ables, the
overcoats and raincoats, all the small articles that can go with the men
in that flying basket.

As the wind pushes the balloon against the gasometers, it is necessary
to steady it now and then, to avoid an accident at the start.

Captain Jovis is now ready and calls all the passengers.

Lieutenant Mallet jumps aboard, climbing first on the aerial net between
the basket and the balloon, from which he will watch during the night
the movements of Le Horla across the skies, as the officer on watch,
standing on starboard, watches the course of a ship.

M. Etierine Beer gets in after him, then comes M. Paul Bessand, then M.
Patrice Eyries and I get in last.

But the basket is too heavy for the balloon, considering the long trip
to be taken, and M. Eyries has to get out, not without great regret.

M. Joliet, standing erect on the edge of the basket, begs the ladies, in
very gallant terms, to stand aside a little, for he is afraid he might
throw sand on their hats in rising. Then he commands:

"Let it loose," and, cutting with one stroke of his knife the ropes that
hold the balloon to the ground, he gives Le Horla its liberty.

In one second we fly skyward. Nothing can be heard; we float, we rise,
we fly, we glide. Our friends shout with glee and applaud, but we hardly
hear them, we hardly see them. We are already so far, so high! What? Are
we really leaving these people down there? Is it possible? Paris spreads
out beneath us, a dark bluish patch, cut by its streets, from which
rise, here and there, domes, towers, steeples, then around it the plain,
the country, traversed by long roads, thin and white, amidst green
fields of a tender or dark green, and woods almost black.

The Seine appears like a coiled snake, asleep, of which we see neither
head nor tail; it crosses Paris, and the entire field resembles
an immense basin of prairies and forests dotted here and there by
mountains, hardly visible in the horizon.

The sun, which we could no longer see down below, now reappears as
though it were about to rise again, and our balloon seems to be lighted;
it must appear like a star to the people who are looking up. M. Mallet
every few seconds throws a cigarette paper into-space and says quietly:
"We are rising, always rising," while Captain Jovis, radiant with joy,
rubs his hands together and repeats: "Eh? this varnish? Isn't it good?"

In fact, we can see whether we are rising or sinking only by throwing a
c