"Hang the air for spoiling our fun! So we must remain shut up in our Projectile ?" "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.
[Illustration: SATELLITE'S BODY FLYING THROUGH SPACE.] "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!.