placed their left hands on their hearts, to signify how deeply they
were touched by their reception. Then they extended their right hands
towards the zenith, to signify that the greatest of known balloons
was about to take possession of the supra-terrestrial domain.

A hundred thousand hands were placed in answer on a hundred thousand
hearts, and a hundred thousand other hands were lifted to the sky.

The third gun was fired at half-past eleven. "Let go!" shouted Uncle
Prudent; and the "Go-Ahead" rose "majestically"--an adverb
consecrated by custom to all aerostatic ascents.

It really was a superb spectacle. It seemed as if a vessel were just
launched from the stocks. And was she not a vessel launched into the
aerial sea? The "Go-Ahead" went up in a perfectly vertical line--a
proof of the calmness of the atmosphere--and stopped at an altitude
of eight hundred feet.

Then she began her horizontal maneuvering. With her screws going she
moved to the east at a speed of twelve yards a second. That is the
speed of the whale--not an inappropriate comparison, for the balloon
was somewhat of the shape of the giant of the northern seas.

A salvo of cheers mounted towards the skillful aeronauts. Then under
the influence of her rudder, the "Go-Ahead" went through all the
evolutions that her steersman could give her. She turned in a small
circle; she moved forwards and backwards in a way to convince the
most refractory disbeliever in the guiding of balloons. And if there
had been any disbeliever there he would have been simply annihilated.