are asleep or ought to be.

By what strange whim was it that she was stopped over the city of
Paris? We do not know; but down she came till she was within a few
hundred feet of the ground. Robur then came out of his cabin, and the
crew came on to the deck to breathe the ambient air.

Uncle Prudent and Phil Evans took care not to miss such an excellent
opportunity. They left their deck-house and walked off away from the
others so as to be ready at the propitious moment. It was important
their action should not be seen.

The "Albatross," like a huge coleopter, glided gently over the mighty
city. She took the line of the boulevards, then brilliantly lighted
by the Edison lamps. Up to her there floated the rumble of the
vehicles as they drove along the streets, and the roll of the trains
on the numerous railways that converge into Paris. Then she glided
over the highest monuments as if she was going to knock the ball off
the Pantheon or the cross off the Invalides. She hovered over the two
minarets of the Trocadero and the metal tower of the Champ de Mars,
where the enormous reflector was inundating the whole capital with
its electric rays.

This aerial promenade, this nocturnal loitering, lasted for about an
hour. It was a halt for breath before the voyage was resumed.

And probably Robur wished to give the Parisians the sight of a meteor
quite unforeseen by their astronomers. The lamps of the "Albatross"
were turned on. Two brilliant sheaves of light shot down and moved
along over the squares, the gardens, the palaces, the sixty thousand
houses, and swept the space from one horizon to the other.

Assuredly the "Albatross" was seen this time--and not only well seen
but heard, for Tom Turner brought out his trumpet and blew a rousing
tarantaratara.

At this moment Uncle Prudent leant over the rail, opened his hand,
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
Pyr