h there were none of the chances of safety as in a sea-fight.
It was the first of its kind, but it would not be the last, for
progress is one of the laws of this world. And if the "Go-Ahead" was
flying the American colors, did not the "Albatross" display the stars
and golden sun of Robur the Conqueror?

The "Go-Ahead" tried to distance her enemy by rising still higher.
She threw away the ballast she had in reserve; she made a new leap of
three thousand feet; she was now but a dot in space. The "Albatross,"
which followed her round and round at top speed, was now invisible.

Suddenly a shout of terror rose from the crowd. The "Go-Ahead"
increased rapidly in size, and the aeronef appeared dropping with
her. This time it was a fall. The gas had dilated in the higher zones
of the atmosphere and had burst the balloon, which, half inflated
still, was falling rapidly.

But the aeronef, slowing her suspensory screws, came down just as
fast. She ran alongside the "Go-Ahead" when she was not more than
four thousand feet from the ground.

Would Robur destroy her?

No; he was going to save her crew!

And so cleverly did he handle his vessel that the aeronaut jumped on
board.

Would Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans refuse to be saved by him? They
were quite capable of doing so. But the crew threw themselves on them
and dragged them by force from the "Go-Ahead" to the "Albatross."

Then the aeronef glided off and remained stationary, while the
balloon, quite empty of gas, fell on the trees of the clearing and
hung there like a gigantic rag.

An appalling silence reigned on the ground. It seemed as though life
were suspended in each of the crowd; and many eyes had been closed so
as not to behold the final catastrophe. Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans
had again become the prisoners of the redoubtable Robur. Now he had
recaptured them, would he carry them off into space, where it was
impossible to follow him?

It seemed so.

However, instead of mounting into the sky the "Albatross" stopped six
feet from the ground. Then, amid profound silence, the engineer's
voice was heard.

"Citizens of the United States," he said, "The president and
secretary of the Weldon Institute are again in my power. In keeping
them I am only within my right. But from the passion kindled in them
by the success of the "Albatross" I see that their minds are not
prepared for that important revolution which the conquest of the air
will one day bring, Uncle