The moment of departure had come. Blériot, buttoned in his close-fitting suit and hood, sat on his white-winged machine, headed for the cliff, and surrounded by a group of well-wishers. At 4.35 the light-wheeled craft with propeller whirring, sped along the ground, rose gracefully in the air and shot bravely over the precipice, with the hustling aviator on its back. The admiring spectators were wild with excitement and joy. But there was one sad group in Calais that morning. Latham and his watchers, who had been waiting for better weather, rose in time to see his rival on the wing, but too late for pursuit, as the wind had suddenly risen. The unwary boy remained behind, weeping with disappointment. Blériot was now soaring high over the sea, faring toward Dover without a guide or a compass. For some time he could observe the _Escopette_ following him, her great column of smoke obscuring the new risen sun. Presently both shores vanished, and for ten minutes he could descry neither land nor signal of any kind. He was sailing over the sea at forty miles an hour and drifting with the air he knew not whither; but he allowed his fiery steed to follow its instinct, as a bewildered horseman does sometimes. Along the horizon now appeared the white cliffs of the English shore. He was headed not for Dover but for Deal, carried adrift by the southwest wind. Three boats crossing his course seemed plying for some port on his left, and hailed him with lively greeting. He could not well inquire the way, but he followed the general course of the vessels, soaring high aloft. At length he saw a man on the cliff violently waving the tricolor, and strenuously shouting: “Bravo! Bravo!” He plunged in the direction of the signaler, whom he knew to be his friend M. Montaine. On nearing the earth he was caught in a violent turmoil of air and whirled about. Wishing to land at once, he stopped his power sixty feet aloft, and swooped abruptly down with an awakening thud upon the old English soil, sleeping in the peaceful sunlight of a Sabbath morning.[52] Blériot’s landing was the greatest jolt to British insularity since the birth of steam navigation. Nevertheless it was welcomed with unfeigned delight as emphasizing the triumph of a new art which enriches all people. Shortly afterward was erected on the spot a monument in white granite having the plan and size of the renowned _No. XI_ monoplane. Sportsmanlike, Latham wired his congratulations to Blériot, expressing the hope to follow ere long. Two days later he flew across the Channel to within one mile of the English coast, where he had to land in the water again because of motor failure. This time he struck the sea violently and suffered a broken nose. His goggles were shattered and cut his face.