ing,
and as the aeronauts looked down at the Tuileries and the buzzing crowd,
Professor Charles felt as though he had escaped from a swarm of wasps
ready to sting him without mercy if he failed to please them. However,
his troubles from that point of view were over, and he turned his
thoughts to the delights of his voyage. Presently they heard the report
of a cannon, which meant that the people of Paris could no longer see
them. Far below, like a silver brook, wound the river Seine, and twice
the balloon floated across it. Village after village drifted away
beneath them, till, at the end of two happy hours, they settled in a
broad meadow at Nesle, twenty-seven miles from Paris. Here they were
joined by three Englishmen who had ridden after them from Paris on
horseback. These Englishmen, together with the village clergyman, signed
Professor Charles' papers to prove that they had witnessed his descent,
while the awestruck peasants gathered round and helped to hold the
balloon.

The sun had already set, but the gas was not all gone, and so Professor
Charles went up once more, this time alone. He clapped his hands as a
signal to the peasants to let go, and ten minutes later was soaring at a
height of nine thousand feet. In that ten minutes he had passed from an
atmosphere of spring to that of winter; for although it was December
1st, it was warm weather on the earth. Perfect silence was around him,
and when he clapped his hands the noise was quite startling. As already
stated, the sun had set when he left the earth, but now he saw it again
just above the far horizon. All below was dark with shadow, and on him
and his balloon alone the sun was shining. Delighted by these new
experiences, he turned his eyes in all directions. Not a human being was
visible, not a human voice could be heard, and while he looked and
listened the sun sank out of sight once more. Professor Charles, for the
first time in his life, had seen two sunsets in one day. Perhaps he
thought that was enough, for he pulled the valve-line, and a few minutes
later alighted in a field two miles from his starting-place, and the
home of one of the Englishmen. The next morning he and Robert entered
Paris in triumph, and a few hours later, through another gate, the
balloon entered in triumph too, being escorted by bands of music and
crowds of people.

[Illustration: "M. Charles stepped into the blue and golden car, and
they rose slowly into the air."]

The kind