"Not a doubt of it!"
—"Oh Thunder!" roared Ardan, suddenly striking his forehead.
"What ails you?" asked the Captain, somewhat surprised.
"Now I know what that bolide of ours is! Why didn't we think of it before? It is no asteroid! It is no particle of meteoric matter! Nor is it a piece of a shattered planet!"
"What is it then?" asked both of his companions in one voice.
"It is nothing more or less than the body of the dog that we threw out yesterday!"
So in fact it was. That shapeless, unrecognizable mass, melted, expunged, flat as a bladder under an unexhausted receiver, drained of its air, was poor Satellite's body, flying like a rocket through space, and rising higher and higher in close company with the rapidly ascending Projectile!