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By what right did you shut us up in that prison? By what right have you brought us against our will on board this flying machine?" "And by what right, Messieurs Balloonists, did you insult and threaten me in your club in such a way that I am astonished I came out of it alive?" "To ask is not to answer," said Phil Evans, "and I repeat, by what right?" "Do you wish to know?" "If you please."
Another impression invariably insisted on by early balloonists is that the earth, on quitting it, appears to drop away into an abyss, leaving the voyagers motionless, and this illusion must, indeed, be probably universal.
A stranger calling himself an engineer, and answering to the name of Robur, a person of unknown origin, of anonymous nationality, had unexpectedly presented himself in the club-room, insulted the balloonists, made fun of the aeronauts, boasted of the marvels of machines heavier than air, and raised a frightful tumult by the remarks with which he greeted the menaces of his adversaries.
The convexity of her outline, this bulging prominence of her surface, however, did not last long. The travellers were getting too near to notice it. They were beginning to survey the Moon as balloonists survey the Earth. The Projectile was now moving with great rapidity with nothing like its initial velocity, but still eight or nine times faster than an express train.
Damon was at his favorite pastime of looking out of the glass side windows into the ocean and its wonders, and Mr. Swift and the balloonists were, as usual, in the engine-room. "How near do you calculate we are to the sunken wreck?" asked Tom of his companion. "Well, at the calculation we made yesterday, we are within about a thousand miles of it now.
We had heard of the devil, and had been pretty often told that he would have a clear deed and title to us before long, but had never heard him painted like the object which met our gaze at the top of that hill on the close of sultry day in June. Once we threw over ballast, after the manner of balloonists, and as the object gained on us we cried aloud for our parents.
Passing Serrieres, with pastures and meadows close to the water's edge, and groups of cattle grazing under the trees, we reach Annonay, crested by a quaint ruin, the birth-place of the great balloonists, the brothers Montgolfier. The first balloon ascent was made from this little town in 1783. Boissy d'Anglas, the heroic president of the Assembly in its stormiest days, was also born here.
Glenn drained his glass and smacked his lips: "No, ma’am," he said. "No balloonists, either?" "I don’t guess so, Maryette. We’ve got the Boche flyers scared stiff. They don’t come over our first lines anymore, and our own people are out yonder." "Keed," she said, winningly sweet, "do you, in fact, love me a little for Djack’s sake?" "Yes’m." "I borrow of you that automatic pistol. Yes?"
Again, the French observer seems seldom to have detected those opposite airstreams which English balloonists may frequently observe, and have such cause to be wary of.
Meanwhile, the balloon was happily approaching the earth; but when one is falling, the danger is as great at a hundred feet as at five thousand. "Do you recall the battle of Fleurus?" resumed my companion, whose face became more and more animated. "It was at that battle that Contello, by order of the Government, organized a company of balloonists.