My Dear Lady Misericordia,

I hope this letter finds you well. We are back on the ground again after our extraordinary ballooning adventure and, while I might be glad to have, if not firm, at least snowy, earth under my feet again, I would not have missed that experience for anything.

Oh! What a strange, eerie, silent journey that was, bobbing along between the great walls of ice and stone that reared around us. I had become so used to the constant hiss and crunch of snow under sleigh and sled and boot that the peculiar quiet of the floating canoe was bewildering. The only sounds were the occasional  creak and squeak of the ropes and balloons, or the groaning and cracking of the mountains themselves.

We barely talked ourselves, so intent were we on the balance of the boat in its constant swaying and on the passing grandeur. And what grandeur it was: there we sailed, right between the topmost peaks and crags of the mountains, sheer drops of black granite and great sky fields of untouched snow drifts, where no foot would ever stand, no eye would ever see, except ours.

The magnificent desolation held us spellbound, bewitched by the awful, harsh beauty. I can see how men might strive to be the first to set foot on an unconquered peak, or some unexplored land, but how more extraordinary was this - to see this hidden, unimagined wilderness and to drift past, like a cloud, and leave it behind, still untouched, lonely and pure.

The wind blew up into a high pass between two lofty peaks, leaving us to float down between them into a long, cavernous valley that wound between steep cliffs, the wind now gusting us along, up towards a high plateau, a wide and windswept valley hidden away in the heavens.

And as the wind bore us up towards the valley opening it brought with it an astonishing sound from behind us, the first noise we had heard for some hours: a rhythmic, happy honking.

We all craned round at the noise and there, coming up the valley behind us, was a ragged 'V' of geese, gliding up on the wind, calling to each other as they travelled.

I cannot describe to you how welcome the sound of those geese was after the terrible silence of the mountains: a merry, animal sound and it cheered us all immensely.

Most cheered of all was Baronett Oxshott, who began to swing round in his seat to try and get a good look at them. Then he tried to stand, sending the boat swaying and lurching as we all clutched desperately at the sides.

"Come here, you blighters!" He was shouting, "Come closer, where I can get at you!" And he flailed his great fists out at them, and the boat rocked under him.

At a particularly violent swing, the boat jumped and Harry lost his grip, stumbling sideways, half over the edge. I grabbed hold of him, hanging onto him for dear life, trying desperately to pull him back inside.

"For God's sake, Oxshott!" bellowed Lord Daunt, "You'll have us all over!"

But Oxshott wasn't listening. As the geese passed overhead, squawking defiantly at the Baronet, he suddenly snatched his shotgun from under his seat and reared up, swinging the gun up at them.

"Oxshott!" I shouted, seeing what was about to happen, "No!"

But I was too late, the shot rang out, the boat shuddered and with a great bang, a balloon burst.

For a moment the whole world seemed to stand still, and then the boat dropped suddenly, pitching Harry back again into my lap.

"Oxshott!" roared Lord Daunt, and the boat, listing, began to plunge downwards, "Oxshott!"

"Dashed..." Oxshott stood, swaying for a moment, unable to take in what he had done, and then: "Must lighten the load..." And before anyone could do anything, he leapt over the side of the vessel and was gone.

With Oxshott gone our makeshift craft lifted a little, and began to swing sideways. Lord Daunt grabbed the nearest object to him and threw it over the side, trying to keep us in the air. Before any of the rest of could help, however, the boat suddenly pitched up and jolted forward: it had hit the snow! We had reached the plateau!

The sudden movement knocked Lord Daunt off his feet and he went over the side, into a snow drift. The boat lifted again and began to skim across the snow, buoyed up by the balloons. Harry, the Professor and I scrambled to bring in the sail and release the balloons, letting them float up and away into the empty sky as the boat slid to a final, gentle stop.

Harry and I quickly ran back, as fast as we could through the deep drifts, to try and find Lord Daunt. Fortunately he had had a soft landing in the snow and was already trying to retrieve the stove he had thrown overboard as we were dropping.

"What about Oxshott?" I asked.

"Stove's more important than that lunatic," snapped back his Lordship, "Although I suppose we could always trying burning him for warmth."

"But we can't have been far above the ground when he jumped," I pointed out, "He may well have survived."

His Lordship sighed.

"Very well, then, I suppose we ought to go and look, I daresay my daughter would never forgive if I didn't, although God knows why I should worry about that empty-headed chit's opinions."

"Well now, my Lord," I said began, "I'm not sure..."

"Oh, no reflection on your tutoring, Hope, old chap - you did the best you could: it would take a stubborn man with a strong arm to teach that child anything - someone like Oxshott, I suppose - although I can tell you now, the stable boy has a better chance of marrying my daughter than that bally oaf after today's performance."

I must have betrayed my emotions on hearing this statement, because his Lordship continued.

"For goodness' sake, Hope, my dashed daughter may be too good for the likes of Oxshott, but she's nowhere near good enough for you: you need a wife with sense and wit, not some preening ninny like Misericordia... Aha! Good Lord - look at this..."

We had come across a deep snow drift with a great hole let into it: a hole exactly the size and shape of a falling Baronet.

"This must be where the idiot landed," said Lord Daunt, and we peered down into the hole. It was empty.

"The idiot has gone."

We stood and gazed around at the featureless white of the valley floor where it stetched out to the wall of encircling mountains. Nothing moved. There was no sign of life.

"Quite gone," continued his Lordship, "Ah, well." And he turned and began walking back towards the boat, and Harry and I followed him.

Back at the boat we discovered that the Professor had unpacked some of his equipment, including a sextant and a telescope and was now doing a delighted little jig in the snow.

"We're here!" he shouted to us, "We're here!"

"We're where?" demanded Lord Daunt.

"Here! Right where I said we would be!" and the Professor thrust the telescope into his hands, "Look over there, below that mountain in the middle."

Lord Daunt took the telescope sceptically, but as he gazed through it, I heard him gasp.

"Is that it? Are you sure, Professor?"

"It must be, it matches all the measurements, all the predictions."

"Then we've done it, Hedley, old man, we've done it, just as you said we would," and Lord Daunt shook the Professor warmly by the hand.

"Its too far off to get there today, we'll have to camp here tonight," continued his Lordship.

"And then tomorrow..." said the Professor.

"Tomorrow, we shall see," said his Lordship.

"Can I have a look, Professor?" I asked, burning with curiosity.

"Oh, of course, dear boy, of course, can't hurt, have a look," and the Professor handed me the telescope as he and his Lordship stamped off to begind setting up camp.

I scanned the horizon in vain, trying to see what had delighted them so, but it was Harry that found it in the end. Far across the other side of the valley, nestled in under the lowering mountains, was a glow, a light that could only have come from a fire or many lamps, and, climbing up from it, up into the darkening night air, was a single, curling strand of smoke.

It could only mean one thing: a house, a settlement! But whose, out here? And why were we going to it? What did it mean?

Well, tomorrow, I suppose, as his Lordship said, we shall see

Yours

In trepidation and mystery

Timothy Hope

PS I do hope you can forgive your father for his harsh words, he was terribly cross with Oxshott, after all.