"I will not ask you to do so much," I said. "It will be enough to build a landing-stage on the sea side of the wall at the level of the boulevard."
This was done after twelve days of work, interrupted by persistent rain, and the air-ship, when it issued for its third flight, 10th February 1902, had simply to be lifted a few feet by men on each side of the wall. They drew it gently on until its whole length floated in equilibrium over the new platform that extended so far out into the surf that its farthermost piles were always in six feet of water.
Standing on this platform they steadied the air-ship while its motor was beings started, while I let out the overplus of water ballast and shifted my guide rope so as to point for an oblique drive upward. The motor began spitting and rumbling. The propeller began turning.
"Let go all!" I cried, for the third time at Monaco.
Lightly the air-ship slid along its oblique course, onward and upward. Then as the propeller gathered force a mighty push sent me flying over the bay. I shifted forward the guide rope again to make a level course. And out to sea the air-ship darted, its scarlet pennant fluttering symbolic letters as upon a streak of flame. They were the initial letters of the first line of Camoëns' "Lusiad," the epic poet of my race:
Por mares nunca d'antes navegados!
(O'er seas hereto unsailed.)
[CHAPTER XVIII]
FLIGHTS IN MEDITERRANEAN WINDS
In my two previous experiments I had kept fairly within the wind-protected limits of the bay of Monaco, whose broad expanse afforded ample room both for guide-roping and practice in steering. Furthermore, a hundred friends and thousands of friendly spectators stood around it from the terraces of Monte Carlo to the shore of La Condamine and up the other side to the heights of Old Monaco. As I circled round and round the bay, mounted obliquely and swooped down, fetched a straight course, and then stopped abruptly to turn and begin again, their applause came up to me agreeably. Now, on my third flight, I steered for the open sea.