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America, Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
 Acknowledgements

This book is the result of unlimited effort from various individuals and insti-
tutions. The topics and themes came from an enriching brainstorming and
back-and-forth communication and conversation between Toyin Falola and
Martin Shanguhyia. Most important, we are grateful to the contributors to
this volume who were willing to share some perspectives on how certain top-
ics have been essential to the development of modern African history. They
spent their invaluable time making endless revisions to their chapters under
time constraints. Our constant communications and conversations were
more rewarding than an inconvenience to all involved. We would also like to
thank Amy Katherine Burnette, then a Dissertation Fellow at the Humanities
Center at Syracuse University, and Thomas Jefferson West III, a doctoral can-
didate in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, ­Syracuse
University, for the endless hours they spend editing the chapters. Special
thanks also to the History Department at Syracuse University for subsidizing
funds for editorial services. We also wish to acknowledge Jamie DeAngelo for
her expertise in producing the maps.

v
vi Acknowledgements

Map 1  Africa on the eve of European scramble and partition, circa 1880
 Acknowledgements vii

Map 2  Colonial Africa, circa 1914

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viii Acknowledgements

Map 3  Modern Africa: Countries that have experienced military rule

 Acknowledgements ix

Map 4  Modern Africa: Countries that have experienced political conflict

 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Martin S. Shanguhyia and Toyin Falola

Part I Colonial Africa

2 Colonialism and the African Environment 43

Martin S. Shanguhyia

3 Colonial Administrations and the Africans 81

Toyin Falola and Chukwuemeka Agbo

4 Slavery in the Colonial State and After 103

Paul E. Lovejoy

5 Africans and the Colonial Economy 123

Moses E. Ochonu

6 African Women in Colonial Economies 145

Judith A. Byfield

7 Colonialism and African Womanhood 171

Gloria Chuku

8 Administration, Economy, and Society in the Portuguese

African Empire (1900–1975) 213
Philip J. Havik

xi
xii Contents

9 Christian Evangelization and Its Legacy 239

Andrew E. Barnes

10 Colonial Education 281

Kelly Duke Bryant

11 Health and Medicine in Colonial Society 303

Matthew M. Heaton

12 African Colonial Urban Experience 319

Uyilawa Usuanlele and Oluwatoyin B. Oduntan

13 Africa and the First World War 339

Meshack Owino

14 Africa and the Second World War 355

Meshack Owino

15 Colonialism and African Migrations 373

Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry and Isaac Indome

16 Colonialism and African Childhood 389

Temilola Alanamu, Benedict Carton and Benjamin N. Lawrance

17 Literature in Colonial Africa 413

Tanure Ojaide

18 Art, African Identities, and Colonialism 429

Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie

19 Intensification and Attenuation: Colonial Influences on an

African Culture 451
Augustine Agwuele

20 Youth and Popular Culture in Colonial Africa 479

Jamaine M. Abidogun

21 The Horn of Africa and the Black Anticolonial Imaginary

(1896–1915) 507
Fikru Negash Gebrekidan

22 Colonial Africa and the West 535

Enocent Msindo
 Contents xiii

23 International Law, Colonialism, and the African 551

Ibrahim J. Gassama

24 Colonialism and Development in Africa 569

Ruth Rempel

25 Nationalism and African Intellectuals 621

Toyin Falola and Chukwuemeka Agbo

26 Decolonization Histories 643

Robert M. Maxon

Part II Postcolonial Africa

27 Africa and the Cold War 661

Kenneth Kalu

28 African Politics Since Independence 681

Ademola Araoye

29 Secession and Separatism in Modern Africa 729

Charles G. Thomas

30 Postcolonial Africa and the West 759

Enocent Msindo

31 The USA and Africa 785

Adebayo Oyebade

32 Franco-African Relations: Still Exceptional? 801

Tony Chafer

33 Algeria and France: Beyond the Franco-Algerian Lens 821

Natalya Vince

34 China and Africa 839

Joshua Eisenman and David H. Shinn

35 Africa and Global Financial Institutions 855

John Mukum Mbaku
xiv Contents

36 Development History and Postcolonial African Experience 881

Ruth Rempel

37 African Diasporas and Postcolonial Africa 927

Kwasi Konadu

38 Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa 951

Marloes Janson

39 The Unfinished Business of Postcolonialism: Theological

Perspectives 979
Elias Kifon Bongmba

40 South Africa: Apartheid and Post-Apartheid 1005

Nancy L. Clark

41 The Pan-African Experience: From the Organization of

African Unity to the African Union 1031
Horace G. Campbell

42 Africa and Human Rights 1089

Edward Kissi

43 Education in Postcolonial Africa 1109

Peter Otiato Ojiambo

44 African Women and the Postcolonial State 1137

Alicia C. Decker

45 Young People and Public Space in Africa: Past and Present 1155
Mamadou Diouf

46 Colonialism and African Sexualities 1175

Xavier Livermon

47 Culture, Artifacts, and Independent Africa: The Cultural

Politics of Museums and Heritage 1193
Sarah Van Beurden

48 Building the African Novel on Quick sand: Politics of

Language, Identity, and Ownership 1213
Mukoma Wa Ngugi
 Contents xv

49 Music and Postcolonial Africa 1231

Eric Charry

50 Sports and Politics in Postcolonial Africa 1263

Hikabwa D. Chipande and Davies Banda

51 Media, Society, and the Postcolonial State 1285

Sharon Adetutu Omotoso

52 Between Diaspora and Homeland: The Study of Africa and

the African Diaspora in the USA 1305
Michael O. West

Index 1323
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 Editors and Contributors

About the Editors

Martin S. Shanguhyia, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of African

History at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse
University, New York. He received his Ph.D. in African history at West
Virginia University, Morgantown. He is the author of Population, Tradition
and Environmental Control in Colonial Kenya, 1920–1963 (Rochester, NY:
University of Rochester Press, December 2015). His work has also been
published in the International Journal of African Historical Studies as well
as the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History and in several chapters
in edited books on themes reflecting the intersection between colonialism,
environment, agrarian change, conservation, land, and conflict. His current
research focuses on the political economy of state–community and intercom-
munity relations across Kenya’s borderlands with Uganda, South Sudan, and
Ethiopia during the colonial period.
Toyin Falola, Ph.D. is the Frances and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the
Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of
Texas at Austin. He has received various awards and honors, including seven
honorary doctorates. He is the author and editor of over 150 books.

Contributors
Jamaine M. Abidogun, is Professor in history, Missouri State University,
holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction in secondary education,
minor in African and African-American studies, from the University of
Kansas. She is a two-time Fulbright Scholar recipient for her work ‘Gender
Perspectives in Nigeria Secondary Education: A Case Study in Nsukka’
(2004–2005) and ‘Strengthening Gender Research to Improve Girls’ and

xvii
xviii Editors and Contributors

Women’s Education in Nigeria’ (2013–2014). Her co-edited works with

Toyin Falola include Education, Creativity and Economic Empowerment in
Africa (2014) and Issues in African Political Economies (2016). Her pub-
lications include several chapters and articles in African and Education
Studies. She is the editor-in-chief of the African Journal of Teacher
Education (AJOTE), University of Guelph, Ontario and a member of
the Fulbright Academy and the Mid-America Alliance for African Studies
(MAAAS).
Augustine Agwuele, is an Associate Professor of linguistics in the
Department of Anthropology, Texas State University. As an interdisciplinary
scholar, he combines the conceptual rigors of theoretical linguistics with eth-
nographically grounded scholarship in socio-cultural anthropology. With this
he studies language, culture, and society, addressing common and habitual
practices involved in encoding, transmitting, and decoding messages. He
studies closely Yoruba people of Nigeria.
Chukwuemeka Agbo is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of
History, University of Texas at Austin. He is also affiliated to the Department
of History and Strategic Studies at the Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo
(FUNAI), Nigeria. His research focuses on the labor history of Southeastern
Nigeria in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, is a Full Sabbatical Professor of Africana stud-
ies and world history at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
He received his Ph.D. in African history and comparative slavery as well as a
Post-Graduate diploma in refugee and migration Studies at York University,
Toronto, Canada. Professor Akurang-Parry has authored over 50 peer-
reviewed articles in major journals, including Slavery and Abolition, History
in Africa, African Economic History, The International Journal of African
Historical Studies, The International Journal of Regional and Local Studies, Left
History, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, African Identities, and
International Working-Class and Labor History. He is the co-editor of African
Agency and European Colonialism: Latitudes of Negotiation and Containment
(2007). He has held teaching and research positions at: Tulane University,
New Orleans, USA; York University, Toronto, Canada; Shippensburg
University, Pennsylvania, USA; and the University of Cape Coast, Ghana.
Temilola Alanamu, is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the
University of Kent. Her current research focuses on the intersection of
gender and the life cycle in Southern Nigeria and encompasses the social
experiences of the sexes from birth until death. She has published articles and
book reviews in Africa, Gender and History and Church History and Religious
Culture amongst others. She also has other forthcoming projects in Oxford
Bibliographies, Journal of World History and The Journal of Colonialism and
Colonial History. She is currently co-editing the Encyclopaedia of African
Religions Beliefs and Practices through History with Douglas Thomas.
 Editors and Contributors xix

Ademola Araoye, has practiced political analysis, with particular focus

on conflict, mediation, and post-conflict reconstruction for over three dec-
ades. A former Nigerian diplomat, he was head of the Political, Policy
Planning Section of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), and
later head of the Peace Consolidation Service of the mission. He is author of
Cote d’Ivoire: The Conundrum of a Still Wretched of the Earth and Sources of
Conflict in the Post-Colonial Africa State. He taught part time at the Ibrahim
Babaginda Graduate School of the University of Liberia.
Andrew E. Barnes, teaches history at Arizona State University in Tempe,
Arizona. He studies the history of Christianity in Africa and Europe. The
primary focus of his present research is Christian missions and their interac-
tions with African Christians during the era of European colonialism. He is
the author of Making Headway: The Introduction of Western Civilization in
Colonial Northern Nigeria (2009). His new book, Industrial Education and
the Christian Black Atlantic, is forthcoming from Baylor University Press.
Davies Banda, is an active researcher in the field of sport and international
development and is Deputy Director of the Unit for Child and Youth Studies
at York St. John University, UK. His research covers sport-for-development,
corporate social responsibility, national sports policies, and social inclusion
interventions. He has been engaged as a consultant for the Commonwealth
Secretariat, Euroleague Basketball, UK Sport, Laureus Sports for Good
Foundation and some charities in Zambia and the United Kingdom.
Judith A. Byfield, is an Associate Professor in the History Department,
Cornell University. She is the co-editor of Africa and World War II
(Cambridge University Press, 2015) and author of The Bluest Hands: A Social
and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria, 1890–1940
(Heinemann, 2002). A former President of the African Studies Association
(2010–2011), Byfield has received numerous fellowships including the NEH
and Fulbright.
Kelly Duke Bryant, is an Associate Professor of History at Rowan
University (New Jersey), where she teaches African history. Her research
focuses on colonial education, children and youth, and political change in
Senegal. This research has generated several articles and a book, Education
as Politics: Colonial Schooling and Political Debate in Senegal, 1850s–1914
(2015).
Elias Kifon Bongmba, holds the Harry and Hazle Chavanne Chair in
Christian theology and is Professor of religion at Rice University, Houston,
Texas. His areas of specialization include African religions, theology, and phi-
losophy. His book The Dialectics of Transformation in Africa won the Franz
Fanon Prize. He has published widely on religion, theology, and is complet-
ing a monograph on same-sex relations in Africa.
xx Editors and Contributors

Nancy L. Clark, is an historian with over 25 years’ experience of teaching

and research in South African history. She serves as the Jane DeGrummond
Professor of history at Louisiana State University where she also served as
Dean of the Honors College for over 10 years. Her areas of research have
focused on twentieth-century South African history, with special emphasis
on the apartheid era. She has published extensively on the impact of seg-
regation and apartheid on the labor force, and most recently published the
third edition of The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, co-authored with William
Worger.
Horace G. Campbell, holds a joint Professorship in the Department of
African American Studies and Department of Political Science, Maxwell
School-Syracuse University. He has recently published Global NATO
and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya: Lessons for Africa in the Forging of
African Unity (2013) and Barack Obama and twenty-first Century Politics:
A Revolutionary Moment in the USA (2010). He is also the author of
Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation
(2003), and Pan Africanism, Pan Africanists and African Liberation in the
twenty-first Century (2006). His most famous book, Rasta and Resistance:
from Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney (first published in 1985) is going
through its eighth printing. He co-edited (Howard Stein) Tanzania and
the IMF: The Dynamics of Liberalization (1992). He has published more
than 60 journal articles and a dozen monographs as well as chapters in
edited books. He was the Kwame Nkrumah Chair of African Studies at
the Institute of African Studies, University of Legon, Ghana during 2016–
2017.
Benedict Carton, is Robert T. Hawkes Professor of History and Africa
Coordinator of African and African American Studies at George Mason
University, Fairfax, Virginia. He is the author of Blood from Your Children:
The Colonial Origins of Generational Conflict in South Africa (University of
Virginia Press, 2000) and co-editor of Zulu Identities: Being Zulu Past and
Present (2008).
Tony Chafer, is a historian specializing in Francophone Africa and
French relations with Africa in the late colonial and postcolonial era. He
is Director of the Centre for European and International Studies Research
at the University of Portsmouth (UK). Recently he has published widely
on French military policy in Africa and is currently working on a new edi-
tion of his book The End of Empire in French West Africa: France’s Successful
Decolonization?
Eric Charry, is a Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. He has pub-
lished extensively on music in Africa, including dictionary and encyclope-
dia entries as well as the books Mande Music (2000) and Hip Hop Africa
(2012).
 Editors and Contributors xxi

Hikabwa D. Chipande, is a social historian of twentieth-century Africa. His

research work focuses on the relationship between popular culture and poli-
tics, particularly football (soccer) and sport. He earned his Ph.D. in African
history from Michigan State University in 2015 and is currently teaching at
the University of Zambia in Lusaka.
Gloria Chuku, is a historian with over 25 years of teaching and research
experience. She is Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, and Affiliate
Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, and the Language, Literacy and
Culture Ph.D. Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County,
USA. Her work centers on Nigerian history with particular focus on gender,
entrepreneurship, nationalism, ethnonationalisms and conflicts, and Igbo
intellectual history. She has published extensively in these areas, including:
a monograph, Igbo Women and Economic Transformation in Southeastern
Nigeria, 1900–1960 (2005); two edited volumes, The Igbo Intellectual
Tradition: Creative Conflict in African and African Diasporic Thought
(2013) and Ethnicities, Nationalities, and Cross-Cultural Representations in
Africa and the Diaspora (2015). She has also publsihed over 50 scholarly arti-
cles.
Alicia C. Decker is an Associate Professor of women’s, gender, and sexu-
ality studies and African studies at the Pennsylvania State University, where
she also co-directs the African Feminist Initiative. Her research and teaching
interests include gender and militarism, African women’s history, and global
feminisms. She is the author of In Idi Amin’s Shadow: Women, Gender, and
Militarism in Uganda (Ohio University Press, 2014), and co-author with
Andrea Arrington of Africanizing Democracies: 1980 to Present (Oxford
University Press, 2014).
Mamadou Diouf, is an historian, and has taught at the Université
Cheikh Anata Diop in Dakar (Senegal), and directed the Research and
Documentation Department of the Council for the Development of Social
Sciences Research. He was the Charles Moody Jr. Professor of History and
African and African American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor. He is currently the Leitner Family Professor of African studies and his-
tory at Columbia University in the City of New York, and a Visiting Professor
at Sciences PIO, Paris (France). His research interests have focused on
African intellectual and urban histories and youth cultures. His more recent
publications include the co-edited book Tolerance, Democracy and the Sufis
in Senegal, (2014), and co-edited volumes The Arts of Citizenship in Africa.
Spaces of Belonging (with R. Fredericks), 2015); Les arts de la citoyenneté au
Sénégal. Espaces Contestés et Civilités Urbaines (with F. Fredericks, 2013);
Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic: Rituals and Remembrances, (with I. Nwankwo,
2010) and New Perspectives on Islam in Senegal: Conversion, Migration,
Wealth, Power and Femininity (with Mara Leichtman, 2009).
xxii Editors and Contributors

Joshua Eisenman, is Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at

Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs and senior fellow for China studies at
the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. His second book,
China and Africa: A Century of Engagement, co-authored with former US
Ambassador to Ethiopia David H. Shinn, was named one of the top three
books on Africa in 2012 by Foreign Affairs magazine. In 2007, he co-edited
China and the Developing World: Beijing’s Strategy for the twenty-first Century,
and wrote the book’s chapter on China–Africa relations.
Ibrahim J. Gassama, is the Frank Nash Professor of law at the University
of Oregon. His research interests include international humanitarian, human
rights, and economic law. His recent international law articles have appeared
in the international law journals of Brooklyn (2012), Fordham (2013),
Washington (2013), and Wisconsin (2014) Universities. Prior to becoming
a law professor, he worked for TransAfrica, the African-American lobby for
Africa.
Fikru Negash Gebrekidan, is an Associate Professor of History at St
Thomas University in Fredericton, Canada. He regularly teaches courses on
African history, world history, and the history of genocide. His major publica-
tions have appeared in Northeast African Studies, the International Journal
of Ethiopian Studies, the Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Callaloo, and the
African Studies Review. He is the author of Bond without Blood: A History of
Ethiopian and New World Black Relations, 1896–1991 (2005).
Philip J. Havik, is senior researcher at the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina
Tropical of the Universidade Nova in Lisbon (IHMT/UNL) where he also
teaches the history of medicine. His multidisciplinary research centers upon the
study of public health and tropical medicine, state formation and governance,
cultural brokerage and entrepreneurship in West Africa, with special emphasis
on Lusophone countries, including Guinea Bissau. His most recent publications
include (with co-authors Alexander Keese and Maciel Santos) Administration
and Taxation in the former Portuguese Empire, 1900–1945 (2015).
Matthew M. Heaton, is an Associate Professor in the Department of
History at Virginia Tech. His research interests are in the history of health
and illness, migration, and globalization in Africa with particular emphasis on
Nigeria. He is the author of Black Skin, White Coats: Nigerian Psychiatrists,
Decolonization, and the Globalization of Psychiatry and co-author of A History
of Nigeria.
Isaac Indome is an M.Phil. History student at the Department of History,
University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana. He obtained his B.A. (Hons)
degree in history from the University of Cape Coast in June 2015 and taught
in the same department during the 2015/2016 academic year. His research
interests are in migration in colonial Africa, specifically focusing on health and
migration in colonial Ghana.
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air at this height. Understand?”
“Yes,” the lad muttered rather grumpily.
“All right, and if we wished to go higher—”
“We’d have to let out more of the compressed air,” Bob
interrupted, brightly.
“And if we desired to descend—”
“We’d have to pump more into the tank.”
“Of course,” mumbled the goblin. “You’ll make a great aëronaut
one of these days.”
Then he lifted a lid of the
locker, took out a small
instrument and busied himself
with the manipulation of its
mechanism. Bob leaned over the
edge of the car and devoted his
attention to the scene below.
Directly beneath lay the
sleeping village, its roofs
showing white in the bright
moonlight. To east and west the
hills rolled away, their summits
hoary, their bases shadowy and
obscure; and among them
wound the placid river—a
stream of molten silver
threading the narrow vale. The
roar of the distant mill-dam
sounded sullen and indistinct,
and the mists rising from it
waved as fairy plumes and
banners. The lad looked and
listened, entranced, enraptured.
 “How beautiful it all is!” he murmured feelingly to himself, a catch
in his voice. “I—I like it; and I rather hate to leave it.”
“Homesick already, are you, before you’re out of sight of home?”
Fitz Mee queried, his eyes upon the curious instrument he had
placed in the bottom of the car.
“No, I’m not homesick!” Bob retorted sharply.
“You’re not?” Fitz grinned provokingly. “What did you mean by
your words, then?”
“I was just admiring the beautiful scene, that’s all,” Bob explained.
“Oh!” ejaculated the goblin, wagging his head and saucily
extruding his tongue.
“Uh-huh,” the lad nodded in return.
“Well, I’ll show you scenes far more beautiful—in Goblinland.”
It was Bob’s turn to sneer.
“Maybe you will,” he said.
“I will,” Fitz asserted positively.
“When?”
“When we get there, of course.”
“Yes; when we get there.”
“Well, we’ll get there.”
“We’re not going very fast; we’re still right over the town.”
And the boy laughed aloud, scornfully.
“We haven’t started yet,” the goblin countered.
“No; and we’re not likely to start, as far as I can see—unless a
wind storm comes on; and it may blow us in any direction.”
“Bosh!” barked the goblin.
“Bosh, yourself!” snarled the boy.
 “Say, Bob?”
“What?”
“Let’s quit quarreling.”
“All right.”
“Shake!”
They solemnly shook hands.
“Now,” the goblin cried briskly, “if you’re ready to say good-bye to
home, we’ll be off.”
“I’m ready,” the lad answered; “but I don’t see how we’re going to
be off.”
“I’ll show you. See that little instrument on the floor of the car?”
“That compass?”
“That’s not a compass.”
A broad band of moonlight streamed in at the open window. (See
page 11.)

“It isn’t?”
“No.”
“Well, it looks like one. What is it?”
“A wireless selector.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’ve heard of wireless telegraph instruments?”
 “Yes.”
“And you know they send messages with them without using
wires, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, too, you’ve heard or read that there are currents of
electricity running around the globe in all directions, haven’t you?”
“I—I think I have; yes.”
“Well, the selector picks up or selects any current the operator
desires, and enables him to travel over it in his balloon, using it as a
propelling power.”
“Well—well!” Bob exploded, in frank admiration. “Just like a trolley
car!”
“Yes, except no wire is needed.”
“I don’t see how you tell which way it’ll go, though.”
“The balloon?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll go whichever way the needle points.”
“Why will it?”
“Well, the needle of a compass points north, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Why does it?”
“Because—because—I don’t know, I guess,” Bob admitted.
“Because the attraction swings it, isn’t that it?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, if the attraction swings the needle, won’t the needle swing
the attraction?”
 “I—I don’t know,” the boy stammered; “I never heard of such a
thing!”
“Isn’t it a poor rule that won’t work both ways?”
“Yes; that’s what folks say, anyhow.”
“Well, it is—a mighty poor rule. Now I’ll show you. Watch me. I
desire to travel due east; so I point this little needle in that direction.
That done, I turn this thumb-screw, and off we start.”
Slowly the balloon began to move toward the east, over the
village, across the river, gradually leaving the valley behind.
“I turn the screw a little more and a little more,” said the goblin,
suiting the action to the words, “and we begin to travel faster and
faster.”
Soon they were going at a rapid and exhilarating speed. The air
appeared to whistle past as they cut through it; the moonlit
landscape appeared to flow away behind and beneath them.
“My—my!” Bob cried, gleefully clapping his hands. “I never
expected to travel as fast as this. Fitz, this is simply great.”
“You don’t call this gentle speed going fast, do you, Bob?” Fitz
returned, grinning broadly.
“Indeed I do,” the boy replied earnestly.
“Oh, we’re just loafing along!” the goblin chuckled. “I’ll show you
how I travel when I’m in a hurry to get along. Take off your cap, or
you’ll lose it, and hold on to the car. Now!”
With the last word he gave another turn to the thumb-screw of
the selector. The balloon leaped forward like a mad thing of life; the
fragile car strained and quivered. Bob clutched the seat with both
hands and held on for dear life. The air appeared to rush past in a
cutting, shrieking tempest of wrath, that blinded and deafened the
boy. He tried to scream out, but could not. He felt his grip upon the
seat weakening, and, fearing he might be swept overboard, he
loosened his hold and threw himself to the bottom of the car. There
he lay, panting and gasping—sick with mortal terror. Then, of a
sudden, the mad speed of the balloon began to slacken and the boy
gradually gathered up courage to open his eyes and look around.
There sat the impish Fitz Mee by the selector, his hand upon the
thumb-screw.
“Hello!” the goblin grinned apishly.
“Hello!” the boy muttered in reply.
“How did you like it?” queried the goblin.
“I didn’t like it,” answered the lad.
“Wasn’t it fast enough for you?”
“Too fast.”
“Oh!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wouldn’t you like to try it just a little bit faster, eh?”
“No sir!”
“It’s great fun—when you learn to like it.”
“Yes,” Bob grumbled; “and taking pills is great fun—when you
learn to like ’em.”
“I can make the balloon go faster,” Fitz suggested.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Bob grinned, shaking his head.
They got up and seated themselves upon the locker.
“Well,” the goblin remarked, yawning, “what do you think of us
goblins as balloonists?”
“I think you’re the candy,” Bob replied, his voice and manner
evincing profound admiration.
“The candy?” snickered his companion. “What do you mean by
that?”
 “I think you’re the best ever.”
“Oh! Better than you humans, eh?”
“Far better.”
“That so?”
“Yes, indeed. And When I come back from Goblinland, I’m going
to get patents on your air-ballast machine and your wireless
selector; and some day I’ll be a mighty rich man—a millionaire.”
The goblin grinned a very broad grin.
“You’re going to take out patents on our inventions, you say,
Bob?” he remarked.
“Yes,” the boy made reply.
“When you return from Goblinland, eh?”
“Yes.”
Fitz Mee gulped and screwed his features. Then he began to
chuckle silently, and at last he burst out laughing.
“What’s the matter?” Bob inquired, half in wonder, half in pique.
“Oh, it’s so funny,” croaked the goblin, and he went into another
spasm of rasping, cackling laughter.
“It must be funny,” the boy grunted peevishly. “But what’s so
funny?”
“The thought of your returning from Goblinland, Bob,” Fitz Mee
replied, sobering and wiping his eyes.
“Why, can’t I return—if I ever want to?”
 “You can, I suppose; but I doubt if you ever will.”
“Why?”
“Oh, ’cause.”
“Well, ’cause what?”
“You won’t want to, after you’ve been there a day or two.”
“That’s it, eh?”
The goblin nodded and winked seriocomically, mysteriously. Then
he said:
“Now we’ve got to ascend a few thousand feet to clear the tops of
the Alleghany mountains. Let a little more air out of the tank. There
—that’s enough. It’ll be quite cool at the altitude to which we’ll rise,
so we’d better put on the fur coats that are in the locker under you,
Bob, and curl down in the car and snooze awhile.”
A few minutes later the two were asleep and the feather-bed
balloon was topping the Alleghanies.
 CHAPTER III
THROUGH A STORM IN A BALLOON

n awaking Bob was a little confused. But soon he

remembered where he was, and he sat up and
blinked and looked around for his companion.
Fitz Mee stood upon the locker, a tiny binocular
glued to his pop eyes, gazing intently at the
western horizon. It was gray daylight, and they
were making good speed.
“What’s the matter, Fitz?” Bob demanded, alert and interested at
once. “What’re you looking at?”
“Looking at a storm gathering,” the goblin replied, without turning
his head.
The boy rose to his feet, removed his fur coat, and wadded it into
a ball and stuffed it into the locker.
“Storm?” he said. “I don’t see any signs of a storm.”
“Don’t you see that blue line along the horizon?” Fitz asked.
“Yes. Is that the storm?”
“No; that’s the mountains we crossed. But take this glass and you
can see the storm gathering on their tops. See it?”
“My!” Bob exclaimed, the glass to his eyes. “I guess I do see it!
It’s a black one, too; and it’s moving this way. How soon will it
overtake us?”
This question he asked in some trepidation.
“It won’t overtake us at all, unless we care to have it do so,” the
goblin made answer.
 “Why, can we outrun it?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Sure, if we want to.”
“Well, we’ll want to, won’t we?”
“It’ll be fun to wait till it’s nearly upon us and then run away from
it, I think. Don’t you?”
“I—I don’t know,” Bob returned, dubiously shaking his head, his
gaze still riveted upon the rising storm; “it might not be fun.”
“You’re afraid,” sneered the goblin.
“No, I’m—I’m not.”
“Yes, you are; you’re a coward.”
“Don’t you call me that!” the lad cried, snatching the binocular
from his eyes and angrily turning upon his Companion.
“I won’t,” the goblin promised. “Now turn your glass toward the
east. What do you see?”
“I see the sea!” Bob cried rapturously.

“It’s plain to me as plain can be—

In fact, I see you see the sea,”

hummed Fitz Mee in sing-song. Then he continued:

“If you’ll take a glance at the ground beneath us, you’ll notice
we’re moving very slowly. I’m loitering—waiting for the storm to
catch up with us; then we’ll have a race with it, out across the
ocean. In the meantime we’ll have breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Bob questioned. “Where’s breakfast coming from?”
“From the locker,” smiled the goblin, rubbing his round little belly
and smacking his lips in anticipatory gusto, “where everything else
we need’ll come from. I always keep my air-ship stored for a long
 voyage, for when I leave Goblinland on business,
I never know when I’ll get back home again. Are
you hungry?”
“You bet!” was the lad’s expressive but
inelegant rejoinder.
“Well, what do you think you need this
morning? You can have whatever you require.”
“What do I think I need?” Bob tittered. “What a
question! I need breakfast, of course, Fitz.”
“Of course,” snapped the goblin. “But do you
need muscle food, or nerve food, or fat food, or
what?”
“I—I don’t know,” stammered the boy,
scratching his head in perplexity. “I never heard
of such things, I guess. I know what I’d like,
though; I’d like steak and gravy and hot biscuits,
and some fruit and a glass of milk.”
“Huh!” the goblin snorted in supreme contempt. “You’ll find, Bob,
we don’t indulge in such indigestible truck in Goblinland. Our foods
are scientifically prepared, not slapped together haphazard. We use
nothing but the concentrated extracts—the active principals of food
stuffs. I’ll show you.”
He went to the locker and brought forth a small leather hand-case
or satchel.
“Why—why,” Bob muttered, his eyes bulging, “that looks just like
papa’s medicine-case!”
“Well, it isn’t,” Fitz Mee grunted irritably; “it’s my portable pantry.”
And he loosened the catch and flung the case open, displaying
several rows of tiny bottles containing tablets and pellets of various
shapes, sizes and colors.
“Ugh!” the boy gagged. “Pills!”
 “They’re not pills,” rasped the goblin; “they’re food tablets and
drink pellets.”
“They’re pills to me, all the same.”
“They’re not pills, I tell you,” Fitz Mee reiterated sharply, snapping
his jaws shut and angrily grating his teeth. “Now I’ll select what
you’re to eat; and you’ll eat it. The storm’s approaching rapidly; I
hear the thunder muttering and see the black clouds rolling. So
you’ll need something to make you strong and courageous. Here’s a
tiger-muscle tablet and a lion-heart tablet. Down ’em.”
Bob shut his mouth and shook his head.
“Down ’em!” the goblin repeated.
“Uk-uh!” the lad grunted.
“You must!”
“I won’t!”
“You’ll starve if you don’t eat.”
“I’d rather starve than take pills.”
“Nonsense!”
“I would!”
“It won’t take you but a second to swallow ’em, Bob,” Fitz Mee
said coaxingly. “That’s one of the advantages of our kind of food; it
don’t take long to eat a meal.”
“I never begrudged the time I spent in eating,” Bob remarked,
with rather a sickly grin.
“Well, down the tablets—that’s a good boy.”
“Are those—those things all you’ve got to eat?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t you have anything else in Goblinland?”
“No, of course not.”
 “Oh, dear!” wailed the boy. “I wish I was back home! Nothing to
eat but pills! Golly!”
“There, there, Bob!” the goblin said soothingly, kindly even. “You
don’t wish you were back home; you’re just hungry and nervous.
Take these tablets and you’ll be all right in a jiffy.”
Bob silently held out his hand, his face a picture of lugubrious
woe, and silently took the tablets and swallowed them.
Fitz Mee idly fingered the tiny bottles in the case for a minute or
two, mumbling over the names upon the labels. Then he looked up
and asked:
“Feel better, Bob?”
“Yes,” the lad admitted rather reluctantly, “I feel stronger and
better, but I’m still awful empty.”
“But you’re not hungry?”
“No; just hollow-like.”
“That’s because you’ve been used to filling your stomach with
gross food,” the goblin stated sagely; “you’ll get over that condition
after you’ve lived on tablets and pellets a month or two.”
“A month or two!” the lad groaned. “Oh, dear!”
“You haven’t had anything to drink,” Fitz remarked, smiling
brightly. “Take this pellet.”
“What is it?”
“A water pellet. It contains a pint of water.”
“That teenty-weenty thing?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, nonsense!”
“It does.”
“I don’t believe it; it can’t.”
 “You down it and you’ll soon see.”
Bob took the tiny clear pellet and instantly announced:
“My thirst’s all gone, Fitz, and I feel fuller.”
“But you’re still a little lank—a little empty-like, eh?”
“A little, yes.”
“Well, I’ll fix you. Take this.”
“Oh, stop,” the boy demurred. “I’m not going to take all the pills in
that case.”
“This is the last dose I’ll ask you to take,” the goblin returned,
batting his eyes at a bright flash of lightning from the rapidly
approaching storm.
“Well, what is it?” Bob demanded, dodging the sharp clap of
thunder almost immediately following the lightning.
“A sponge tablet.”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s to absorb some of the water you’ve taken, and to swell and
fill your stomach.”
“I don’t want it—I don’t need it,” Bob said, decidedly shaking his
head.
“All right,” Fitz laughed, “you don’t have to take it. We just make
’em for folks who aren’t satisfied unless their stomachs are full all
the time. Now I’ll eat my breakfast.”
He hastily selected and swallowed a number of tablets and pellets;
then he closed the leather case with a bang and a snap and thrust it
into the locker.
“Now,” he smiled, “I guess we’re all ready to play tag with that
tempest. And we’ll show it a thing or two—oh, won’t we!”
“Maybe it’ll show us a thing or two,” Bob replied, grinning a sickly
grin and shaking his head dubiously. “It’s getting pretty close and I
don’t like the looks of it. My! Just see those clouds rolling and
whirling! Fitz, I believe it’s a cyclone!”
“No, it isn’t,” his companion muttered contemptuously; “it’s
nothing but a summer thunder gust.”
By this time the storm was close upon them, coming swiftly. The
lightning was forking and flashing incessantly; the thunder was
crackling and crashing continuously. Bob gazed at the rolling,
tumbling masses of black clouds, at the play of electricity, and the
forest and fruit trees bending before the blast, and shivered; he
listened to the mingled, indescribable uproar of booming thunder
and bellowing wind, and shuddered.
“Oh, let’s be off, Fitz!” he pleaded.
“We’re off!” his comrade cried, giving a half turn to the thumb-
screw of the selector.
Before the raging storm they sped, the boy frightened and
miserable, the goblin elated and jubilant. Rapidly they approached
the ocean, and soon they were sailing over a city on the shore.
Binocular in hand, Bob watched the storm behind and the earth
beneath, and trembled. He saw people rushing to shelter; saw
fences and groves leveled, and skyscrapers and steeples sent
crashing to earth.
“Oh, Fitz—Fitz!” the lad groaned. “It is a cyclone!”
“I guess it is,” the goblin answered nonchalantly.
“And it’s coming closer!” the boy cried in terror. “Let’s go faster!”
“Oh, this is all right; this is fine sport,” the goblin laughed,
capering about the car and gleefully rubbing his hands.
Out over the ocean they flew—out of sight of land—out over the
boundless expanse of heaving, tossing waters. After them raced the
storm, each minute drawing a little nearer and a little nearer. It was
almost upon them!
 “Please, please let’s go faster, Fitz!” Bob screeched, dancing up
and down in an ecstacy of keen affright.
But his shrill cry was
whirled away in the tumult
of rushing air that
enveloped them, and if the
goblin heard, which is
doubtful, he paid no
attention to his
companion’s frantic plea.
Then of a sudden the
balloon stopped with a
smart jerk and began to
whirl round and round
dizzily. Fitz Mee’s fat face
went white as paper, and
he let out a cry of alarm
and dismay.
“What’s the matter,
Fitz?” Bob bawled,
staggering to his
comrade’s side and
shouting in his ear. “What’s
the matter?”
“The lightning has
magnetized the selector!”
the goblin bellowed. “Look at the needle—pointing right back toward
the storm! We’re drifting right back into it! There is nothing now to
prevent it!”
It was too true!
Immediately they were engulfed—overwhelmed in the maelstrom
of cloud and wind and rain. They could neither see nor hear for the
fury of the elements. The balloon spun round and round like a top;
the light car jerked and swayed and shot this way and that with
lightning-like and awful suddenness. One of the small ropes
supporting it broke and hung dangling from the side. Another parted
and the car sagged dangerously. A frightful lurch and Fitz Mee was
flung upon the locker, the breath knocked out of him; another lurch,
and, with a despairing scream that sounded above the deafening
tumult of the tornado, he rolled overboard and disappeared.
Bob threw himself into the bottom of the car, his eyes tight shut,
his palms over his ears, and lay there groaning and moaning. His
comrade was gone and he gave himself up for lost. Oh, how he
wished he was safe at home! But in the midst of the tumultuous
storm and his tumultuous thoughts a bright idea suddenly came to
him. He started, he sprang to his feet and was flung flat again.
Then, shaking his head and gritting his chattering teeth, he wriggled
over to the air-tank and turned the cock. The hiss of the escaping air
was music to him. Little by little the buffeted balloon rose, and soon
it floated serenely above the zone of the warring winds and clouds.
Bob was saved!
A little while he lay upon the floor of the car, looking at the clear
sky overhead and wondering what he was to do. Then he thought of
his lost companion, and murmured feelingly:
“Poor old Fitz! Poor old Spasms!”
As if in answer to his pitying words, he heard a voice calling faintly
but snappishly:
“Bob, you rascal! Don’t you dare to call me Spasms!”
Electrified, the boy sprang to his feet and looked all around.
“Fitz!” he ejaculated. “But where can he be?” Then in superstitious
fear:
“He’s dead; it must be his ghost!”
“Ghost nothing!” came the voice again, a little louder, more
vigorous. “Bob, you’re a fool!”
 “Is—is that you, Fitz?” the boy faltered in reply.
“Of course, dunce!”
“Well, where are you?”
“Right down here, dummy!”
Bob flew to the side of the car, hunkered upon the locker and
peered over. There, a few feet down, was Fitz Mee hanging to one of
the broken ropes.
“Why—why, Fitz, what are you doing down there?” Bob asked
foolishly.
“Oh, just enjoying myself; surely you can see that,” the goblin
sneered wrathfully. “But I’ve had enough; I’m no pig. Pull me up.”
“I don’t know whether I can or not,” Bob answered. “But reach me
up your hand; I’ll try.”
After a deal of struggling and kicking and grunting on the part of
both, Fitz was safely aboard.
“I thought I was a goner when I fell over,” he panted; “I just
happened to catch the rope.” Then, with unusual feeling: “And you
saved us both, Bob, by thinking to let out the air. I couldn’t have
hung on, in that storm, a minute longer; and, then the balloon was
fast going to wreck. It was my foolhardiness that caused all the
trouble, and your thoughtfulness that got us out of it. I’ll never go
back on you, Bob, old boy, never! But now the storm’s past, we must
get under way again.”
“Will the selector work?” the boy asked in some anxiety.
“It’ll be all right, now,” the goblin assured him. “See? Off we go
again. And I’ll give her an extra turn for good speed; I’m keen to get
along toward home. It must be the middle of the forenoon.”
For an hour or two they sailed along steadily, covering mile after
mile of aërial space with the swiftness of an arrow. At last, however,
Bob remarked:
 “Fitz, it appears to me we’re closer to the ocean than we were a
while back; we must be descending. I wonder if the rain wet the
feathers in the bag.”
“No,” the goblin replied positively. “They can’t get wet. They, and
the bag, too, for that matter, have been treated with goose oil; and
they won’t wet.”
“Won’t wet?”
“No. You know a goose’s feathers never get wet, no matter how
much it goes in the water. We raise thousands of geese in Goblinland
just for the feathers and the oil to treat them and our balloon bags
with. We can’t be descending, Bob.”
But he stepped to the side of the car and cast his eyes upward.
Then suddenly he started and collapsed upon the seat, white and
trembling.
“What is it, what’s the matter, Fitz?” the lad questioned falteringly,
fearing what the answer would be.
“Bob,” his companion muttered hoarsely, “we are descending!
We’re lost—we’ll be drowned in the ocean! There’s a rip in the bag
and the feathers are escaping one by one!”
 CHAPTER IV
IN DANGER OF THE SEA

ob drew a deep breath and dropped down

beside his companion. For several minutes they
sat silent, each staring stonily into the other’s
white face. At last the boy murmured huskily:
“Fitz, are the feathers es—escaping very fast?
Can’t we do something to stop the leak?”
The goblin shook his head.
“Not very fast,” he said slowly, moistening his dry lips by rubbing
them together, “just one at a time.”
“Is the rip in the bag a very big one?”
“No.”
Bob brightened.
“Couldn’t we climb up some way and fix it?” he inquired.
The goblin gave a negative shake of the head.
“No,” he replied, “it’s ’way up near the top of the bag.”
“Well, what’re we going to do, Fitz?”
“There’s nothing we can do, Bob. The feathers are escaping—one
now and then; and, little by little, the balloon will lose its buoyancy
and sink into the sea. We’re lost!”
“Look here, Fitz,” Bob cried sharply. “Surely you’re not going to
give up that way. I didn’t think it of you. There must be something
we can do to save ourselves.”
 The goblin dropped his chin upon his breast and, rolling his head,
muttered: “Nothing!”
“But,” the lad persisted, “we must do something. There’s a little air
still left in the tank, and when we sink too low we can let that out,
and rise again. If we sail as fast as we can, can’t we cross the ocean
before we drop into it?”
Fitz Mee leaped to his feet like one electrified.
“Thank you, Bob—thank you!” he cried, grasping his companion’s
hand. “You’ve given me hope. We’ll try your project; and if we lose,
we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing we died trying!” And he set his
jaws with a resolute snap.
“I can’t see where there’ll be much satisfaction in that for us—
after we’re dead,” the lad muttered under his breath.
The goblin hurried to the selector, and gradually turned the
thumb-screw until the machine was wide open—the current was all
on.
The balloon instantly responded, and began to fly through the air
at a speed little short of miraculous; its two occupants had to throw
themselves prostrate and cling to the locker for safety. The still
summer air appeared to be blowing a hurricane; the placid, heaving
ocean appeared to be racing toward the west, a foaming, tossing
torrent. One by one, a few each minute, the feathers escaped
through the rent in the striped bag; and foot by foot, very slowly
and very surely, the aërial vehicle yielded to the overmastering
power of gravitation.
On, on and on they sped, reeling off miles as a watch ticks off
seconds. Neither the boy nor the goblin found anything to say. Both
fully realized that they were running a race with death, and the
knowledge awed them to silence.
The noon hour came, and still they were flying like mad, due east.
Fitz cautiously lifted his head, put the binocular to his eyes, and
looked away toward the south.
 “There’s the Azores,” he said, shouting in order to make himself
heard, his tone expressing relief and satisfaction.
“The Azores?” Bob bellowed in reply.
“Yes—the islands.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; we’re making good time.”
“Well, hadn’t we better stop there?”
“No.”
“We’re only a few hundred feet above the water.”
The goblin shook his big head in a decided negative.
“Why not?” the boy insisted.
“I’m afraid to stop there.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes; I’m afraid there’s no geese on those islands.”
“Geese?”
“Yes, we’ve got to have goose feathers to refill our balloon bag.”
“Oh, I see! Well, what’re you going to try to do, Fitz?”
“Going to try to make the coast of Portugal. We’ll find geese
there.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes; Portuguese.”
And Fitz Mee laughed at his own pun until his fat face became
purple and his breath came and went in wheezing gasps.
“Oh, shut up!” Bob cried angrily. “This is no time to be laughing.”
“Laughing will do just as much good as crying, Bob,” Fitz made
answer, but instantly sobering. “I believe we’ll come out all right.
There are geese in Portugal; and I think we’ll be able to make the
coast of that country. We’re making good time; and we’ve not had to
exhaust the air-tank yet. We’ll drive ahead and hope for the best.”
One hour, two hours, three hours passed. The balloon descended
so low that the car threatened to dip into the waves. The goblin
released the remaining air in the tank, and again they soared aloft,
but only a few hundred feet. Another hour and again they were
dangerously near to the water.
Bob cried: “Why Fitz, the sun’s ’most down! This has been an
awful short afternoon.”
“Yes,” the goblin nodded, “and
the forenoon was short, too. You
must remember we’re moving
east very rapidly—running away
from the sun, running to meet
the night. It’ll be dark soon. I
wish we’d sight the coast; it
seems to me it’s about time we
were doing so.”
“What’s that wavy blue line
ahead of us?” Bob inquired.
“I don’t see anything,” Fitz
answered.
“I do,” the boy insisted
positively. “Give me the glass.”
“It must be land, then,” the goblin suggested.
“It is land!” Bob cried joyfully. “We’re going to be all right, Fitz.”
“I—I hope so,” Fitz made answer; “I hope we’ll make it.”
Warned by his companion’s tone and manner that danger was
imminent, the lad jerked the binocular from his eyes and dropped his
gaze to the ocean. One glance was sufficient; the car was
threatening to dip into the water at any moment.
 “Oh, Fitz!” the boy wailed. “What are we to do?”
“I don’t know!” Fitz whimpered, wringing his hands and wriggling
about upon the locker. “We can’t do anything—oh, we can’t do
anything! We’re lost—lost!”
“Look here, Fitz Mee, you old Convulsions!” Bob cried angrily. “You
got me into this thing; now you’ve got to help get me out. Wake up!
You’re playing the baby. And you called me a coward! You’re the
coward! Wake up!” roughly shaking him, “We’ve got to throw
something overboard; and I’ll throw you, in about a minute.”
Just then the car hit the water a glancing spat that threw a
blinding cloud of brine over the two aëronauts. The balloon
rebounded from the impact and continued its mad speed.
“Whee!” screamed Fitz Mee. “You’re right, Bob. We must lighten
the balloon some way; one more lick like that will tear the car loose
from the bag. Raise the lids of the locker, and throw out a lot of the
old stuff we won’t need.”
Frantically they began to lighten ship, flinging into the sea odds
and ends of various kinds—the accumulation of many voyages. It
availed them little, however; the balloon ascended but a few feet,
and skimmed dangerously near to the water, into which it threatened
to take a final plunge at any moment.
Now the coast line was plainly visible to the naked eye; and now it
was but a few miles away, the hills and rocks standing out distinctly.
Yet how far off it seemed to the despairing aëronauts! Neither
spoke; each held his breath and his tongue, expecting to have to
make a final struggle and swim for life.
Lower and lower sank the balloon. Once more the car spatted the
water, and this time it did not rebound, but went tearing along at
railroad speed, deluging and almost drowning its occupants. For a
few minutes the two lost all sense of their surroundings, nearly lost
consciousness. Then the car struck the shelving, sandy shore with a
smart bump, and the balloon came to a full stop. The wild and
dangerous ride was over!
 “Saved!” sputtered Fitz Mee, jumping from the car and dancing up
and down.
“Saved!” coughed Bob, indulging in similar antics.
Then they tearfully embraced, whirling round and round, their
saturated garments dripping a circle of wet upon the yellow sands.
The sun was gone from sight; the shades of night were stealing in
upon them.
“We can’t do anything to-night toward resuming our voyage,” the
goblin remarked; “it’s almost dark now. Then you’re wet and weak
and I’m famished and faint. We’ll spend the hours of darkness here
upon the warm sands, and in the morning we’ll look around us.”
“All right,” the boy agreed; “I guess that’s the best we can do.”
By dint of a deal of tugging and grunting, they drew the balloon
up out of reach of wave and tide. Then they wrung their garments,
swallowed a number of food-tablets and drink-pellets and lay down
to sleep under the shelter of an overhanging cliff.
The sun was an hour high when they awoke. Simultaneously they
opened their eyes and sprang to their feet. Sleep had much
refreshed them; the warm air and sand had dried their garments.
After partaking of a hearty but hasty breakfast, they began to look
around them.
At their feet lay their balloon, a sorry wreck. But close examination
made plain the fact that it could be easily repaired and put in shape.
A short distance to the north a river put into the sea. They
sauntered to the mouth of it, and took in the view of the broad
fertile valley. A mile or two up the stream lay a small village.
“I’ll tell you what we’ve got to do, Bob,” Fitz remarked reflectively,
scratching his head.
“Well, what?” inquired the boy.
“We’ve got to go into that town.”
“What for?”
 “For cord and goose feathers. We need the cord to splice the
broken ropes of our car, and we need the feathers to refill our bag.”
“Yes,” the lad mumbled, “we need those articles all right, Fitz; but
maybe the people of the village don’t have such things.”
“Of course they do,” the goblin sneered superiorly.
“How do you know?” the boy said tauntingly.
“Well, I know.”
“No, you don’t; you just guess.”
“A goblin never guesses at anything.”
“I guess he does; you guessed we’d get drowned—but we didn’t.”
“Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“I won’t!”
“Neither will I!”
Then they stood and silently glared at each other for a full half
minute. Finally both began to look foolish, and burst out laughing.
“Fitz, you’re too hot-headed, you old Epilepsy,” Bob giggled.
“I know it,” tittered the goblin; “but so are you, Roberty-Boberty.”
“I know it,” the boy admitted; “but I can’t stay mad at you, Fitz.”
“I can’t stay mad at you, either, Bob. Now let’s stop our
foolishness and go to that village, and see about the cord and
feathers we need.”
“All right. But how are we to get the things, Fitz? Have you any
money?”
“I’ve got gold; that’s just as good.”
“Gold?”
“Yes. Look here.”
 The goblin took a bag of yellow nuggets from his pocket and
emptied them out and shook them before the boy’s eyes.
“Is that gold?” Bob inquired, interested and not a little excited.
“Yes, to be sure,” Fitz Mee answered.
“Where did you get it?”
“In Goblinland.”
“Is there much of it there?”
“Bushels of it. These nuggets are as common there as pebbles are
in your country.”
“Indeed!” the lad exclaimed, in wide-eyed wonder and admiration.
“You goblins must be mighty rich.”
“We don’t put any value upon gold,” was the complacent reply;
“we never use it at home.”
Bob was thoughtfully silent for some seconds.
“What’re you thinking about?” his companion inquired with a
shrewd and cunning smile.
“Thinking how rich I can be when I go back home,” was the a
frank admission. Then abruptly: “What’s that coming down the road
yonder, Fitz?”
“Hello!” the goblin ejaculated delightedly. “We won’t have to tramp
to the village. That’s a gooseherd. See; he has the geese tethered
together with twine and is guiding them with a crook. We’ll wait here
and buy them of him.”
The gooseherd and his flock drew near. He was a tall, angular
young man, ragged and barefoot. His merry whistle rose above the
strident quacks of his charges, and his flat feet softly spatted the
dust of the highway in time to his own music.
Fitz Mee stepped forward, politely lifted his cap and said in
greeting:
 “Good morning, Sir
Gooseherd.”
The young man stopped in his
tracks and dropped his crook
and his jaw at the same time.
Plainly he was startled at the
sudden appearance of the little
green sprite and his companion,
and just as plainly he was
greatly frightened.
“We desire to purchase your
geese,” the goblin ventured,
boldly advancing. “How much
gold will buy them?”
The gooseherd let out a shrill
yell of terror and turned and fled
up the road as fast as his long
legs could carry him. The geese
attempted to flee also, but, being tethered together, became
hopelessly and helplessly entangled and fell to the ground, a
flapping, quacking mass.
Bob and Fitz laughed heartily.
“Hurrah!” the goblin whooped. “The geese and cord are ours,
anyhow.”
“But we didn’t pay the fellow,” Bob objected.
“I’ll fix that,” his comrade assured him. “When we’ve plucked the
feathers off the geese, I’ll tie the bag of nuggets around the neck of
one, and then we’ll turn ’em loose. The young fellow’ll find ’em and
get the gold. And now we must hurry up and get through with this
job and be off from this coast; the gooseherd may come back and
bring his friends with him.”
 The two diminutive aëronauts laboriously disentangled the geese
and drove them to the immediate vicinity of the wrecked balloon.
There they plucked the feathers off the quacking, quaking fowls, and
refilled the balloon-bag and closed the rent. Then they turned the
stripped and complaining birds loose, one meekly bearing the bag of
gold; and finally they spliced the broken ropes of the car and were
ready to resume their voyage.
“Jump in and pump up the tank a little, Bob,” Fitz cried joyfully.
“I’ll be ready to weigh anchor when you say the word.”
But at that moment came the patter of many feet upon the dry
sand, followed by a shower of clubs and stones that rattled about
the car and the heads of its occupants, and instantly the balloon was
surrounded by a crowd of gaping, leering villagers!
“Captured!” groaned Fitz Mee.
“Captured!” echoed Bob.
The villagers began to close in upon them, brandishing rude
weapons and uttering hoarse cries of rage.
In sheer desperation the goblin squirmed and grimaced, and
ended his ridiculous performance by uttering a blood-curdling “boo!”
The startled villagers fell back in indecision and alarm, tumbling
over one another in frantic efforts to get out of reach of the little
green sprite. Taking instant advantage of the respite, Bob whipped
out his knife and cut the anchor rope, and with a smart jerk the
balloon sprang aloft.
“Saved!” murmured the boy. “Saved, Fitz Mee!”
He received no answer; and he hurriedly turned to look for his
companion who, a moment before, had been at his side. Then he
sank back upon the locker, overcome with wonder and dismay. Fitz
Mee was not in the car; Bob was alone!