Twenty-two days after the aeronaut’s narrow escape his new air-ship was finished and ready for a flight.  No. 6 was practically the same as its predecessor—­the triangular keel was retained, but an eighteen horse-power gasoline motor was substituted for the sixteen horse-power used previously.  The propeller, made of silk stretched over a bamboo frame, was hung at the after end of the keel; the motor was a little aft of the centre, while the basket to which led the steering-gear, the emergency valve to the balloon, and the motor-controlling gear was suspended farther forward.  To control the upward or downward pointing of the new air-ship, shifting ballast was used which ran along a wire under the keel from one end to the other; the cords controlling this ran to the basket also.

The new air-ship worked well, and the experimental flights were successful with one exception—­when the balloon came in contact with a tree.

It was in October, 1901 (the 19th), when the Deutsch Prize Committee was asked to meet again and see a man try to drive a balloon against the wind, round the Eiffel Tower, and return.

The start took place at 2:42 P.M. of October 19, 1901, with a beam wind blowing.  Straight as a bullet the air-ship sped for the steel shaft of the tower, rising as she flew.  On and on she sped, while the spectators, remembering the finish of the last trial, watched almost breathlessly.  With the air of a cup-racer turning the stake-boat she rounded the steel spire, a run of three and three-fifth miles, in nine minutes (at the rate of more than twenty-two miles an hour), and started on the home-stretch.

For a few moments all went well, then those who watched were horrified to see the propeller slow down and nearly stop, while the wind carried the air-ship toward the Tower.  Just in time the motor was speeded up and the course was resumed.  As the group of men watched the speck grow larger and larger until things began to take definite shape, the white blur of the whirling propeller could be seen and the small figure in the basket could be at last distinguished.  Again the motor failed, the speed slackened, and the ship began to sink.  Santos-Dumont threw out enough ballast to recover his equilibrium and adjusted the motor.  With but three minutes left and some distance to go, the great dirigible balloon got up speed and rushed for the goal.  At eleven and a half minutes past three, twenty-nine minutes and thirty-one seconds after starting, Santos-Dumont crossed the line, the winner of the Deutsch Prize.  And so the young Brazilian accomplished that which had been declared impossible.

[Illustration:  THE MOTOR AND BASKET OF “SANTOS-DUMONT NO. 9” The gasoline holder, from which a tube leads to the motor, can be seen on the side of the basket.]

The following winter the aerial navigator, in the same No. 5, sailed many times over the waters of the Mediterranean from Monte Carlo.  These flights over the water, against, athwart, and with the wind, some of them faster than the attending steamboats could travel, continued until through careless inflation of the balloon the air-ship and navigator sank into the sea.  Santos-Dumont was rescued without being harmed in the least, and the air-ship was preserved intact, to be exhibited later to American sightseers.