Out into the open Mediterranean I sped. The guide rope held me at a steady altitude of about 50 metres above the waves, as if in some mysterious way its lower end were attached to them.
In this way, automatically secure of my altitude, I found the work of aerial navigation become wonderfully easy. There was no ballast to throw out, no gas to let out, no shifting of the weights except when I expressly desired to mount or descend. So with my hand upon the rudder and my eye fixed on the far-off point of Cap Martin I gave myself up to the pleasure of this voyaging above the waves.
Here in these azure solitudes there were no chimney-pots of Paris, no cruel, threatening roof-corners, no tree-tops of the Bois de Boulogne. My propeller was showing its power, and I was free to let it go. I had only to hold my course straight in the teeth of the breeze and watch the far-off Mediterranean shore flit past me.
I had plenty of leisure to look about. Presently I met two sailing yachts scudding towards me down the coast. I noticed that their sails were full-bellied. As I flew on over them, and they beneath me, I heard a faint cheer, and a graceful female figure on the foremost yacht waved a red foulard. As I turned to answer the politeness I perceived with some astonishment that we were far apart already.
I was now well up the coast, about half-way to Cap Martin. Above was the limitless blue void. Below was the solitude of white-capped waves. From the appearance of sailing boats here and there I could tell that the wind was increasing to a squall, and I would have to turn in it before I could fly back upon it in my homeward trip.
Porting my helm I held the rudder tight. The air-ship swung round like a boat; then as the wind sent me flying down the coast my only work was to maintain the steady course. In scarcely more time than it takes to write it I was opposite the bay of Monaco again.
With a sharp turn of the rudder I entered the protected harbour, and amid a thousand cheers stopped the propeller, pulled in the forward shifting weight, and let the dying impetus of the air-ship carry it diagonally down to the landing-stage. This time there was no trouble. On the broad landing-stage stood my own men, assisted by those put at my disposition by the prince. The air-ship was grasped as it came gliding slowly to them, and, without actually coming to a stop, it was "led" over the sea wall across the Boulevard de la Condamine and into the aerodrome. The trip had lasted less than an hour, and I had been within a few hundred metres (yards) of Cap Martin.
Here was an obvious trip, first against and then with a stiff wind, and the curious may render themselves an account of the fact by glancing at the two photographs marked "Wind A" and "Wind B." As they happened to be taken by a Monte Carlo professional intent simply on getting good photographs they are impartial.
"Wind A" shows me leaving the bay of Monaco against a wind that is blowing back the smoke of the two steamers seen on the horizon.
"Wind B" was taken up the coast just before I met the two little sailing yachts which are obviously scudding toward me.