and let his snuff-box fall.

Immediately the "Albatross" shot upwards, and past her, higher still,
there mounted the noisy cheering of the crowd then thick on the
boulevards--a hurrah of stupefaction to greet the imaginary meteor.

The lamps of the aeronef were turned off, and the darkness and the
silence closed in around as the voyage was resumed at the rate of one
hundred and twenty miles an hour.

This was all that was to be seen of the French capital. At four
o'clock in the morning the "Albatross" had crossed the whole country
obliquely; and so as to lose no time in traversing the Alps or the
Pyrenees, she flew over the face of Provence to the cape of Antibes.
At nine o'clock next morning the San Pietrini assembled on the
terrace of St. Peter at Rome were astounded to see her pass over the
eternal city. Two hours afterwards she crossed the Bay of Naples and
hovered for an instant over the fuliginous wreaths of Vesuvius. Then,
after cutting obliquely across the Mediterranean, in the early hours
of the afternoon she was signaled by the look-outs at La Goulette on
the Tunisian coast.

After America, Asia! After Asia, Europe! More than eighteen thousand
miles had this wonderful machine accomplished in less than
twenty-three clays!

And now she was off over the known and unknown regions of Africa!

It may be interesting to know what had happened to the famous
snuff-box after its fall?