As he reached the top of the stairway one of the astronomers came towards him with a sheet of paper in his hand, smiling gravely, and pointing to a sketch upon it.
He took the paper under one of the electric lights and looked at it.

The sketch was a plan of the Jovian System.

There were some signs written along one side, which he did not understand, but he divined that they were calculations.

Still, there was no mistaking the diagram.

There was a circle representing the huge bulk of Jupiter; there were four smaller circles at varying distances in a nearly straight line from it, and between the nearest of these and the planet was the figure of the _Astronef_, with an arrow pointing upwards.
"Ah, I see!" he said, forgetting for a moment that the other did not understand him, "that was the miracle! The four satellites came into line with us just as the pull of Jupiter was getting too much for our engines, and their combined pull just turned the scale.