A whistle blew, and Elizabeth flinched from it. Schwieger patted her hand, and William gritted his teeth again. The crowd formed itself into an impressively orderly queue and commenced its slow promenade up the gangplank. It was in fact quite like boarding a packet ship, even to the way the deck seemed to shift slightly underfoot as William’s boot touched it. Overhead, the edges of the elongated silken balloon, striped red and white and blue beneath the eagle, fluttered in a breath of air off the water.
Schwieger handled all necessary transactions for his “wife” and her “brother” and “father,” shepherding his three charges under the curving bee-encrusted prow and safely to the observation deck. Here the shiny polished wood and gleaming brass reminded William even more strongly of a sailin
